The Bride of the Wind: The Life & Times of Alma Mahler Werfel

Few women have aroused as much adoration or approbation as Alma Mahler, or possessed as potent an allure for men of outstanding talent. In the course of her long, turbulent life, she married the composer Gustav Mahler, the architect Walter Gropius & the novelist Franz Werfel; conducted a love affair with the painter Oskar Kokoschka; & befriended Alban Berg, Thomas Mann, Gustav Klimt & Arnold Schonberg. Born in Habsburg Austria in 1879, she saw her native Vienna decline from the peak of its glory, weathered WWI & the Weimar years, survived three children & made a hairbreadth escape from the Nazis by fleeing to America, where she died at the age of 85 in 1964. This outstanding biography-the result of 10 years' research-captures both the grandeur & the ambiguity of Alma Mahler's life. It gives us not only the femme fatale, but also the gifted musician who sublimated her own talent, & the anti-Semite who married two Jews & became a refugee from Hitler. The Bride of the Wind explores the nature of Alma Mahler's considerable mystique & her role in the creative ferment of her time. It belongs in the company of the classic biographies of such powerful & charismatic women as Zelda Fitzgerald, Eva Peron & Sarah Bernhardt.