Almost Famous Women: Stories - Softcover

"Every one of these stories is as vibrant, as urgent, as surprising as the women therein. What a thrill to listen as they cohere into a chorus of powerful, affecting and often hilarious voices, each unforgettable, together undeniable. Another stunning collection from the brilliant Megan Mayhew Bergman."----Claire Vaye Watkins, author of Battleborn

"Megan Mayhew Bergman writes with an astonishing force of empathy, a compassion as bright and illuminating as a klieg light. The reader of Almost Famous Women can't help but be seduced by these eccentric, subversive, passionate women who lived their lives with their entire souls and who were furiously unapologetic for doing so."----Lauren Groff, author of Arcadia

"Lovely and heartbreaking."--Anjelica Huston, author of Watch Me

"A collection of stories as beautiful and strange as the women who inspired them."--Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Rough-cut gems of a bygone era."--O, The Oprah Magazine

"In these inventive short stories, off-the-radar historical characters--a motorbike racer, a diva, Oscar Wilde's niece--enter the limelight at last."--MORE Magazine

"Gutsy and expertly written."--Bustle

"Fearless stories star[ring] an eccentric cavalcade."--Vanity Fair

"Stories that are so intriguing you wish they were full-length novels... Bergman revives these often troubled spirits with great compassion."--Connie Ogle "Miami Herald "

"Real women are found at the heart of these tales, women unusual for their times and almost entirely forgotten in ours... Arresting... Sympathetic, never romanticizing often self-destructive behavior, but exploring why these women sought risk taking and the effect of their impulses."--Leanna Bales "Kansas City Star "

From a prizewinning, beloved young author, a provocative collection that explores the lives of colorful, intrepid women in history. “These stories linger in one’s memory long after reading them” (Star Tribune, Minneapolis).

The fascinating characters in Megan Mayhew Bergman’s “collection of stories as beautiful and strange as the women who inspired them” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) are defined by their creative impulses, fierce independence, and sometimes reckless decisions. In “The Siege at Whale Cay,” cross-dressing Standard Oil heiress Joe Carstairs seduces Marlene Dietrich. In “A High-Grade Bitch Sits Down for Lunch,” aviator and writer Beryl Markham lives alone in Nairobi and engages in a battle of wills with a stallion. In “Hell-Diving Women,” the first integrated, all-girl swing band sparks a violent reaction in North Carolina.

Other heroines, born in proximity to the spotlight, struggle to distinguish themselves: Lord Byron’s illegitimate daughter, Allegra; Oscar Wilde’s wild niece, Dolly; Edna St. Vincent Millay’s talented sister, Norma; James Joyce’s daughter, Lucia.Almost Famous Women offers an elegant and intimate look at artists who desired recognition. “By assiduously depicting their intimacy and power struggles, Bergman allows for a close examination of the multiplicity of women’s experiences” (The New York Times Book Review).

The world wasn’t always kind to the women who star in these stories, but through Mayhew Bergman’s stunning imagination, they receive the attention they deserve.Almost Famous Women is “addictive and tantalizing, each story whetting our appetite for more” (Atlanta Journal-Constitution).