| Collation |
439 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm |
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text txt rdacontent |
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unmediated n rdamedia |
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volume nc rdacarrier |
| Note |
"First U.S. edition 2012" -- t.p. verso. |
| Bibliog. |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 421-429) and index. |
| Contents |
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. |
| Summary |
A revelatory and provocative biography of one of the most controversial women of the twentieth century, by one of America's most renowned historians. 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. - Publisher. |
| Subject |
Hellman, Lillian, 1905-1984.
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Hellman, Lillian, 1905-1984 -- Political and social views.
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Dramatists, American -- 20th century -- Biography.
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| Other Title Or Alt Title |
Challenging life & times of Lillian Hellman |
| ISBN |
9781596913639 (hardback) |
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1596913630 (hardback) |
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