Publisher's Weekly Review
Unafraid to question Hellman's idealized memoirs, Gallagher (Hannah's Daughters) meets the "unflaggingly famous" dramatist head on in this pithy biography. Gallagher scrutinizes the "only woman playwright of her generation" from multiple angles, but only converges on the sharp projections and recesses in Hellman's haughty character that interest her most: Hellman's Bavarian great-grandfather Isaac Marx, who immigrated to antebellum Alabama; her analyst Dr. Gregory Zilboorg; the writer's defiance before the House Committee on Un-American Activities; and her spiteful lawsuit against Mary McCarthy. The portrait that develops, from Hellman's failed early marriage, endless sexual escapades, and longtime love affair with writer Dashiell Hammett is not altogether surprising: her poor relatives embarrassed her; money attracted her but she expressed contempt for the rich; she based the Hubbards in Little Foxes overtly on her family; she lied in her memoirs. If Gallagher places an undue focus on Hellman's "lack of beauty" but "very active sexual life," she also struggles to maintain a line of critical distance from Hellman that reveals the author's investment in the "dogmatic, irritable, mean, jealous, self-righteous, angry" subject, a dance that mirrors Hellman's own two-step with fact and truth. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
Enough comprehensive biographies of playwright and memoirist Lillian Hellman (1905-84) already exist to leave scintillating writer and memoirist Gallagher (Strangers in the House, 2006) free to concentrate on the aspects of Hellman's life that most intrigue her, beginning with her maternal great-grandfather, Isaac Marx. A scrappy German immigrant, he became the first Jew to settle in Demopolis, Alabama, in 1840, where he set up a general store and thrived. On to Hellman herself. Gallagher forthrightly considers the curious connection between Hellman's famously unfettered sexuality and stark lack of beauty (though her figure was alluring, and her style elegant) and analyzes at length her painful relationship with her true love, noir writer Dashiell Hammett. At the peak of his fame, he helped Hellman become an acclaimed playwright (The Children's Hour, The Little Foxes), only to lose his own writerly prowess. Gallagher pounces on and decisively dissects the choicest bits in Hellman's colorful and contrary life of artistic excellence and blinkered radicalism, self-mythologizing and egregious lies, creating a fast-flowing, deeply provocative portrait of a seductive, truculent, and audacious literary powerhouse.--Seaman, Donna Copyright 2010 Booklist
Choice Review
In 1934, when she was 29, Hellman burst onto the cultural scene with the production of her play The Children's Hour, which opened on Broadway to rave reviews. Its subject was scandalous, based on an early-19th-century case of two Scottish teachers accused of lesbianism. During her long career, Hellman had other Broadway hits, a few misses, and recurring involvements in scandals of her own. She became notorious for her political views, including unapologetic sympathy for Stalin, membership in the Communist Party, and defiant testimony before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC). She had a long, tortuous affair with Dashiell Hammett, one among many lovers, but she had few friends. Loyalty and kindness were not Hellman's strong points. Since this biography is part of Yale's "Jewish Lives" series, Gallagher highlights Hellman's well-heeled, secular Jewish upbringing in Alabama; her contemptuous remarks about Jewish movie moguls who cooperated with the HUAC blacklist; and her involvement in a bowdlerized Broadway production of The Diary of Anne Frank. Drawing on four full-scale biographies as well as Hellman's three memoirs, this is a concise and useful overview of a tumultuous life. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower- and upper-division undergraduates; general readers. L. Simon emerita, Skidmore College
Library Journal Review
Selectively culling from extensive secondary sources for details of personal, social, political, and literary elements in Lillian Hellman's life, Gallagher (Hannah's Daughters; All the Right Enemies) emphasizes less admirable aspects of her subject, shading this little biography on the dark side, as Hellman's excessive drinking, angry and duplicitous actions, and "frenetic sexual activity" end in mental and physical deterioration. The author seems to think that Hellman's family origins in the American South in the 1840s disadvantage her by making her unable to identify with the later immigrant Jewish experience. She finds Hellman's dramas The Little Foxes and Another Part of the Forest to be autobiographical revelations of her strong ambivalence about money: desiring it herself, despising its power in others. Hellman's testimony at the McCarthy hearings is presented as more self-preserving than principled. Her longtime significant other Dashiell Hammett gets credit for her crafting of The Children's Hour. Hellman's advice on the scripting of the play The Diary of Anne Frank is credited with creating its universality but changing its meaning, thereby spoiling its Jewishness. VERDICT For fuller, more balanced, and better organized information on this important subject, read instead Deborah Martinson's Lillian Hellman: A Life with Foxes.-Ann Fey, SUNY Rockland Community Coll., Suffern (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
