Kate Evans

And so they got through World War I okay.

Her brother died in the influenza epidemic just after the end of the war.

They wanted her to be married.

And instead, she ran off and married somebody else who was a Christian because to her, that was offering this whole other literary life.

But she lived with him.

And then for me, the most interesting part of this book was when we got to the 1920s.

And suddenly Germany's changing.

Berlin is becoming a different place.

And this woman else is right at the heart of it.

I mean, what was happening in the 1920s?

And there are some great descriptions of the 20s from Else herself.

They were fantastic.

The beginning of a new, modern, emancipated time that had no chance.

A grandiose dance of death.

The number of great artists and intellectuals that Berlin spit out at that time is simply incredible.

Half of them were Jews.

Well, we succeeded in killing it all.

The Jews, the art and intellect.

But then we also see this very hedonistic world.

There are descriptions of parties where all the waitresses were topless and there were people having sex with each other on cushions on the ground and Else was wearing harem pants, which was apparently quite scandalous, harem pants.