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    Virginia Faulkner
    A Life in Two Acts

    Brad Bigelow (Author)

    9781496230621, University of Nebraska Press

    Hardback, published 1 January 2026

    280 pages, 23 photographs
    22.9 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.666 kg

    "Bigelow sketches an intimate portrait of Faulkner and makes a convincing case that her efforts were foundational to future Cather researchers. This restores Faulkner to her rightful place in literary history."—Publishers Weekly

    “Intimidating, brilliant, and scathingly funny, Virginia Faulkner is a true American original. She fled her corn-fed Midwestern childhood in 1928 and reinvented herself as an international sophisticate and renowned wit. . . . Famous for her impeccable taste and stubborn eccentricities, Faulkner masterminded the literary reputations of authors ranging from Polly Adler to Willa Cather, but her own fascinating story has been forgotten until now. Brad Bigelow brings this complex, trailblazing woman back to life and restores her to her rightful place in American history.”—Debby Applegate, Pulitzer Prize-winner and author of Madam: The Biography of Polly Adler, Icon of the Jazz Age
    “Virginia Faulkner: A Life in Two Acts is a fascinating tribute to literary obsession. Not only does Brad Bigelow offer a captivating tale of Virginia Faulkner’s mad devotion to Willa Cather; he provides a portrait of how profoundly one scholar, one editor, can amplify one writer’s voice.”—Timothy Schaffert, author of The Titanic Survivors Book Club and The Perfume Thief
    “I’m a bit embarrassed to confess that I’d never even heard of Virginia Faulkner before I met her in this engrossing biography, and now I wish I could have met her in person.”—Nancy Pearl, author of the best-selling Book Lust and More Book Lust
    “This is a tale of struggle, uncertainty, and commitment, but it is mostly one of triumph. Brad Bigelow brings Virginia Faulkner and her partner, the distinguished, pathbreaking Willa Cather scholar Bernice Slote, alive on the page. This biography is a significant contribution.”—Robert Thacker, historical editor of Willa Cather’s Complete Poems and author of Alice Munro: Writing Her Lives; A Biography
    “In this impeccably researched and entertaining biography, Virginia Faulkner emerges as a waspish, Dorothy Parker–like novelist and newspaper columnist, whose glamorous (if sometimes rackety) life has the makings of a Hollywood motion picture. In pages of lucid prose, Brad Bigelow does this neglected American writer full justice. Terrific.”—Ian Thomson, author of Primo Levi: A Life and Dante’s Divine Comedy: A Journey Without End

    Featured writer for the Washington Post at twenty. Author of a hit novel at twenty-one. Coaxed Greta Garbo out of seclusion for a Hollywood party. Ghostwrote the memoirs of New York’s most famous madam, Polly Adler. It’s no wonder Virginia Faulkner was spoken of as the next Dorothy Parker.

    But Faulkner also struggled with alcoholism and depression, lost respect for her own work as a writer, and at age forty-two returned to her hometown of Lincoln, Nebraska, unsure what her next move would be. Asked to assemble an anthology to celebrate Nebraska, she joined the University of Nebraska Press and soon found herself fascinated by the challenges of work as an editor. The press, she realized, offered her the opportunity to champion the work of the writer she respected above all others: Willa Cather. And after finding an ideal colleague and life partner in Bernice Slote, Faulkner launched a series of books that helped establish Cather as one of America’s greatest writers.

    In Virginia Faulkner: A Life in Two Acts, Brad Bigelow tells Faulkner’s story-one that’s lively, irreverent, and rich in its commitment to literature of lasting importance. Though her own books have since been forgotten, Faulkner left a legacy of achievement and success in American literature against social and personal odds, and her voice and spirit shine forth in the pages of this book.
     

    List of Illustrations
    Prologue
    Act 1. To Bohemia
    1. The Meyers and the Faulkners
    2. Ginny and Eddie
    3. Rome
    4. Limbo
    5. Radcliffe
    6. Washington
    7. New York City
    8. Hollywood
    9. All in Fun
    10. Dana
    11. It Takes Two
    12. The Haven
    13. A House Is Not a Home
    14. Pacific Grove
    Act 2. Back to Lincoln
    15. Roundup
    16. Hostiles and Friendlies
    17. Bernice
    18. The Literature of Possibility
    19. The Road Is All
    20. “
    Anniversary”

    21. The Kingdom of Art
    22. The World and the Parish
    23. Willa Cather’
    s Imagination
    24. The Art of Willa Cather
    25. Out to the Wind
    26. Breaking Down
    A Note on Sources
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