Irrepressible, Emily Bingham
Irrepressible, Emily Bingham
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Irrepressible
The Jazz Age Life of Henrietta Bingham

Author: Emily Bingham

Narrator: Christina Delaine

Unabridged: 10 hr 58 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 11/17/2015

Synopsis

Raised like a princess in one of the most powerful families in the American South, Henrietta Bingham was offered the helm of a publishing empire. Instead, she ripped through the Jazz Age like an F. Scott Fitzgerald character. In New York, Louisville, and London, she drove both men and women wild with desire, and her youth blazed with sex. But her love affairs with women made her the subject of derision, and she suffered from years of addiction and breakdowns. Perhaps most painfully, she became a source of embarrassment for her family. But forebears can become fairy-tale figures, especially when they defy tradition and are spoken of only in whispers. For biographer Emily Bingham, the secret of who her great-aunt was, and just why her story was concealed for so long, led to Irrepressible.

Henrietta rode the cultural cusp as a muse to the Bloomsbury Group, the daughter of the ambassador to the United Kingdom during the rise of Nazism, and a pre-Stonewall figure who never buckled to convention. Henrietta's audacious physicality made her unforgettable in her own time, and her ecstatic and harrowing life serves as an astonishing reminder of the stories lying buried in our own families.

About Emily Bingham

Emily Bingham is the great-niece of Henrietta Bingham. She is the author of Mordecai and coeditor of The Southern Agrarians and the New Deal. She earned a PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and frequently teaches at Centre College. She lives with her family in Louisville, Kentucky.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Caren on October 15, 2015

I read this book prior to hearing the author speak at our city library. The Bingham name is known to most long-term Louisvillians because the family used to own the local newspapers, the Courier-Journal (now, regrettably, owned by Gannett) and the Louisville Times (now defunct). I'd say they are sor......more

Goodreads review by Rebecca on September 08, 2015

The biography of a nearly forgotten member of one of Louisville, Kentucky’s most notable families. Deeply researched and beautifully written by her great niece, the book tells a story that is intriguing and heartbreaking. Easily one of the best books I've ever read-- Henrietta's story pulled me into......more

Goodreads review by Sara on September 22, 2015

Who didn't this woman sleep with? What didn't she guzzle? And how many debutantes did she not goose? A steamship soap mixed with a dash of queer literary history and a long neglected look at psychoanalytical thought re: lesbianism in the early 20th century. That last part rescues it from being anoth......more

Goodreads review by Cathy on September 18, 2015

When she went off to college in 1919, Henrietta Bingham was a child of one of the wealthiest families in America. This wealth and privilege, along with an adventurous spirit and an irresistible charm, allowed her to move in the highest social and artistic circles in New York and London over the next......more

Goodreads review by Catherine on January 12, 2020

Interesting and engaging biography about a wealthy queer woman who came of age in the 1920s. The light the author sheds on the queer/artist communities of the time, the impact of Freudianism and its successors and the compassion with which she writes about her grand aunt make it a compelling read.......more

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