The Manhattan Girls: A Novel of Dorothy Parker and Her Friends

In Paul’s (The Collector’s Daughter: A Novel of the Discovery of Tutankhamun’s Tomb) new 1920s-set historical novel, a group of literary elites known as the Round Table meet regularly at the Algonquin Hotel in New York City. (The Algonquin Round Table was a real group, whose founding members included journalist Harold Ross, columnist Franklin Pierce Adams, and satirist Dorothy Parker.) When some Round Table members initiate a men’s-only Saturday night poker group, four enterprising women members (Parker; New York Times reporter Jane Grant; Broadway actress Winifred Lenihan; and ad agent/aspiring novelist Peggy Leech) follow suit and create their own weekly bridge club. What begins as a simple outlet for cocktails, gossip, and card-playing quickly morphs into a tight-knit sisterhood of unstoppable women. The bridge club tackles a myriad of social issues in their small inner circle—depression, suicide, abortion, rape, spousal abuse, stalking, divorce—and its four members reach life-changing career milestones and begin to crack some glass ceilings.