{"product_id":"manons-world-a-hauntology-of-a-daughter-in-the-triangle-of-alma-mahler-walter-gropius-and-franz-werfel","title":"Manon's World: A Hauntology of a Daughter in the Triangle of Alma Mahler, Walter Gropius and Franz Werfel","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"color: #ff2a00;\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/span\u003eBy James Reidel \u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\"A remarkable book, \u003cem\u003eManon’s World\u003c\/em\u003e brilliantly evokes an extraordinary set of individuals in an urgent time and place: Austria during and after the First World War. Reidel’s sure hand weaves together the stories of the people surrounding and interacting with Manon. The result is a dazzling narrative that transports us to a lost world peopled by some of the remarkable characters in recent history. A story so compelling it is hard to put down.\"―Mary Dearborn, biographer and author\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eManon Gropius (1916–1935) was the daughter of Alma Mahler, the widow of Gustav Mahler, and the architect Walter Gropius, the founder of the Bauhaus, and the stepdaughter of the writer Franz Werfel. In \u003cem\u003eManon’s World\u003c\/em\u003e, James Reidel explores the life and death of a child at the center of a broken love triangle. The story takes a unique course, describing a peripheral figure but in a context where her significance and centrality in the lives of her famous parents and circles comes into relief. Reidel reveals a neglected and fascinating life in a world gone by—Vienna, Venice, and Berlin of the interwar years.\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eNot just a narrative biography, \u003cem\u003eManon’s World\u003c\/em\u003e is also a medical history of the polio that killed Manon and a personal cultural history of the aspirations projected on her—and seen as lost by such keen observers as Elias Canetti, who devoted two chapters of his Nobel Prize–winning memoirs to his encounters with Manon and her funeral. That event led Alban Berg to dedicate his signature\u003cem\u003e Violin Concerto\u003c\/em\u003e “to an angel.” Reidel reveals a more complex image of a young woman who desired to be an actress and artist in her own right despite being her mother’s intended protégé, an inspiration to her father who rarely saw her, and her stepfather Franz Werfel, who obsessively wrote her into his novels, beginning with \u003cem\u003eThe Forty Days of Musa Dagh\u003c\/em\u003e and as a revenant in all the books that followed.\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eHardcover\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e324 pages | 10 halftones\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eSeagull Books, 2021\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e6 x 9 x 1.2 inches\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eISBN 9780857427496\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eBiography\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"vendor-unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":39523441868968,"sku":"9780857427496","price":27.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0175\/8594\/products\/Manons-World-A-Hauntology-of-a-Daughter-in-the-Triangle-of-Alma-Mahler-Walter-Gropius-and-Franz-Werfel_James-Reidel.jpg?v=1616945249","url":"https:\/\/neue-galerie-design-shop.myshopify.com\/products\/manons-world-a-hauntology-of-a-daughter-in-the-triangle-of-alma-mahler-walter-gropius-and-franz-werfel","provider":"Neue Galerie Design Shop \u0026 Book Store","version":"1.0","type":"link"}