"Gentlemen Prefer Blondes": the illuminating diary of a professional lady

The greatest American novel, according to Edith Wharton, is not what you'd expect. It's the diary of Lorelei Lee, a blonde flapper whose mission in life is to marry a rich man. But here's the twist: the woman the world dismisses as a dizzy featherbrain may be the sharpest person in any room. Written in 1925, when women were finally casting off Victorian constraints, Anita Loos created a narrator who performs ignorance like an art form. Lorelei records her adventures in New York and Paris with disarming frankness, the diamonds she collects, the husbands she targets, the surprisingly philosophical observations she makes between sips of champagne. What appears to be a comedy of manners about gold-digging reveals itself as something far more subversive: a portrait of a woman who knows exactly how stupid men think she is, and uses that assumption as her greatest weapon. It's the Jazz Age in all its glittering, morally flexible glory, filtered through a voice so beguiling you'll miss the knife until it's already in your back.