Virginia Faulkner: A Life in Two Acts

Featured writer for the Washington Post at twenty. Author of a hit novel at twenty-one. Coaxed Greta Garbo out of seclusion for a Hollywood party. Ghostwrote the memoirs of New York’s most famous madam, Polly Adler. It’s no wonder Virginia Faulkner was spoken of as the next Dorothy Parker.

But Faulkner also struggled with alcoholism and depression, lost respect for her own work as a writer, and at age forty-two returned to her hometown of Lincoln, Nebraska, unsure what her next move would be...