How Stein and Lover Avoided the Nazis; BOOKS Two Lives: Gertrude and Alice by Janet Malcolm. Yale. Pounds 16.99. Reviewed by RICHARD EDMONDS

Byline: RICHARD EDMONDS

Janet Malcolm's intricately observed study of Gertrude Stein and her partner, Alice Toklas, asks how on earth a pair of ageing Jewish lesbians, living in occupied France during the war, managed to avoid the Nazis, at the time of the occupying power.

The story of these two women who somehow missed the death camps is told accurately and well.

But occasionally Malcolm's brash attitude occasionally displays a want of sensitivity.

Did we need to know, for example, minute details of their sex lives? Probably not, to my mind.

I have enjoyed Gertrude Stein's marvellous writings for years - particularly the less exacting …

Questia, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning. www.questia.com
Publication information: Article title: How Stein and Lover Avoided the Nazis; BOOKS Two Lives: Gertrude and Alice by Janet Malcolm. Yale. Pounds 16.99. Reviewed by RICHARD EDMONDS. Contributors: Not available. Newspaper title: The Birmingham Post (England). Publication date: November 17, 2007. Page number: 19. © 2009 Birmingham Post & Mail Ltd. COPYRIGHT 2007 Gale Group.

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