Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell Is This? by Marion Meade
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Book Reviews of Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell Is This?
Book Review: No Love for Lillian
Summary: 2 Stars
As mentioned previously, there is no cohesion in this book. The author arranges her tale in chronological chapters, but there is no order within any individual chapter. For example, she examines things that happened in 1945 before mentioning events that took place in 1939. This would be forgivable if there were any sense of drama to the proceedings - but there is none. Just anecdote after anecdote strung together like birds on a wire.
I hope it's this lackluster, anemic presentation that made me dislike Dorothy as the book ground on. Some attention is given to her politics, but much more of the book is focused on her love affairs, her dogs, her husbands, her inability to save money. She was a flawed woman, but the author presents her flaws without any attempt to get us to understand Parker.
Overall, this book was about 100 pages too long, written in a competent but bland style that presents facts instead of personality. Strangely, the only time Meade dropped her even-handed, respectful tone was in talking about Lillian Hellman. She writes about the actress with barely concealed contempt, as if Hellman had personally injured her. Maybe Meade should have written Hellman's bio, instead... she'd probably have brought more passion to the table.