Book Review: A Difficult Woman by Alice Kessler-Harris

Introduction and Biographical Approach

Alice Kessler-Harris places the illustrious life of Lillian Hellman into historical and cultural perspective in A Difficult Woman: The Challenging Life and Times of Lillian Hellman. The book does not follow Hellman's life chronologically from birth to death, but thematically instead. Kessler-Harris almost seems to be using Hellman as a symbol of her times — a window into how America navigated important cultural and political changes. As she states in the introduction, "Hellman's life seems to me to so deeply encapsulate many of the twentieth century's challenges" (Kessler-Harris, 2013, p. 4). Feminism and communism play the most important roles in Hellman's story, as the playwright boldly stood up for the core principles and values that both defined and challenged her country.

The introduction outlines Kessler-Harris's methodology and approach to the biography. It opens with a bold illustration of Hellman posing for an advertisement at age 71, cigarette dangling from her confident, defiant hand. The photograph encapsulates the life — and indeed the times — of Lillian Hellman, and provides a solid introduction to the tone and purpose of the biography. As a historian, Kessler-Harris is most interested in the context of Hellman's career and her popularity: both how that context shaped Hellman's own writing, and how her audiences and critics received and reacted to her work.

Also in the introduction, Kessler-Harris discusses her reasoning for adding yet another biography of Lillian Hellman to an already substantial body of work dedicated to that purpose. She points out that Hellman has been remembered as a "difficult woman" largely because she shunned the conventional norms of her time. The author then asserts her ambitious goal of showing how Hellman represents the dichotomies in American culture itself.

Chapter Organization and Thematic Structure

A Difficult Woman is divided into eleven chapters plus the introduction. After the introduction, the bulk of the book is comprised of what can be considered stand-alone essays, each devoted to a specific subject. This structure departs from the conventions of traditional biography, and the book consequently lacks the narrative flow that readers might expect. Yet the organization of chapters around core concepts ultimately makes sense given Kessler-Harris's purpose: she is less interested in the chronology of Hellman's personal life than in the cultural and historical forces that shaped it.

Chapter One, "Old Fashioned American Traditions," sets the stage by describing the moral climate that characterized New Orleans, where Hellman was from, as well as the less liberal and less progressive parts of the country — particularly the South. Subsequent chapters build on this foundation, exploring different facets of Hellman's identity and public life through the lens of the broader American experience.

Key Themes: Feminism, Communism, and Identity

In Chapter 8, "A Known Communist," Kessler-Harris discusses the widely known fact that Hellman believed in the core tenets of communism and vehemently fought against McCarthyism at a time when communism was framed as fundamentally opposed to American values. Hellman thus came to represent the fight against propaganda and conservatism in America, embodying a form of political courage that made her a controversial and enduring public figure.

Several chapters are devoted to gender norms and roles, and how Hellman consistently eschewed them. In "A Tough Broad" and "A Self-Made Woman," readers learn about how difficult it would have been for a woman to refuse to conform to the normative ideals of a genteel Southern woman. Being Jewish, Hellman also lived at the fringes of mainstream American society — particularly in the often anti-Semitic South. Kessler-Harris devotes a chapter, "An American Jew," to this dimension of Hellman's experience. Several other chapters, including "Liar, Liar" and "The Most Dangerous Hours," show how Hellman's career was characterized by her confidence, her dedication to the arts, and her strong sense of self.

Conclusion

A Difficult Woman lacks the continuous narrative flow that readers might expect from a conventional biography, yet its thematic organization ultimately serves Kessler-Harris's broader historical argument. By treating each chapter as a focused essay on a defining aspect of Hellman's life and era, Kessler-Harris successfully positions Hellman not merely as a fascinating individual, but as a lens through which readers can examine the tensions and contradictions of twentieth-century American culture.

References

Kessler-Harris, A. (2013). A Difficult Woman. New York: Bloomsbury.