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When I was 12 years old, I read Harriet the Spy at least a dozen times. I finished it for the first time and immediately turned back to chapter 1 to read it again. I don't think that it was particularly enchanting or exciting compared to other books I enjoyed reading at the time. I believe its subversion attracted me more than anything else.
I wanted to read this biography of Harriet's creator, Louise Fitzhugh, because I had heard about the lesbian subtext in Harriet and wanted to learn more about who this woman was in life. I learned that she was outspoken, unapologetic, quarrelsome, and yes, openly queer even in high school--a big thing for a Memphis society girl in the 40s.
She had a pampered life, tempered by tense family relationships, and lived off an allowance from her father until she was able to fully support herself in her 30s. She moved to New York in her 20s and immediately fell in with the lesbian artist set. Concerned with civil rights, gender equality, and economic disparity, she frequently wove these themes into her work. She considered herself to be a painter first and a writer second, even after she found success in publishing--books were meant to supplement her income so she could paint.
I must say though, she did catch several lucky breaks in publishing. The first was with the immediate sale and success of a satirical children's book, Suzuki Beane, that a friend wrote and she illustrated. This success led to her second piece a luck: a meeting with Ursula Nordstrom, the influential editor of E.B. White, Shel Silverstein, and Laura Ingalls Wilder, among others.
Nordstrom met with Fitzhugh before she even had a draft or outline of Harriet the Spy, and coaxed and coached the story to its final form. Fitzhugh, for her part, was uncharacteristically pliable and open to edits, a posture she refused to take again with subsequent works. The book was an immediate success and got a lot of buzz for its realistic portrayal of children without pushing a big moral lesson.
Her lucky streak continued when a trifecta of events all hit at the same time: in response to the unprecidented number of baby boomer kids entering the public education system, congress freed up funding for tons of new schools and libraries to be built. Nordstrom pounced on this windfall by convincing her publisher to start printing trade paperback editions; prior to this, paperbacks were only for comic books and pulpy genre novels. Libraries, schools, and readers snapped up the more affordable edition of Harriet by the thousands.
Fitzhugh's life was plagued by rocky relationship drama. She always prioritized her work above all else, she was uncompromising and brutally honest with others... ironic that Harriet learns how to successfully navigate relationships with "a little lie" in a way that Fitzhugh never did. This fierce bristling to any sort of perceived slight or criticism made her a nightmare to work with, and she cut off relations with Nordstrom in spite of Nordstrom's tireless efforts to get material, any sort of material, out of Fitzhugh to be published. She cycled through various lovers and other personal relationships until her sudden death at the age of 46.
I liked how this book filled out the scenery of NYC in the 50s and 60s--what people were reading, wearing, and drinking; gossip and politics. It is a fair look at Fitzhugh's life. She was a bold personality, but I guess it's easy to be brash when you are wealthy enough to afford to.
I wanted to read this biography of Harriet's creator, Louise Fitzhugh, because I had heard about the lesbian subtext in Harriet and wanted to learn more about who this woman was in life. I learned that she was outspoken, unapologetic, quarrelsome, and yes, openly queer even in high school--a big thing for a Memphis society girl in the 40s.
She had a pampered life, tempered by tense family relationships, and lived off an allowance from her father until she was able to fully support herself in her 30s. She moved to New York in her 20s and immediately fell in with the lesbian artist set. Concerned with civil rights, gender equality, and economic disparity, she frequently wove these themes into her work. She considered herself to be a painter first and a writer second, even after she found success in publishing--books were meant to supplement her income so she could paint.
I must say though, she did catch several lucky breaks in publishing. The first was with the immediate sale and success of a satirical children's book, Suzuki Beane, that a friend wrote and she illustrated. This success led to her second piece a luck: a meeting with Ursula Nordstrom, the influential editor of E.B. White, Shel Silverstein, and Laura Ingalls Wilder, among others.
Nordstrom met with Fitzhugh before she even had a draft or outline of Harriet the Spy, and coaxed and coached the story to its final form. Fitzhugh, for her part, was uncharacteristically pliable and open to edits, a posture she refused to take again with subsequent works. The book was an immediate success and got a lot of buzz for its realistic portrayal of children without pushing a big moral lesson.
Her lucky streak continued when a trifecta of events all hit at the same time: in response to the unprecidented number of baby boomer kids entering the public education system, congress freed up funding for tons of new schools and libraries to be built. Nordstrom pounced on this windfall by convincing her publisher to start printing trade paperback editions; prior to this, paperbacks were only for comic books and pulpy genre novels. Libraries, schools, and readers snapped up the more affordable edition of Harriet by the thousands.
Fitzhugh's life was plagued by rocky relationship drama. She always prioritized her work above all else, she was uncompromising and brutally honest with others... ironic that Harriet learns how to successfully navigate relationships with "a little lie" in a way that Fitzhugh never did. This fierce bristling to any sort of perceived slight or criticism made her a nightmare to work with, and she cut off relations with Nordstrom in spite of Nordstrom's tireless efforts to get material, any sort of material, out of Fitzhugh to be published. She cycled through various lovers and other personal relationships until her sudden death at the age of 46.
I liked how this book filled out the scenery of NYC in the 50s and 60s--what people were reading, wearing, and drinking; gossip and politics. It is a fair look at Fitzhugh's life. She was a bold personality, but I guess it's easy to be brash when you are wealthy enough to afford to.