The Gilded Edge

from famous wives on the qualities that make for a good husband. Mostly she enjoyed the illustrations of sophisticated women. Sometimes they were depicted walking arm in arm on the street with their flowered hats, gloves, and sweeping skirts-in the midst of sharing confidences, she supposed. Other times they danced or boated with gentlemen. Despite their impossibly narrow waists, they weren't dainty but rather seemed equally comfortable in society or at sport. They looked down at people from atop their bicycles, which they rode without apology. And yet, with all their independence, they still captivated men.



Carrie knew she wasn't beautiful. Hers was a fit but not voluptuous figure. Her face lacked any particular charm beyond a youthful glow, but she noticed that the boarders flirted with her anyway. She could not have been less interested in those men. If they were poor enough to eat her mother's bean soup, they weren't for her. The man who would win her hand would have to show her his bankbook first.



She made a plan to get out of her mother's house forever. She would find a job to make her own income until she could marry and marry well. In the mid-1890s, more women than ever were finding work outside the home. But she wouldn't apply for a factory shift or to be a maid (those jobs were for immigrants or the truly indigent), and she didn't want to be a schoolteacher (looking after all those children). She wouldn't meet eligible men in those jobs anyway.



Carrie's older sister Lila had hit the jackpot, securing an office position as one of the Bay Area's first woman secretaries in a firm called the Realty Syndicate. She worked for a former stockbroker named Frank Havens, who was making a big play for East Bay land. Each weekday morning, Carrie watched Lila don a candy-striped blouse with puffy sleeves and a long black skirt and head out the door to San Francisco. Each evening, Lila came home and told Carrie of the growing financial district abo

Charlotte Gordon, author of Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley, The Woman Who Named God, and Mistress Bradstreet

What a story! With the eye of a detective, Catherine Prendergast has brilliantly pieced together the shocking history of the birth of the famed Carmel-by-the-Sea, an early mission turned artists colony founded in the early 1900s in Central Coast California, where the literary elite and hangers-on fashioned a Bohemian existence rife with alcohol, sex, jealousy, drama loads of it deceit, and suicide. Prendergast s vivid storytelling draws you into the debauchery, weaving the poetry and words of the famous and not-so-famous into a narrative that challenges the sanitized version of Carmel s founding. The women, she discovered, paid the price in those early years in lost lives, careers, ruined reputations, and broken marriages, while the men achieved greater accolades. Prendergast puts those women back in the center of the story where they belong, fueling a breathtaking tale about the real lives of the New Woman of the early twentieth century. Kate Clifford Larson, New York Times bestselling author of Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter

Catherine Prendergast so vividly re-creates the Bohemian circles of early twentieth century California that I felt transported back in time, witnessing firsthand the challenges, triumphs, and tragedies of Nora May French and Carrie Sterling, her brave and brazen heroines. The Gilded Edge is a highly evocative and unforgettable read. Abbott Kahler, New York Times bestselling author (as Karen Abbott) of The Ghosts of Eden Park

The text reads like a dramatic novel fueled by sex, alcohol, and quests for fame and fortune. . . .  A well-rendered, tragic tale that speaks to the struggles of women trying to find their places in society. Kirkus Reviews

We re living in a second Gilded Age, so this feels pretty relevant. There s a love triangle, there s poetry, there s social reform movements, there s a real estate developer; it s just got all the things. I also love a story where it was HUGE in the news at the time, and then almost no one today has heard of it. This is one of those! Book Riot

Life in Carmel among its Bohemian artists is a captivating subject, but Prendergast deepens it by entering the narrative to relay the difficulties she encountered researching Carrie and Nora, two fascinating women whose lives were largely buried in archives devoted to the men in their circle. . . . Prendergast's vivid history offers a sobering take on a romanticized time and place in which the men were lauded while the women were nearly erased. Booklist

This punchy feminist tribute offers a fascinating look at two forgotten women of the Gilded Age. Publishers Weekly

Explaining the book s subtitle would constitute a spoiler. The narrative is such a compelling and engaging read, it would be a shame to deny readers the pleasures of exploring it. Carmel Magazine

For a book built around suicides, The Gilded Edge is pulsing with life. . . . Part of the energy comes from the author s palpable outrage, which emerges in otherwise chatty interludes that chart her efforts to uncover the real history behind a tale of scandal and tragedy. Air Mail

Prendergast gives readers an inside look at what went on behind the writing. . . . This well-organized biography reads almost like historical fiction; readers are reminded that this is a true story when Prendergast inserts her witty intellectual commentary. Library Journal

Part detective work, part narrative nonfiction combined with Prendergast s personal observations about what she learned [The Gilded Edge] is an indispensable corrective to romantic myths of the early twentieth century and our present day. Nob Hill Gazette

Prendergast s book is a MasterClass in research. Throughout, she sporadically reflects on the misogynist injustice imbedded even in seemingly innocuous things like archival structure. Each woman and Nora May particularly was exceptional on their own, but their histories were intentionally (and in some cases maliciously) folded into the records of the era s famous men. The methodic persistence required to compile such a complete and compelling account is truly noteworthy. Holly Dowell, WORD Bookstores