Review: Julia

"Julia": A story in Pentimento by Lillian Hellman

Pentimento is a wonderful memoir of recollections written by Lilliam Hellman (1905-1984), the famous playwright and screenwriter.

Each story has a lazy, lyrical quality with characters drawn from her past, including long-time companion Dashiel Hammett (of Maltese Falcon fame). The stories begin in her youth when she "commuted" between New Orleans and New York City, and end in Martha's Vineyard after the death of Hammett.

The most famous story included in the collection is entitled "Julia", later made into a move starring Jane Fonda and Vanessa Redgrave. It recounts how Hellman (a Jew) was recruited by a wealthy (Christian) childhood friend to smuggle a large sum of money into Nazi-Germany. This money was intended to assist in saving Jews and others persecuted by the Nazi regime. The story is a real nail-biter and makes Hellman into an astonishingly brave heroine — indeed almost comparable to Oskar Schindler.

After the book had been published, Mary McCarthy (another well-regarded author whose most popular work is entitled The Group), who personally knew many within Hellman's circle, publicly called her a liar. McCarthy's position was that she knew the real woman portrayed as the heroic childhood friend in the memoir. McCarthy asserted that woman said that she and Hellman had done nothing of the sort and that Hellman had simply made up the story. McCarthy rather acidly stated that Hellman was "a liar, was always lying", and that every word Hellman wrote was a lie "including the 'and' and 'the'". The two women had been on poor terms for around 30 years, dating from a public clash at a poetry reading session both attended at Sarah Lawrence College. Clearly they were still not fond of one another.

On February 15, 1980, a feisty Hellman, not being one to take this sort of thing quietly, promptly sued McCarthy for $2.2 million citing libel. Despite Hellman's fury, many writers rallied to the defense of McCarthy and her right to free speech. The whole mess dragged on for a long period of time with ever mounting legal costs. Fortunately for McCarthy, a friend and heiress picked up her $25,000 legal tab. One wonders if this benefactress might have been the woman so nobly portrayed in Hellman's memoir.

Hellman died in 1984 before the lawsuit came to trial. It was dropped from the courts.

Despite the swirl of controversy and lingering doubts on the veracity of her tales, the collection as beautifully and evocatively written, easily captivating the reader.