1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910456642803321

Autore

Ackerman Alan L (Alan Louis)

Titolo

Just words [[electronic resource] ] : Lillian Hellman, Mary McCarthy, and the failure of public conversation in America / / Alan Ackerman

Pubbl/distr/stampa

New Haven, : Yale University Press, c2011

ISBN

1-283-15061-1

9786613150615

0-300-17180-3

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (1 online resource (xi, 361 p.) ) : ports

Disciplina

346.73/034

Soggetti

Trials (Libel) - New York (State) - New York - History - 20th century

Television talk shows - Political aspects - United States

Libel and slander - United States - History - 20th century

Freedom of speech - United States - History - 20th century

Politics and literature - United States - History - 20th century

Electronic books.

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. 305-341) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- I. Libel and Life- Writing -- II. Language Lessons -- III. Words of Love -- IV. Choice Words and Political Dramas -- V. Criticism versus Libel -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

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.