Gioia Diliberto Book Signing

The Hickory Stick Bookshop is delighted to welcome author Gioia Diliberto who will be here signing copies of her newest book “Firebrands: The Untold Story of Four Women Who Made and Unmade Prohibition” on Saturday, December 14th at 3 pm.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Guaranteed to change how you picture Prohibition, this lively history turns the spotlight on four women in the immediate aftermath of winning the vote who played influential roles on all sides of the Eighteenth and Twenty-First Amendments.

In the popular imagination, the story of Prohibition in America is a story of men and male violence, one full of federal agents fighting gangsters over the sale of moonshine. In contrast, “Firebrands” is the story of four Jazz Age dynamos–all women who were forces behind the passage, the enforcement, the defiance, and, ultimately, the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment. They battled each other directly, and they learned to marshal clout with cowed and hypocritical legislators, almost all of them men. Their clash over Prohibition stands as the first significant exercise of women’s political power since women gained the right to vote, and their influence on the American political scene wouldn’t be equaled for decades.

In Gioia Diliberto’s fresh and timely take on this period of history, we meet Ella Boole, the stern and ambitious leader of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, who campaigned fiercely to introduce Prohibition and fought desperately to keep it alive. We also meet Mabel Walker Willebrandt, the most powerful woman in America at the time, who served as the top federal prosecutor charged with enforcing Prohibition. Diliberto tells the story, too, of silent film star Texas Guinan, who ran New York speakeasies backed by the mob and showed that Prohibition was not only absurd but unenforceable. And, she follows Pauline Morton Sabin, a glamorous Manhattan aristocrat who belatedly recognized the cascading evil in Prohibition and mobilized the movement to kill it. These women led their opposing forces of “Wets” and “Drys” across a teeming landscape of bootleggers, gangsters, federal agents, temperance fanatics, and cowardly politicians, many of them secret drunks. Building on the momentum of suffrage, they forged a path for the activists who followed during the great civil rights battles of the mid-twentieth century. Yet, they have been largely lost to history. In “Firebrands”, Diliberto finally gives these dynamic figures their due, creating a varied and dramatic portrait of women wielding power, in politics, society, and popular culture.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Diliberto is the author of eight books – three historical novels and five nonfiction narratives – and a play. Her work, which focuses on women’s lives, has been praised for combining rich storytelling and literary grace with deep research to bring alive worlds as varied as Jazz Age Paris, nineteenth century Chicago, Belle Epoque Paris, disco era Manhattan, and Prohibition New York. Her books have been translated into several languages, and her articles have appeared in many publications, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian, Town & Country, and Vanity Fair. She also teaches writing and has taught at the Savannah College of Art and Design and DePaul and Northwestern Universities.

The mother of a grown son, Diliberto lives in Woodbury, Connecticut, with her husband.

PRAISE FOR THE BOOK

“A reminder that . . . the dynamic, capable women behind national movements are all too often written out of the history they help make.” — Washington Independent Review of Books

“Diliberto’s story of four women’s activism in the early 20th century is well-researched, original, and refreshing, especially since this was a period, as the author points out, characterized by phenomena familiar today: ‘craven politicians, fake news, and a Congress in the grip of a fanatical minority.” — Wall Street Journal

“Gioia Diliberto’s unconventional portrait of the Jazz Age shifts the spotlight away from flappers and femme fatales to the rebels and reformers who ‘played politics like a man.’ Firebrands shows how the Noble Experiment of Prohibition was driven by female ambition, sparking an era of women’s political power that remains unmatched in American history.” -Debby Applegate, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Madam: The Biography of Polly Adler, Icon of the Jazz Age

This event is free and open to the public. If you are unable to attend this event, you may reserve signed copies of “Firebrands” by calling The Hickory Stick Bookshop at (860) 868 0525, or shop our website 24/7 at www.hickorystickbookshop.com.