Just words : Lillian Hellman, Mary McCarthy, and the failure of public conversation in America / Alan Ackerman.
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Includes bibliographical references and index.
Introduction -- Libel and life-writing -- Language lessons -- Words of love -- Choice words and political dramas -- Criticism versus libel -- Conclusion.
In an appearance on The Dick Cavett Show in 1980, the critic Mary McCarthy glibly remarked that every word author Lillian Hellman wrote was a lie, "including 'and' and 'the.'" Hellman immediately filed a libel suit, charging that McCarthy's comment was not a legitimate conversation on public issues but an attack on her reputation. This intriguing book offers a many-faceted examination of Hellman's infamous suit and explores what it tells us about tensions between privacy and self-expression, freedom and restraint in public language, and what can and cannot be said in public in America.
Print version record.
English.