Hayden Herrera- Upper Bohemia

ABOUT THE BOOK:

Set against a backdrop of 1950s Cape Cod, New York City, and Mexico, Herrera’s poignant memoir is the perfect summer read. Herrera is a critically acclaimed biographer, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and now turns her biographer’s eye to her own family. UPPER BOHEMIA peels back the layers of a seemingly idyllic, artistic childhood in to explore the complexities of living with unstable, narcissistic parents.

For Herrera’s parents, both painters, following their artistic inclinations was more important than looking after their children. Her parents each married five times. When Herrera was only three years old, her parents separated. They saw their father only during summers on the Cape, when they and the other neighborhood children would be left to their own devices by parents who were busy painting, writing, or composing music. These adults inhabited a world that Herrera’s mother called “upper bohemia,” a milieu of people born to privilege who chose to focus on the life of the mind. Her parents’ friends included such literary and artistic heavyweights as artist Max Ernst, writers Edmund Wilson and Mary McCarthy, architect Marcel Breuer, and collector Peggy Guggenheim.

On the surface, Herrera’s childhood was idyllic and surreal. But underneath, the pain of being a parent’s afterthought was acute. Her unique upbringing was expanded by art and by a reverence for nature, but her early years were also marred by abuse and by absent, irresponsible adults. Exquisitely written and unflinchingly honest, UPPER BOHEMIA is ultimately a story of resilience and redemption.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Hayden Herrera is an art historian and the author of biographies of Frida Kahlo, Arshile Gorky, Mary Frank, Isamu Noguchi, and Henri Matisse. Her biography of Gorky was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and her biography of Noguchi won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. She lives in New York City and Cape Cod.