![]() ![]() According to Brody, he saw Bard as a escape from the distractions of New York society. Merrill, her faculty adviser, already was an acclaimed formalist poet. She hated everything about the South: her father and stepmother, who had lied that her real mother was dead the social niceties of her upper-class upbringing and the immorality of the Jim Crow laws. She'd already had a one-day marriage with a high school sweetheart and a love affair with a woman. When Fitzhugh met Merrill, she was a student at Bard College trying to escape her stultifying hometown of Memphis. In fact, Fitzhugh left behind few letters and no diary, prompting Brody to turn to the estate of poet James Merrill of Stonington - one of the few people with whom she regularly corresponded. She refused to go on book tours and maintained a Salinger-like seclusion until her death in 1974. In this new biography, Leslie Brody turns the tables on Harriet's creator, Louise Fitzhugh, who never set out to be a children's author. The author's name may not be familiar, but her most famous character is: “Harriet the Spy” has been worming her way into grade-schoolers' hearts since her snooping adventures debuted in 1964. “Sometimes You Have to Lie: The Life and Times of Louise Fitzhugh, Renegade Author of Harriet the Spy,” by Leslie Brody (Seal Press), $30. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |