Love and Loss in Hollywood

"Few if any women could equal Florence Deshon in terms of beauty and talent; none of whom I am aware could claim the devotion of both Charlie Chaplin and the radical Max Eastman.  This account of "love and loss" is searingly recovered in the letters between Eastman and Deshon: an early twentieth century version of the epistolary exchange between Abelard and Heloise. The editors have done us all a service with their painstaking research, and it's excellent if woeful to learn about the three adventurers, their passion and collapse."—Nicholas Delbanco, Robert Frost Distinguished University Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Michigan.

"These eloquent, passionate letters between writer and political thinker Max Eastman and actress Florence Deshon show a brilliant, charming man who cannot reconcile the contradiction between freedom and commitment and an independent, charismatic woman, lover of both Eastman and Charlie Chaplin, making her way in Hollywood in its early years. The letters, interspersed with brisk, informative commentary, give a revelatory, ground-level view of America during the First World War and its dark aftermath of economic recession, government repression, summary imprisonment, xenophobia, race riots, and lynchings."—Katherine A. Powers, editor of Suitable Accommodations: An Autobiographical Story of Family Life: The Letters of J. F. Powers

"This carefully edited series of letters between the author Max Eastman and actress Florence Deshon, supplemented by an informative historical introduction, not only sketches out the relationships between the couple and the actor/director Charlie Chaplin but also more broadly illuminates the cultural and social history of the American Bohemian left after World War I and of Hollywood in the late 1910s and early 1920s, as the industry was consolidating into what became the studio system."—Charles J. Maland, author of Chaplin and American Culture.

"An inherently fascinating and impressively informative read from cover to cover, Love and Loss in Hollywood: Florence Deshon, Max Eastman, and Charlie Chaplin is the extraordinary account of an extraordinary life lived out in extraordinary times and under extraordinary circumstances."—MIDWEST BOOK REVIEW