Three women.
Three decades.
Five continents.
Countless stories, adventures, and ways to change the world — a world often at war.
“In a rollicking tale of three intrepid female correspondents, Julia Cooke takes readers on a thrilling journey. We see what it took for these brave women who covered conflicts around the world to fend off societal pressures and willfully, sometimes recklessly, always resourcefully, forge their own way.”
—Julie Satow, author of When Women Ran Fifth Avenue
”A richly narrated triple-threat biography, Starry and Restless reads like historical fiction and reclaims three brave and restless women who might otherwise have been lost to history. It is alive with urgency, and so vivid it nearly breathes—you can’t help but think of its relevance during these troubling times.”
—Susannah Cahalan, author of The Acid Queen
“Julia Cooke’s stunning book reclaims a heritage for narrative nonfiction, war, and travel writing. Starry and Restless is an exciting, fascinating, and indispensable contribution to the story of twentieth-century writing.”
—Anna Funder, author of Wifedom: Mrs. Orwell’s Invisible Life
“If your image of the foreign correspondent of the 1930s and ’40s is a man with a fedora and a cigar, think again. And if your image of the New Journalism is something first created by Tom Wolfe and his imitators decades later, think again there too. Julia Cooke gives us a lively introduction to three remarkable women—Rebecca West, Emily Hahn, and Martha Gellhorn—who each played an underappreciated role in reinventing nonfiction storytelling.”
—Adam Hochschild, author of American Midnight
"Starry and Restless is a gripping saga—part history, part travelogue—of three formidable writers who lived through, covered, and shaped our understanding of some of the 20th century's most momentous events. Spanning New York to Hong Kong, Kinshasa to Split, London to Chongqing, professional triumphs to domestic agonies, Cooke's account of how these women built their lives off words on the page is an adventure unto itself. I didn't want to leave the company of the trailblazing journalists Cooke so expertly and beautifully brings to life.”
—Bianca Bosker, author of Get the Picture