SARAH HOROWITZ has a PhD in modern European history from UC Berkeley and is core faculty in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Washington and Lee University. She lives in Washington, D.C.
It's like a modern celebrity media circus and crime thriller... One
can imagine the drama and suspense if this were a film, so well has
the author captured this facet of her life. -- Historical Novel
Society
The Red Widow is a thrilling window into a scandal that rocked the
French establishment at the turn of the twentieth century. Sarah
Horowitz reconstructs the twists and turns of Marguerite 'Meg'
Steinheil's rise and fall through the highest echelons of French
society, as she struggled against an unhappy marriage and her own
thwarted ambitions, a struggle which ultimately landed her in
prison as the suspect in the murder of her own husband and mother.
Horowitz not only presents a gripping tale of an individual woman,
but also shows how sex and sexuality was used by and against elite
women as they wrestled with a patriarchal social and political
system that sought to constrain them and their desires. -- Andrew
Israel Ross, Associate Professor of History, Loyola University
Maryland
[Marguerite Steinheil is] a fascinating woman, a figure at once
seductive, hysterical, adulterous, mendacious, captivating and
cultured... Steinheil's life continues even now to inspire. -- The
New York Times
A dazzling yet nuanced portrait of femme fatale Marguerite
Steinheil... Fans of true crime and women's history will find this
a page-turning read. -- Booklist
A page-turning true crime thriller... Readers will be captivated by
Meg's story and Horowitz's clever crafting of her tale. -- Library
Journal
A thrilling true story of crime and debauchery... The Red Widow
tells the truth about Meg: a woman determined to rise?no matter the
cost -- The Lineup
Deeply researched and beautifully written, we hear and see Meg in
all her maddening glory: sometimes vain and defiant, sometimes
perplexing and ridiculous, but always profoundly human...Settle in,
because once you pick up Horowitz's book, you won't be able to put
it down. -- Robin Mitchell, author of V�nus Noire: Black Women and
Colonial Fantasies in Nineteenth-Century France
Dr. Sarah Horowitz's The Red Widow offers the gripping story of a
fascinating and flawed woman, Meg Steinheil, mistress to a French
president and implicated in the murder of her own husband. The
reader will learn much about the political and cultural history of
France and the murder and sex scandals that rocked Parisian high
society in the early twentieth-century, centered on one mesmerizing
individual. This well-written account is not only nuanced and
deeply sourced; it is also a terrific read. Horowitz proves that we
should encourage more academic historians to write for a popular
audience. -- Christine Adams, Professor of History, St. Mary's
College of Maryland
Horowitz has pieced together a fascinating story of a woman who
'lied all her life' and died in 1954 at the age of 86 in a Hove
nursing home, taking her secrets with her.
In this tawdry little tale, Horowitz recounts the fascinating life
of Marguerite 'Meg' Steinhell, the unhappily married seductress who
slept her way to the top of Parisian high society. Sex, lies,
murder - Meg was willing to use everything at her disposal to amass
fame and fortune. Reveling in every lurid detail, Horowitz takes
readers on a rollicking ride through the depraved world of the
Parisian elite. Wonderfully researched and exquisitely written,
Horowitz's book is a reminder that truth really is stranger than
fiction. -- Nimisha Barton, award-winning author of Reproductive
Citizens: Gender, Immigration, and the State in Modern France,
1880-1945
Meg was a middle-class woman whose era severely limited her
options, yet she managed to outsmart her station in life... Meg
hatched a plan to access Paris' social stratosphere and triumphed.
-- The Kansas City Star
More than a century before Anna Delvey conned her first socialite,
Marguerite 'Meg' Steinheil orchestrated her rise into French
society's upper echelons... [a] true-crime page-turner. -- The
Washington Post
Plenty of salacious tidbits make The Red Widow fun to read, but Ms.
Horowitz... delivers more than a lurid tale of murder. She examines
the moral attitude of a society in which women like Steinheil had
little independence and were forced to rely on men for their
survival. -- The Wall Street Journal
Sarah Horowitz's account of society courtesan Meg Steinheil and the
double murder of her husband and mother in Belle �poque Paris is
gripping, but never sensationalizing. Meg's is a story of sex and
scandal, politics and power, misogyny and race-baiting conspiracies
that poisoned French democracy. But in Horowitz's hands, it is also
a story of ambition and bravado, charisma and deceit, weakness and
loss, and a society revealed to itself. Deeply researched and
beautifully written, The Red Widow paints a thoroughly human
portrait of a complex, exceptional woman and her complicated,
exceptional life." -- Jennifer Sessions, Associate Profess of
History, University of Virginia
The preface of this unputdownable book promises a gripping murder
mystery, and that promise is more than fulfilled. But The Red Widow
is much more than a page-turning true crime narrative. It is a
deeply researched social history that brings to rich and complex
life the much mythicized world of Belle Epoque Paris. Most of all,
it is an unforgettable portrait of a woman who became one of the
most notorious figures of her day and whose scandalous story sheds
fascinating light not only on her own tumultuous time but ours as
well. -- Harold Schechter, author of Hell's Princess: The Mystery
of Belle Guinness, Butcher of Men
This hits the sweet spot between true crime and women's history. --
Publishers Weekly
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