Firebrands

"Gioia Diliberto's fresh and timely take on the history of Prohibition focuses on four women who played central roles in promoting, enforcing, profiting from, and repealing the Eighteenth Amendment: Ella Boole, the head of the Women's Christian Temperance Union; Texas Guinan, a star of silent films and vaudeville who ran glitzy speakeasies; Mabel Walker Willebrandt, a genuine trailblazer tasked with enforcing Prohibition in the Department of Justice; and Pauline Sabin, a Chicago socialite who led the drive toward repeal. Cumulatively, Diliberto creates a varied and dynamic portrait of women in power, as both activists and institutionalists, in both politics and culture"--

Gioia Diliberto is the author of four biographies, among them Diane von Furstenberg: A Life Unwrapped, Paris Without End: The True Story of Hemingway's First Wife, and A Useful Woman: The Early Life of Jane Addams, as well as three novels and a play. As a journalist, Diliberto has contributed to many publications, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, Smithsonian, and Vanity Fair. She also teaches writing and has taught at the Savannah College of Art and Design, and DePaul and Northwestern Universities. She lives with her husband in Woodbury, Connecticut.