Jazzed
Academic geniuses, Wilhelmina "Will" Reinhardt and Dorothy "Dolly" Raab, become roommates at Barnard in the early 1920s, a time when college for women was a rarity.
Socially awkward Will, grieving her mother's death, is fascinated by Dolly, a beautiful, charming rebel with an insatiable taste for adrenaline. Both musicians come alive at Harlem jazz clubs and Prohibition-era speakeasies.
Dazzled by the world they are discovering together, their romance ignites. But while Will is obsessed with Dolly, Dolly is obsessed with crime. The power dynamics keep shifting as Will agrees to commit petty crimes with Dolly in exchange for sexual favors.
When the University and their rich families unite to split them up, passions escalate. To strike back at those who deny them the right to be together, they plot another crime: murder.
A gender-swapped take on the infamous "Leopold and Loeb" case, Jazzed is part historical fiction, part true crime. Juxtaposing the thrilling scientific breakthroughs in quantum physics and artistic explosion of the Harlem Renaissance with the pseudoscience of eugenics and anti-immigration fervor that also defined the era, the novel mirrors today's polarized world and moves with the fast-paced rhythm of jazz itself.
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Jill Dearman is the author of Bang the Keys: Four Steps to a Lifelong Writing Practice; The Great Bravura, a novel; Feminism: The March toward Equal Rights for Women; as well as Queer Astrology for Men and Queer Astrology for Women. She is a part-time professor of writing at New York University, a writing coach, editor, and astrologist. Visit: JillDearman.com
"Jazzed suffuses the eroticism of Highsmith and the intensity of Ellroy in an ingenious gender-swapping take on the Leopold & Loeb case. In her lover/killers, Will Reinhardt and Dolly Raab, Jill Dearman creates an unforgettable duo brimming with murderous passion and lusting for revenge on the society which won't accept them." Steven Powell, author of Love Me Fierce In Danger: The Life of James Ellroy
"Like some brilliant amalgamation of Patricia Highsmith's best work, Mary McCarthy's The Group and the Jazz Age tabloid-crime musical Chicago, Jazzed is a frenetic, scary, erotic, funny and darkly moving thrill ride with two mismatched anti-heroines who completely break the mold of their time and place-the elite Jewish intelligentsia of Roaring Twenties New York City. I thrilled to the twisted love affair and power struggle between Dolly and Wilhemina and how their unambiguous evildoing intersected with the intense sexism, homophobia and anti-Semitism of the world they were born into. Rife with authentic period detail and sizzling with complex and obsessive psychological realism, Jazzed will rivet you right through to its haunting final pages." Tim Murphy, Christodora and Correspondents
"I galloped through this dazzling, incandescent, thrill ride of a novel. Dearman deftly creates a wild, sexy, and poignant world of Jazz Age Sapphic love, sisterhood, prohibition, booze, freedom, Harlem rent parties, Barnard classrooms, and wealthy Jewish homes. When awkward Wilhelmina meets up with a former Brearley classmate, the vivacious Dolly, they improvise on clarinet and piano and spark one of the greatest love stories I've ever read, and what begins as a passionate flirtation turns into a dangerous obsession. Dolly is obsessed with danger, crime stories, and the thrill of becoming a criminal herself; Will is obsessed with Dolly and will do anything for her. As their love deepens and they try to carve out a public life for themselves, their mistakes multiply, and they become reckless. What will happen to our complicated, riveting lovers? Equal parts thriller, lesbian pulp sex romp, and literary queer history, Dearman's novel will leave you panting for more." Carley Moore, author of The Not Wives and Panpocalypse
