A bold and deeply researched biography of a complicated cultural iconWhen Helen Gurley Brown published Sex and the Single Girl in 1962 it sold more than two million copies in just three weeks presaging the self help boom and helping to usher in the unapologetic self affirmation of second wave feminism Brown declared that it was okay even imperative to enjoy sex outside of marriage that equal rights for women should extend to the bedroom that meaningful work outside the home was essential for a woman s security and self esteem The book catapulted Brown into national renown cementing her status as a complex and divisive feminist personality And the ripple effects of her outspokenness about sex and her emphasis on friendships between women can still be seen today on TV shows like Sex and the City and Girls and in the magazine world as well When she died in 2012 her obituary appeared on the front page of The New York Times which noted that the look of women s magazines today is due in no small part to her influence She may not always have been loved but she was always talked about Brown s life story a classic American rags to riches tale is just as juicy as her controversial books In this wonderful new biography the writer and reporter Gerri Hirshey traces Brown s path from deep in the Arkansas Ozarks to her wild single years in Los Angeles from the New York magazine world to her Hollywood adventures with her film producer husband Along the way she became the highest paid female ad copywriter on the West Coast and transformed Hearst s failing literary magazine Cosmopolitan into the female oriented global juggernaut it is today Full of firsthand accounts of Brown from some of her closest friends including Liz Smith Gloria Vanderbilt Barbara Walters and more as well as those whose paths she brushed her 1939 prom date a sorority sister from business school Cosmo cover girls like Beverly Johnson and Brooke Shields and wri
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