Just Words

Lillian Hellman, Mary McCarthy, and the Failure of Public Conversation in America

By: Alan Ackerman

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Paperback | 29 March 2013 | Edition Number 1

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376 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
20.02 x 12.89 x 2.51

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In an appearance on "The Dick Cavett Show" in 1980, the critic Mary McCarthy glibly remarked that every word author Lillian Hellman wrote was a lie, 'including "and" and "the". Hellman immediately filed a libel suit, charging that McCarthy's comment was not a legitimate conversation on public issues but an attack on her reputation. This intriguing book offers a many-faceted examination of Hellman's infamous suit and explores what it tells us about tensions between privacy and self-expression, freedom and restraint in public language, and what can and cannot be said in public in America. "Just Words" uses the dramatic life stories of these women to reflect on America's long-running inability to forge a shared public discourse. Alan Ackerman situates the Hellman-McCarthy case in the history of failed American dialogues from the late 1920s to the present, assembling a spellbinding cast of characters from Whittaker Chambers and Alger Hiss to John Kerry and Swift Boat Veterans for Truth leader John O'Neill. In unraveling the twisted knot of Hellman's dispute with McCarthy, the author considers political, cultural, and literary meanings and delivers a nuanced analysis of the complicated roles of truth and lying in American public life.

Industry Reviews

"Ackerman does an admirable job of tying this case to the great issues of the mid-twentieth century. He uses Hellman and McCarthy as a pretext for fascinating digressions about John Dewey's commission on Leon Trotsky, the history of Latin instruction in America, and the culture's attitude toward abortion in the 1930s."-Franklin Foer, The New Republic

-- Franklin Foer * The New Republic *
"A worthy exploration of the conflicts created when issues of free speech, publicity, and privacy intersect. The book will make a welcome addition to both general academic and law school libraries."-Donna M. Fisher, Law Library Journal -- Donna M. Fisher * Law Library Journal *

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