A difficult woman: the challenging life and times of Lillian Hellman
(Book)
Lillian Hellman was a giant of twentieth-century letters and a groundbreaking figure as one of the most successful female playwrights on Broadway. Yet the author of The Little Foxes and Toys in the Attic is today remembered more as a toxic, bitter survivor and literary fabulist, the woman of whom Mary McCarthy said, "Every word she writes is a lie, including 'and' and 'the.'" In A Difficult Woman, renowned historian Alice
Kessler-Harris undertakes a feat few would dare to attempt: a reclamation of a combative, controversial woman who straddled so many political and cultural fault lines of her time.
Kessler-Harris renders Hellman's feisty wit and personality in all of its contradictions: as a non-Jewish Jew, a displaced Southerner, a passionate political voice without a party, an artist immersed in commerce, a sexually free woman who scorned much of the women's movement, a loyal friend whose trust was often betrayed, and a writer of memoirs who repeatedly questioned the possibility of achieving truth and doubted her memory.
Hellman was a writer whose plays spoke the language of morality yet whose achievements foundered on accusations of mendacity. Above all else, she was a woman who made her way in a man's world. Kessler-Harris has crafted a nuanced life of Hellman, empathetic yet unsparing, that situates her in the varied contexts in which she moved, from New Orleans to Broadway to the hearing room of HUAC. A Difficut Woman is a major work of literary and intellectual history. This will be one of the most reviewed, and most acclaimed, books of 2012.
Notes
Kessler-Harris, A. (2012). A difficult woman: the challenging life and times of Lillian Hellman. New York, Bloomsbury Press.
Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)Kessler-Harris, Alice. 2012. A Difficult Woman: The Challenging Life and Times of Lillian Hellman. New York, Bloomsbury Press.
Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)Kessler-Harris, Alice, A Difficult Woman: The Challenging Life and Times of Lillian Hellman. New York, Bloomsbury Press, 2012.
MLA Citation (style guide)Kessler-Harris, Alice. A Difficult Woman: The Challenging Life and Times of Lillian Hellman. New York, Bloomsbury Press, 2012.
Record Information
Last Sierra Extract Time | Apr 19, 2024 10:14:18 PM |
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Last File Modification Time | Apr 19, 2024 10:15:18 PM |
Last Grouped Work Modification Time | Apr 24, 2024 02:13:21 AM |
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020 | |a 9781596913639 | ||
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050 | 0 | 0 | |a PS3515.E343|b Z74 2012 |
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100 | 1 | |a Kessler-Harris, Alice. | |
245 | 1 | 2 | |a A difficult woman :|b the challenging life and times of Lillian Hellman /|c Alice Kessler-Harris. |
260 | |a New York :|b Bloomsbury Press,|c 2012. | ||
300 | |a 448 p. ;|c 23 cm. | ||
504 | |a Includes bibliographical references and index. | ||
505 | 0 | |a Old-fashioned American traditions -- A tough broad -- A serious playwright -- Politics without fear -- An American Jew -- The writer as moralist -- A self-made woman -- A known Communist -- The most dangerous hours -- Liar, liar -- Life after death. | |
600 | 1 | 0 | |a Hellman, Lillian,|d 1905-1984. |
600 | 1 | 0 | |a Hellman, Lillian,|d 1905-1984|x Political and social views. |
650 | 0 | |a Dramatists, American|y 20th century|v Biography. | |
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