Everybody Was So Young

Echoes of Jazz-Age Glamour

In Everybody Was So Young, acclaimed biographer Amanda Vaill transports readers to the glittering shores of the French Riviera in the 1920s, where the luminaries of the Lost Generation escape Prohibition–era America in search of sun-kissed freedom. Through the eyes of Ginevra King—charming debutante, muse to F. Scott Fitzgerald, and one‐time fiancée whose memory haunted Gatsby’s creator—Vaill weaves a portrait of youth, ambition, and the intoxicating promise of reinvention. Against a backdrop of cobalt sea and pale stucco villas, Ginevra’s laughter rings through candlelit soirées, her silken gowns trailing along marble floors as she navigates friendships with literary giants, reckless pursuits of glamour, and the unspoken ache of a love that could never be tamed.

Fractured Hearts on the Riviera

As Ginevra drifts between opulent casinos and hidden garden salons, she grapples with the price of social ascendancy. Vaill’s meticulous research brings to life every telegram from New York society, every whispered confidence shared over absinthe, and the shimmering tension of a transatlantic romance teetering on the brink of disillusionment. Friends become rivals, secrets blossom beneath perfumed nights, and Ginevra’s quest for autonomy leads her into alliances that challenge the rigid expectations of her Chicago upbringing. With prose as elegant as the era it evokes, the narrative charts her transformation from ingénue to the consummate hostess whose presence defined a decade’s most dazzling gatherings.

Beyond the Parties, a Woman Defined

Vaill transcends the myth of the Jazz Age to reveal Ginevra’s enduring strength—the resilience that carried her beyond the bright lights and inspired some of America’s greatest literature. As the Riviera’s golden summer fades into uncertain autumn, Ginevra confronts the real cost of fame and the bittersweet truth that sometimes the truest legacies are written not in ink or champagne stains, but in the quiet acts of self-discovery that follow the final encore.

. Amanda Vaill is an award-winning American biographer and cultural historian whose elegant storytelling and rigorous scholarship illuminate the lives of iconic artists, writers, and social visionaries.