Mark Athitakis in The Washington Post:
You can’t judge a book by its cover, but sometimes you can judge a writer’s standing by it. My 1990s-era paperback edition of “The Portable Dorothy Parker” shows the poet, critic, playwright and resident wit of the Algonquin Round Table looking stricken. Her eyes are sunken and shadowy; her hair is barely tamed; her eyes are glazed. At the time, that’s how we liked her — American literature’s cautionary tale. A notice encourages the reader to go see “Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle,” a bitter ensemble film from 1994 starring Jennifer Jason Leigh playing Parker as she begins to lose faith in writing, men and herself. Look at that book cover, and it’s clear the loss of faith is complete.It was a strange way to promote a writer who was also the funniest American quipster this side of Mark Twain: “Scratch a lover, and find a foe.” “I hate almost all rich people, but I think I’d be darling at it.” “What fresh hell is this?” As a critic for Vanity Fair and the New Yorker, Parker developed a knack for terse, damning assessments of the most insipid products of Broadway and publishing. A.A. Milne, creator of Winnie-the-Pooh, was among her most frequent targets; in her New Yorker book review column, Constant Reader, she famously demolished “The House on Pooh Corner” by declaring that while reading it, “Tonstant Weader fwowed up.” Ever since, we’ve struggled to make sense of Parker’s character. The cover of the current edition of the “Portable” captures her acerbic charm: It’s an illustration of her in a flapper-era coat and hat, smirking and side-eyeing something in the near distance.
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