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Sometimes You Have to Lie: The Life and Times of Louise Fitzhugh, Renegade Author of Harriet the Spy
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84/99
Critics
37/99
Readers
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Scholars
77/99
Rating
92/99
Volume
32/99
Rating
42/99
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About This Book
In this inspiring biography, discover the true story of Harriet the Spy author Louise Fitzhugh -- and learn about the woman behind one of literature's most beloved heroines. Harriet the Spy, first published in 1964, has mesmerized generations of readers and launched a million diarists. Its beloved antiheroine, Harriet, is erratic, unsentimental, and endearing-very much like the woman who created her, Louise Fitzhugh. Born in 1928, Fitzhugh was raised in segregated Memphis, but she soon escaped her cloistered world and headed for New York, where her expanded milieu stretched from the lesbian bars of Greenwich Village to the art world of postwar Europe, and her circle of friends included members of the avant-garde like Maurice Sendak and Lorraine Hansberry. Fitzhugh's novels, written in an era of political defiance, are full of resistance: to authority, to conformity, and even -- radically, for a children's author -- to make-believe. As a children's author and a lesbian, Fitzhugh was often pressured to disguise her true nature. Sometimes You Have to Lie tells the story of her hidden life and of the creation of her masterpiece, which remains long after her death as a testament to the complicated relationship between truth, secrecy, and individualism.
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Reviews
"Brody's account of the novel relies heavily on generational analysis; she sees Harriet the Spy as a prototypical Baby Boomer text, a 'countercultural' story that questions authority, and she—like many other critics—presents the novel instrumentally, as a tool that readers can use to do something else with ..."
"Brody's engaging biography reminds us how fragile and serendipitous artistic beginnings can be, yet how mighty and enduring their endings."
"And now, thanks to this superb biography, we have become intimately familiar with its enigmatic and fascinating creator."
"Fitzhugh, who died at age 46 in 1974, was publicity-shy even by the more genteel standards of her day, and her literary executors have remained guarded about releasing her private papers."
"Brody has, in great part, overcome this deficiency through conversations with Fitzhugh's contemporaries, friends, and family."
"In this compelling telling, Brody follows Fitzhugh's life from the brief and tumultuous relationship between her parents to her exploration of her own sexuality, her colorful life in New York City, and her personal struggles."
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