43. An Unfinished Woman: A Memoir by Lillian Hellman

Category: 50 Books

43. An Unfinished Woman: A Memoir by Lillian Hellman

This is one of Lillian Hellman’s autobiographies. She was a writer, a playwright actually, and she lived a hell of a life. She was a bit of a troublemaker, or maybe it was that she happened to be around trouble and had to act accordingly. She seemed to be very brave and ended up in Europe and Russia during WWII as part of the League of American Writers (I think that’s why she was over there. I mean, she wasn’t a war correspondent really, so look, she wasn’t very clear in the book why she was there, okay?) And she was called to testify by the House Un-American Activities Committee, and was then blacklisted as a Communist.

She also talked a little about her life with author Dashiell Hammet. They lived together for about 30 years, but I couldn’t really tell why. I couldn’t tell from her writing if they were just roommates or lovers or if they were each other’s cover for being homosexual or what. On one hand I could tell she had a great affection for him, on the other hand, she wasn’t around a lot of the time. I think I’d like to read a biography on him sometime. How cool was he anyway? A retired Pinkerton detective turned detective story writer. Neat.

One thing I really found interesting is how she thought of herself as being of a different generation than the people who were also big writers at the same time, Dorothy Parker, Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Hemingway. She had great respect for them, but claimed she wasn’t like them and didn’t understand them sometimes. I thought this was really neat because you hear all the time about Postmodern generation, Generation X, Y, whatever, but I rarely hear anything about whatever generation came just right after the Jazz Age or whathaveyou. It gave me something to think about, and I love that.

Anyway, it was an interesting book, but I got the feeling she was really holding back. Also, I was disappointed that she didn’t talk about her plays. Like I said, it really felt as though she was holding back, editing herself. I’ve her other autobiography, Pentimento, and I’m hoping she writes about her work and is more open about her life in that one.

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