The Ashtrays Are Full and the Glasses Are Empty

Description

2026 National Indie Excellence Award for Faction (fiction based on fact)

2026 Honorable Mention for Historical Fiction by the Eric Hoffer Book Award

2025 Goethe Book Awards Semi-Finalist for Late Historical Fiction

“Fans of Paula McLain and Marie Benedict will enjoy this insightful novel.”– Kirkus Reviews

“Micklewait provides a jewel box of a book illustrating that none of us invented the fight for a singularly creative life.” – Randy Susan Meyers, internationally bestselling author of The Many Mothers of Ivy Puddingstone

Raised in New York’s Gilded Age, pampered heiress Sara Wiborg dreams of a more creative life than the rigid future prescribed for her. It’s only when she meets Gerald Murphy that she finds a man who shares her creative, aesthetic ideal and, after a friendship of eleven years, they marry despite the strong disapproval of her family.

Against the sizzling Jazz Age backdrop of 1920s Paris and Antibes, Sara’s innate style and gift for friendship attract the bohemian elite of the new century-including Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Picasso, and Dorothy Parker. But by the 1930s, her fortune is lost and tragedy strikes-not once, but twice. Sara’s strength and resilience allow her to find a new equilibrium over time, long after the parties have ended. A heartbreaking story of love and loss, The Ashtrays Are Full and the Glasses Are Empty follows Sara through her very modern life to reveal how tragedy can be healed by faith, unconditional love, and a creative mind.

Binding Type: Paperback
Author: Kirsten Mickelwait
Published: 05/27/2025
Publisher: Koehler Books
ISBN: 9798888246917
Pages: 336
Weight: 0.99lbs
Size: 0.75″ H x 9.00″ L x 6.00″ W

About the Author
Mickelwait, Kirsten: – Kirsten Mickelwait is the author of a memoir, The Ghost Marriage, and a historical novel, The Ashtrays Are Full and the Glasses Are Empty. She’s an alumna of many writing workshops, including the Squaw Valley Community of Writers, the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference, the Paris Writers’ Conference, the Kauai Writers’ Conference, and the San Francisco Writers’ Conference. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she’s at work on a speculative novel. Mickelwait is a member of the San Francisco Writers Grotto.