The ramshackle Brooklyn brownstone dubbed "February House" has itself been demolished, but the legacy of this literary bastion lives on in Sherill Tippins's wonderful account that, as the San Francisco Chronicle notes, is a "tribute to the location that gives it mythical status." This is the incredible story of an artistic fraternity that included, among others, Carson McCullers, W. H. Auden, Paul Bowles, and the famed burlesque performer Gypsy Rose Lee, all living together under one roof. In the one year of its existence, these burgeoning talents composed many of their most famous, iconic literary works while experiencing together a crucial historical moment America at the threshold of World War II.