A Difficult Woman Read Online Free Page B

than the biographies she never wanted written about her.
    And here, of course, I face my own motives. The distinguished British historian E. P. Thompson once justified a biographical study of William Blake by remarking that while many microstudies of Blake had appeared, and each had added significant particulars to the sum of knowledge about him, it would take a historian to put the parts together, to reveal the sum total. Yet the historian’s is a flawed lens, pretending to an unachievable objectivity. He or she chooses which pieces to use and which to leave aside. Too much has been written about Lillian Hellman to pretend that all the parts can be neatly fitted together. Too much has been shaved and shaded and refigured to know what answers will emerge when the pieces are reconfigured. For the challenge of Lillian Hellman is to see how the female, southern, Jewish, heterosexual playwright—the communist celebrity who modeled mink coats—lived in one body. Our challenge is to understand the relationship between the flesh-and-blood Lillian and the templates made of her. How else to account for her persistent hold on the American imagination?
    In recent years Lillian Hellman has become a Rorschach test for a generation of women and men who lived through some of the most challenging days of America’s history, a lightning rod for the anger, fear, and passion that divided American intellectuals and activists from each other. Perhaps, just perhaps, a new look will enable us to make sense of the obsession with her that will, I suspect, last until the issues she touched have disappeared into historical memory. Let us, then, follow Lillian Hellman through the minefields of the twentieth century. Let us explore how one woman survived its challenges.

Acknowledgments
    It gives me great pleasure to record, finally, my appreciation for the many favors that have come my way during the decade that I’ve been working on this book. The small and large kindnesses that have helped this project along have made researching and writing a genuine pleasure. They constitute a tribute to the community of scholars who I’ve come to love and value. The book began to take shape during a year spent at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies. In Cambridge, Susan Ware prodded me into thinking about what historians might make of Hellman’s life, and a wonderful group of colleagues and friends pushed away the resistance I felt to taking on anything that resembled biography. To Nancy Chodorow, Lizabeth Cohen, Nancy Cott, Gish Jen, and Radcliffe Institute Director Judith Vichniac, thank you. At the National Humanities Center a few years later, I enjoyed the company and the criticism of a distinguished group of colleagues led by Geoffrey Harpham and Ken Mullikin and including Sheryl Kroen, Alex Rosenberg, Bill Sewell, Jan Goldstein, Mimi Kim, Sheryl Kroen, and Sarah Shields. I also benefited from the extraordinary services of a splendid staff.
    The formidable collection of Lillian Hellman’s manuscripts at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas in Austin yielded up its riches under the expert guidance of Richard Workman and with the efficient help of Patricia Fox. I am grateful for their kind assistance, as well as for the efforts of Andi Gustavson and Linda Briscoe Myers in finding andreproducing photographs. At the Tamiment Library Kevyne Baar helped me navigate swiftly through a range of materials. At Stanford University’s Cecil H. Green Library, Polly Armstrong and Sean Quimby were especially helpful. Ruth Milkman, Linda Gordon, and Allen Hunter facilitated visits to Los Angeles and Madison, Wisconsin, respectively. Sal Cline prompted a visit to Hardscrabble Farm and to Katonah, New York. Peter Feibleman provided generous encouragement and a range of introductions.
    I’ve relied on a comfortingly large range of student help over the years, much of it from Columbia’s wonderful undergraduates who