Dangerous Ambition: Rebecca West and Dorothy Thompson: New Women in Search of Love and Power

by Susan Hertog

Born in the 1890s on opposite sides of the Atlantic, friends for more than forty years, Dorothy Thompson and Rebecca West lived strikingly parallel lives that placed them at the center of the social and historical upheavals of the twentieth century. In Dangerous Ambition, Susan Hertog chronicles the separate but intertwined journeys of these two remarkable women writers, who achieved unprecedented fame and influence at tremendous personal cost.
 
American Dorothy Thompson was the first female head of a European news bureau, a columnist and commentator with a tremendous following whom Time magazine once ranked alongside Eleanor Roosevelt as the most influential woman in America. Rebecca West, an Englishwoman at home wherever genius was spoken, blazed a trail for herself as a journalist, literary critic, novelist, and historian. In a prefeminist era when speaking truth to power could get anyone—of either gender—ostracized, blacklisted, or worse, these two smart, self-made women were among the first to warn the world about the dangers posed by fascism, communism, and appeasement.
 
But there was a price to be paid, Hertog shows, for any woman aspiring to such greatness. As much as they sought voice and power in the public forum of opinion and ideas, and the independence of mind and money that came with them, Thompson and West craved the comforts of marriage and home. Torn between convention and the opportunities of the new postwar global world, they were drawn to men who were as ambitious and hungry for love as Thompson to the brilliant, volatile, and alcoholic Nobel Prize winner Sinclair Lewis; West to her longtime lover H. G. Wells, the lusty literary eminence whose sexual and emotional demands doomed any chance they may have had at love. Tragically, both arrangements produced troubled sons, whose anger and jealousy at their mothers’ iconic fame eroded their sense of personal success.
 
Brimming with fresh insights obtained from previously sealed archives, this penetrating dual biography is a story of twinned lives caught up in the crosscurrents of world events and affairs of the heart—and of the unique trans-Atlantic friendship forged by two of the most creative and complex women of their time.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, History, Feminism, War, Womens, World War II

512 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2011

Reviews

[Carol · Rating 1 out of 5]

Reading this book was a strange experience.

I found a reference to Dorothy Thompson in my reading: the first woman to hold down a foreign news desk in the 1930s; a tremendously popular journalist, who, at the height of her fame, had a widely popular column and a radio program. I wanted to know more. I ordered this book from the library, glad to find a biography written by a woman; combining it with a biography of Rebecca West seemed like a bonus at the time, as she is another author that I'd heard of, and would have liked to know more about.

At first I thought the author combined the two writers because she didn't have enough material on either of them to fill an entire book. The method that she used to tell these women's stories is unfortunate: first we hear of the childhood and father-abandonment of one, and then the other. Then the youth and education of one, and then the other. Then the first sexual relationship of one, and then the other . . . If I think of one or the other, I then have to untangle the two: is she the one whose mother died of a miscarriage, or the one whose father left them, or wait, was that still the first one? Intertwining them like that is not a good way to teach the information to the audience.

I found the book difficult to read because it is mired in minutiae. Then I studied what the author was doing more carefully, and became enthralled. I entered into a love-hate relationship with this book. I noticed that whenever one of the subjects had a success, or a good time, it was followed by the author bringing them crashing down and accusing them (it seems on very little evidence) of great emotional crimes.

And then I figured it out. Both of these women had children that the author is accusing them of "abandoning" in favor of their careers. And every time something good happens to them, the author lambasts them endlessly for the emotional torture and wasteland they created by their selfishness and inability to form a relationship. Over and over and over again! Hence the title, "Dangerous Ambition." Women mustn't have ambitions because it is dangerous for the children!!!

The book was informative. But it was like reading a biography written by Gossip Girl for the National Enquirer: Writer abandons baby because she needs to earn money! Writer cannot hold a relationship because she is emotionally sterile!

But if you just look at the facts, these two women did the best they could. And there is fascinating information in this book.

Rebecca West was one of the serial love slaves of H.G. Wells. I didn't know H.G. Wells had serial love slaves, but lo, he did! Rebecca had a child by him, future author Anthony West, and when Wells didn't give her enough money to support herself, she put the child in daycare and went to earn a living for them both. And for that crime, the author, and Anthony, never, ever forgives her, for over four hundred pages, and paragraph after paragraph of vicious accusation and judgment.

Anthony's most famous novel is the thinly disguised autobiography where he accuses his mother of the same sin. Not his father, however, who kept Rebecca as his mistress for ten years before dropping her for another woman, thus banishing her from respectable society (Anthony was born before World War One). So, Anthony seems to have gotten a lot of mileage out of it.

Rebecca West -- no, wait, the other one, Dorothy Thompson -- married Sinclair Lewis, the Nobel-Prize winning novelist. The information on why Lewis won the Nobel Prize, and what it did to him was interesting. Blaming Dorothy's selfish ambition for the failure of their marriage is absurd, since the man was already a black-out alcoholic when they met, and abusive besides. Her crimes against their son Michael, by continuing with her career after he was born, are enumerated unendingly and damningly in the book, over and over and over again.

A much more likely -- or at least an equal influence -- on the travails of these two women's sons, is not their mother's ambitions, but the fact that they were children of two toweringly famous men. The sons of famous men often have trouble with their identities. How convenient to blame such problems on their mothers!

The message of this book is obvious. Women must sacrifice their lives to their families, to serve as their husband's support, and their children's servants. The idea is ridiculous. For one thing, West bore her and Well's son at a time when everyone who could afford one had a nanny, a nursery maid, a governess, and the children were brought down for inspection at tea time, sent away to boarding school at the age of seven, and one way or another sequestered until old enough to join the adults in company. So to make a crime of her putting Anthony into care is to judge her behavior a hundred years ago by sensibilities of a later time.

And if we're going to be judging these people by today's sensibilities, then the fathers are equally responsible for the upbringing of the children, both financially and emotionally. Yet there are no accusations against them in this book.

I finished this book over several months in small bites because, while I was enjoying reading of these women's accomplishments, I became exhausted by the author's continuously reviling them. She seems to have mined every letter, note, and diary entry over several continents in order to find every scurrilous mention ever made of either of them. A number of these quotes at introduced verbatim, where the writer is so marginally a part of the story that they have never appeared in it before and never appear again, so who cares what they think? The author only cares if it's nasty. A number of her conclusions about the women's motivations and feelings seem entirely unsupported, as well.

So, I would suggest, if you want to know about these two women, that you find a biography of each of them. It's going to be years before I manage to untangle these two fascinating, gifted, hard-working and, yes, ambitious writers.

And then you don't need to swallow, with the information, the bile of a writer who, one might guess, put aside her own ambitions to raise her children, and now resents the loss of time, and any woman who did not.

While I was waiting for this book to arrive, I watched the movie that was made in the 1940s about Dorothy Thompson, starring Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. In this iteration, Thompson, the multi-lingual, highly sophisticated and knowledgeable columnist and radio star, meets and falls in love with Spencer Tracy, who writes . . . a sports column. After falling in love, he sulks about her trendy gatherings, he sulks about her busy schedule, he sulks about her high-flying career, and tries to introduce her to the merits of . . . baseball. Katherine Hepburn (no, not Thompson anymore) amuses us with her attempts to learn to cook for him. In the end, she gives up her snazzy apartment and goes to live at his place, and gives up her career because serving the emotional needs of a sports columnist is more important than the insights of an important writer and journalist on the events in Eastern European at the advent of World War II, her beat, and the area of her expertise. Yes, that was pretty annoying. But it was seventy years ago, and the author of Dangerous Ambition darn well ought to know better!

[Jenny Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is one of those biographies that leaves you quivering with contempt for its subjects.

Though this group biography is obviously the product of much labor and research, the author can't get out of her own way and mars her narration by continually telling us what we are supposed to think about her subjects rather than painting scenes and giving us the information we need to draw our own conclusions.

I'd read the Glendenning bio of Rebecca West, and loved The Fountain Overflows, one of West's novels, so I was saddened by the portrait she paints of West as a hugely narcissistic, snobbish, self-involved person whose style of mothering is summed up by the fact that she sent her son away to boarding school at the age of three.

Thompson, a famed journalist, is also portrayed as a toxic mother who despite her anti-fascist stance before WWII disgraced herself by dedicating her later years to actively promoting an anti-semitic, racist agenda.

I have to wonder if either woman was as selfish, destructive, and repellent as she is painted here. The focus on these women's failure to mother well and their mediocre marriages is not balanced with much insight into what it is about their writings that made them huge public figures in an age where most women lived very private lives.

One feels like the unstated theme of this book is that women can't have it all--and that attempting to have a career requires fatally damaging one's children and alienating one's spouse, which is belied by the lives of other women active in the same time period who managed to write or report and lead reasonably normal family lives.

All in all this was a very unsatisfying read for me, which given my usual soothsaying ability means it will probably be nominated for some major award. Most biographies I dislike are.

[Richard Jespers · Rating 5 out of 5]

Both West and Thompson were born in the early 1890s, same as my grandmothers, but neither one of my grandmothers lived even a tenth of the excitement that these women did. Yet my grandmothers had something that perhaps these two women didn’t: men who loved them and stayed with them a life time. Rebecca West, British and Dorothy Thompson, American, were both writers and became fast friends. Early on West was married to H. G. Wells and gave birth to his son, but the marriage did not last. Though West did remain with another man for over thirty years, in the end it was not a satisfying relationship. Dorothy was married to Sinclair Lewis, and though she was thrilled by his career and lived in support of it, she didn’t receive exactly the same enthusiasm in return for her award-winning work. Both women gave birth to a son, both of whom would be troubled largely, they said, because their mothers pushed them away in favor of their careers. West’s son would go as far as to profile his mother in a novel that she did not sanction. They never spoke after its publication. Hertog does a fine job of comparing and contrasting the women’s lives by way of alternating chapters. Even better is her assessment of the place these women hold in literary history, plowing the way for women of succeeding generations. They must never forget, never.

Some nuggets from the book:

“Perhaps it seems facile to connect her loss of H. G. to the abrupt abandonment by her father, but Rebecca would always espouse Freud’s theory of unconscious responses that fan out from a traumatic core connecting one’s past to one’s present” (41).

West’s “female protagonist concludes that ‘Every mother is a judge who sentences the children for the sins of the father’” (79).

West said, “‘I love America and I loathe it.’ She loved its land, lakes, and rivers but loathed its phony materialist culture” (88). Hmmm.

“Rebecca refused to say ‘obey’ as part of her marriage covenant, and Henry, perhaps at her behest, substituted ‘share’ for ‘endow’ when he pledged his bride his worldly goods” (129).

“To deride was to deflect vulnerability. To write was to wield power and control. From ten in the morning until one in the afternoon, Rebecca sat in her study with a series of writing tablets, one designated for each draft of her book and a pen to suit each stage of its evolution” (174).

Dorothy “was convinced that ‘every worker needed a wife’” (204).

“‘The whole nation lived on futures, mortgaging tomorrow’s wages for today’s automobile or radio and the feverish turnover of goods was called prosperity,’ she wrote. ‘Our finest cities are disfigured by dark, unhealthy, crime-breeding slums. We admire success and are callous to achievement’” (239). Who, even today, could argue with Thompson?

“Like Rebecca, Dorothy was deemed an androgynous creature, with ‘masculine’ tastes and ambitions. Out of sync with their time, yet deeply, longingly feminine, neither knew how to be a woman” (260).

“Rebecca and Dorothy were delusory when it came to love. They projected idealized stereotypes onto their men, and demanded more of them than any man could fulfill. Given their emotional deprivation as children, and their impulse toward social legitimacy, there was no amount of piety for Dorothy, or psychoanalysis for Rebecca, that could compensate for the emotional damage they caused and incurred. And the men they chose—Joseph Bard, Sinclair Lewis, H. G. Wells, and Henry Andrews—were equally crippled” (434).

Hertog’s selected bibliography includes West’s and Thompson’s work, if one should choose to read their works. I read West’s The Fountain Overflows because Jane Smiley included it in her Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel.

This Kindle edition had at least a couple of typos: “gossping” and “lattter.” I wonder if the same typos can be found in the print edition.

[Dimity · Rating 3 out of 5]

I won this biography from First Reads and was really jazzed that I did because biographies and memoirs about/by interesting women are a favorite of mine. I have to admit that although I’d heard of both subjects, I really didn’t know anything about either woman. Susan Hertog relates the two women’s friendship and similar life trajectories to write this joint biography of two female writers who pushed the boundaries of twentieth century womanhood in their professional lives. Hertog juxtaposes West’s and Thompson’s widely known public lives with their often fruitless search for love, painting a complex picture of two extraordinary women.

The first chapter didn’t bode well for me; I was turned off by Hertog’s weird, overly detailed recounting of the party where the women met. I was relieved that the rest of the book was written in a more traditional biographical style. Although I generally enjoyed this book’s prose and flow, I found its structure to be clumsy and almost jarring at times as a reader. It alternates chapters between Rebecca and Dorothy; for example one chapter will be about Rebecca’s life from 1941-1945 and the next will explore Dorothy’s life from 1939-1942. It generally wouldn’t be a big deal but as there are some important contextual events happening (WWII anyone?) it was somewhat disconcerting to read about VE Day in one chapter to be hustled back to the beginning of the war in the next. Also it was rather annoying to read about an important event in one woman’s life in the other woman’s chapter before it had happened in the first woman’s storyline.

I think the whole premise of the biography as a joint work was a little flawed as well. I finished the book with the impression that the two women held a casual friendship rekindled at several points in their life, but no enduring relationship was apparent to me. I would expect such a detailed joint biography to be about two people who were closer than Dorothy and Rebecca seemed to be. I was also surprised that I didn’t find either woman particularly likable. Generally when I read a biography, I’m left with a sense of connection to the person profiled but I didn’t feel that same spark in this book. Perhaps Hertog was too brutally honest addressing their flaws; Dorothy’s obsessive career focus and Rebecca’s self-pity annoyed me.

I was fascinated by the chapters that covered WWII. Both women, (probably Dorothy more so) were profoundly affected by the events that led up to and followed WWII. Rebecca and Dorothy endured personal hardships as loved ones were lost and were also professionally and intellectually inspired and challenged by the war’s horrors. I think WWII was the defining world event for Dorothy, not just because she experienced the peak of her popularity through her wartime columns but because so much of her worldview was stretched by the war.

This duo both led fascinating lives but Hertog pays equal attention to their private lives, and the more mundane events were just as compelling to read. The two women both lost parents young and this seemed to affect them profoundly in their adult lives as they relentlessly searched for companions (famous and unknown) who truly understood them.

I can see Dangerous Ambition having wide appeal among those with an interest in Rebecca West or Dorothy Thompson, but it’s also an interesting read for people like who started the book without much knowledge of either woman and a fondness for biography and outspoken women.

[JoLynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I won this book through the Goodreads Fist Reads Program.

This book asks the question - Can one have everything? Everything being a satisfying career, fame, and a loving well-adjusted family? Well, the short answer for Rebecca West and Dorothy Thompson, two towering figures of the literary/political scene of the first half of the twentieth century was no.

This parallel biography of West and Thompson will be fascinating to readers interested in the lives of these two particular women. Both women had long-term associations with other literary titans, in West's case as the mistress of HG Wells, and in Thompson's case, as the wife of Sinclair Lewis. Both women had sons from these relationships. Both women had lost one parent at a very young age.

West and Thompson struggled to fit into 'traditional' roles for women for most of their lives, while refusing to give up their quest for successful and important careers. They were definitely pioneers in women's ongoing pursuit of balancing both career and home life. Only Thompson ultimately found a partner in her third husband who was supportive of both her career and her troubled son, but by then Thompson's career was in definite decline. Also telling was the fact that both West's and Thompson's sons blamed their problems much more on their mothers than on their famous and even more distant fathers.

The book is full of personalities and historical details especially from the period from WWI to WWII. If you have an interest in the literary/political scene from this time period, or women's issues, Dangerous Ambition is a worthwhile read.

[Lesley]

Okay, I might learn something new about Dorothy Thompson if I persisted with this book, in spite of the author's annoying narrative style and somewhat scattershot approach to the correct word (surely aspirant journos write 'on spec' not 'on space') but it's not giving me anything fresh about Rebbecca West, while I just cannot stand the emphasis on their turbulent sexual and romantic relationships with men rather than their work, the complete neglect (at least in West's case) of her many, many relationships of friendship over decades with women and men (mentioned in passing but not much more), and the idea that they were 'damaged' and pathological. I fear that I discovered, flipping forward to the epilogue, that the author says;
within the context of contemporary gender stereotypes, neither... knew how to be a woman.... they were more like men.
and decided, no, I was not going to go back to where I was and read forward.

That somebody could write this in 2011 and blame the women rather than problematising their predicament as Smart, ambitious and driven to succeed women in a largely hostile world... oh, dear.

This is not a book to be lightly set aside.

[Valorie Hallinan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked the book. However, the author's thinking was in some respects black and white regarding the motivations and personalities of Rebecca West and Dorothy Thompson, especially in terms of how their marriages and romantic attachments (choices and outcomes) were affected by difficult childhoods and troubled parents.
A lot of reference to Freud's theories. I may be misreading the author, but I detected a judgmental tone, as if to say, look at how foolish these women were to become involved with the men they did, they were self-deluded. On the other hand, the author does highlight West's conclusions as she got older that they couldn't help themselves, they were powerless against Eros; they and their partners were egotistical, emotionally needy geniuses. Women have come a long way, but I still see the same dynamics in male/female relationships. This is a powerful story about two brilliant women and how their intellects, power, and influence - in those days - seemed to preclude them having happy home and family lives.

[Margie Cady · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mostly disappointed

While their were fascinating portions of this book, I had to force myself to finish it. There weren't enough links between Rebecca, Dorothy, and the historical times in which they lived. Instead, there was way too much personal drama, portraying these authors as narcissistic and bitter. Perhaps they were, but these tedious portrayals overshadowed their talents.

[Lois · Rating 5 out of 5]

In her unassuming introduction to this biography of two noted women writers who were both born in the late Victorian era, Susan Hertog expresses the temerity that she felt in assuming to dare attempt to portray the similarities and differences between two outstanding women of their day who both felt compelled to confront the pressing issues of the societies in which they lived. The two women concerned are the famed American journalist and radio broadcaster Dorothy Thompson, revealed in full throttle both in America and as the first female head of a news bureau permanently stationed in Berlin, and the strongly anti-fascist and profoundly humanitarian (ultimately Dame) Rebecca West, who played such an important role both in the UK and on the European continent. Biography, Hertog acknowledges, “is a fascinating game that requires intense and far-ranging research from a myriad of vantage points, the discerning of patterns, and the synthesizing of the chaos of experience into a comprehensible, meaningful, and entertaining narrative that captures the essence of an individual.” That she does a remarkably fine job of it is, no doubt at least in part, due to her ability to flesh out the lives of the two women, making them accessible to the average reader in their roles as friends, lovers and wives, in addition to that of being great intellectual pioneers and insightful societal analysts of the first half of the twentieth century.

As Hertog states, “[t]o understand these women and their men in the context of the social and political forces that determined the thrust and contour of their lives, and to draw lessons relevant to our lives and times, is the end toward which I have written this book.” Hertog’s firm academic grounding in an M.F.A. from Columbia University, as well as her previous authorship of the biography Anne Morrow Lindbergh: Her Life have both put her in good stead for writing such an ambitious and thoroughly well-researched book as this, to which she appends over 430 endnotes and 10 densely packed pages of selected bibliography. The text is, in addition, illustrated with numerous black-and-white photographs that provide empathetic insight into the lives of both Thompson and West.

Hertog’s affinity for her subject has enabled her to condense six years of research into a work that does her subject proud, and in which she is able, from the perspective of a woman who takes great care in her own writing to attain accuracy and meaningful insight, to provide an in-depth analysis of these two great intellectuals. The liveliness of Hertog’s spirited writing can clearly be seen in her vivid use of imagery throughout the text, which is enhanced by the authors’ own metaphoric bent. Witness, for example, her retelling of how Thompson once revealed to a friend that, prior to meeting and marrying the expatriate writer Joseph Bard, “she had lived the solitary life of a wildcat, ready to pounce on the next big story, scavenge a revolution, and feed on the carcasses of people and events.”

This lively account of two women, who, despite being separated by geographical distance, were so much alike in their undaunted spirit and in their conscientious probing of human rights issues, should find a ready audience among all who are interested in, and concerned with, both contemporary and historical women’s issues.

[Jillean McClory · Rating 5 out of 5]

These two self made women were powerhouses. Strong voices when it was unfashionable. They stepped out pre-feminism adding their views on communism, fascism, and appeasement. Hertog shows that success comes at a cost but that is true of anyone who commits to their goals. It doesn’t detract from what these women accomplished.

One story that stood out - Dorothy Thompson impressive observations of Hitler. In preparation of her interview with him she attends one his gatherings and it gave me goosebumps. Highly recommend. It is because of women like West and Thompson that made me realize as a kid that just because society acts like an asshole - marginalizing women’s capabilities and contributions - didn’t make it so - I am only behind the eight ball if I put myself there.

[Val · Rating 2 out of 5]

As noted by other readers, the split subject viewpoint is difficult to navigate because Hertog does not employ strong cues that you are entering a different subject. She simply changes chapters. It's jarring; you don't realize she's jumped to another subject until you've taken a dive into the text. You have to work at it; back up and re-read, flipping back and forth to reset your focus.

Hertog's writing is stylistically elegant; her treatment of her subjects is less than objective and lacks grace. She draws conclusions on these two brilliant women's relationships without supplying the support a reader needs to believe. It's just bad craftsmanship.

[False · Rating 4 out of 5]

A study of two women, mutual friends, and their time and place in American and British history. The struggles in finding love, supporting family and seeking fame and creative satisfaction in their work. In the end, the author has to admit, this continues to be a struggle for all women and we can only hope as the generations advance that greater balance is achieved. Excellent study on both women and their work and their loves.

[Hugh Benson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I want to learn more about them. I want to read more about and by them. I have never read any Rebecca West. I hope to soon.

[Tracy Towley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I won Dangerous Ambition through the Goodreads First Read program, and overall I'm glad I did. This was a fascinating and extensively researched biography of two very intriguing women.

I didn't know much about either Rebecca West or Dorothy Thompson, but I do believe that this book gave me a comprehensive overview of their good and bad qualities. It's true that neither woman came off as a completely likeable person, but I didn't find this to detract from the appeal of the book. In fact, I enjoyed it all the more because the author clearly held nothing back.

Both women lead dynamic lives, especially considering the time periods in which they lived. Dorothy was an accomplished journalist. In fact, she was the first reporter to be granted an interview with Adolf Hitler, and was likewise the first reporter expelled from Germany, after she questioned his manhood, breeding and mental stability.

Rebecca was extremely prolific, and wrote dozens upon dozens of critiques. She was of the opinion that her female contemporaries were writing the best work, and that the 'establishment' deemed their work as 'minor fiction'.

Of course much of this book centers around the love lives of these women, which I wasn't particularly looking forward to - until I discovered that Dorothy was married to Sinclair Lewis, and that Rebecca had a long-term affair and child with H.G. Wells. The look into the lives of these accomplished authors was quite interesting in its own right, especially as the book followed their successes and falls from grace.

I expected there to be more overlap between Rebecca and Dorothy's lives, and I expected that they would be very good friends. As it turned out, while there did seem to be an awful lot of coincidences in their lives, they weren't really close friends. I thought the dual biography setup was interesting, unique and ultimately successful, though it didn't turn out the way I expected it to.

Of course, the book wasn't perfect, and my main issue was the way it jumped around in time. One chapter would cover one woman's life in 1930, and the next would jump to the other woman's life in 1915. There didn't seem to be a method behind the jumping, and it got especially jarring when while reading a chapter about one women, there would be a mention of something that happened to the other - only we hadn't gotten to that chapter yet.

Overall, this book was jam-packed with information, and was extremely detail rich and really immersed me in the world of these women. At the same time, it was quite accessible and I would highly recommend it to anyone who's interested in feminist literature, literary history, or simply a thought provoking biography.

[Selena · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dangerous Ambition, a dual biography written by Susan Hertog, examines the inner lives of Rebecca West and Dorothy Thompson as they rise to world-wide fame. Though these women are to be held responsible for their behaviors and actions, Hertog explains that they should still have a chance to be understood. There is no doubt that the author has a way with words, but her false views of Christianity and lack of discretion have forced my hand to find a poor view of her book.

Hertog's false views of Christianity is one reason why I did not like this book. After reading the first few chapters of the book, I started to notice a worldly view of Christianity. Though it was not written in plain sight, the subtle hints could be read between the lines. One such hint could be seen through the following statement: "This legend becomes the basis of Rebecca's recurring condemnation of salvation through sacrifice, slashing Christianity at its core.(Pg.184)" While we do give God a sacrifice of praise, she expresses the idea as though we torture ourselves to please God (of which we know is the opposite). Another similar statement could be seen on page one eighty-five. After typing a quote from Ms. West saying Christianity was "a huge and dirty lie," Hertog agreed, stating "it bathed infertility in sin and motherhood in the slime of gratuitous violence." It was this kind of misguided thinking that was laced throughout the book.

A lack of discretion was another reason why I did not like this book. The explicit words, sexual descriptions, and details of various encounters included in this book has led me to believe that a warning on the front cover would be highly advised. The worst part, if not that such content would be allowed, is that the author's disagreement with what happened was outweighed by the lie that such actions led them to where they needed to be. Though it is not advised that these be read, some such instances and thoughts can be found on page 29-30, 31-36, 39-40, 67-68, 72, 93, 175, and 199.

My poor view of Dangerous Ambition was made due to Hertog's false views of Christianity and her lack of discretion. I definitely do not recommend this book, nor will I ever recommend this to anyone. It should not be read by any age group, nor should it be read by a Christian. Though it may have sounded harsh, please keep in mind that my brutal review has only been made to protect others from making the same mistake that I did.

[Jen's Book Den · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dangerous Ambition: Rebecca West and Dorothy Thompson, New Women in Search of Love and Power by Susan Hertog is an exhaustive biography and account of the lives of these two women, who were also friends with lives that often times paralleled each other.

I did not know much about West and Thompson when I started reading this book, but was amazed at the significant role these women played in history as well as the literary figures that were amongst their circle of friends. I found it interesting that Dorothy Thompson had a good friend named Rose Wilder Lane, as I grew up reading many novels written by her mother Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Dorothy Thompson was the first woman to head a European news bureau and had worked as a columnist and journalist with a significant following, making her extremely influential. As was her counterpart, Rebecca West, a notable English literary critic, journalist, novelist and historian. Both of whom exhibited tremendous ambition, achieving legacy status in the male dominated fields in which they strived to excel.

Their ambitious desires often drove them to seek similarly ambitious men. Dorothy Thompson and her relationship with author Sinclair Lewis and Rebecca West and her love affair with H.G. Wells, both of which resulted in the birth of troubled sons. When reading about the lives of these women, it is obvious that to achieve what they had achieved, not only involved significant sacrifice, but was obtained at great cost as well. Both women had turbulent and toilsome personal lives, including their relationships with the men they were drawn to.

Hertog presents an impeccable and well developed timeline of events outlining the lives of these women, the effect they have had on the intellectual women of today, and the price each of them paid to attain their mark in history as the ambitious and successful women of their day. A very insightful read.

[Kate Lawrence · Rating 4 out of 5]

West and Thompson were internationally known and respected writers in the mid-20th century whose lives were similar, in that both dared to step outside the conventional roles for women at the time. Thompson was the first female head of a European news bureau and a political commentator whose columns were followed by prominent policymakers including Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. Sought after as a lecturer, her speaking fee in the 1940's was $7,000! West, author of 25 books, was a reporter at the Nuremberg Trials, a novelist, journalist, and memoirist whose honors included both the French Legion of Honor and Dame Commander of the British Empire. Yet their careers had another similarity: a high price paid in their personal lives. Although both dreamed of a happy marriage and home, career demands and frequent travel meant they had little time to devote to husbands and children. West's relationship with H.G. Wells and Thompson's with Sinclair Lewis each produced a talented son, but family life was fraught with decades of misunderstanding, meanness, and anguish. I was interested to see the extent to which highly-developed communication skills in print do NOT translate into clear communication with family members. It was also fascinating to see how reaching even the highest levels of acclaim may not bring happiness and confidence; e.g. Sinclair Lewis, even after winning the Nobel Prize for Literature, could still be jealous of Dorothy's success and powerless against his own alcoholism.
Highly recommended for anyone interested in women's history and/or the writing life.

[Jaylia3 · Rating 4 out of 5]

A dual biography was an inspired but not completely successful choice for this book on Rebecca West and Dorothy Thompson, two talented, fascinating and flawed women who lived and wrote in the early and middle part of the last century. For one thing, British Rebecca and American Dorothy were longtime friends, and in many ways their lives of ran parallel. Both had broken homes as children, Dorothy because of her mother’s death and Rebecca because of her father’s desertion, both wrote articles and books analyzing the world situation in the time surrounding the world wars, both had sons by famous men, Rebecca had an affair with H.G. Wells when she was very young and Dorothy married Noble Prize winning author Sinclair Lewis, and both women had severely strained relationships with those sons, in part because as early career women they had little idea and no models for balancing career, love and family. I was moved and intrigued by Dangerous Ambition, and it sent me on a quest for other books by and about her subjects, but covering two women meant that the author had to go back and forth in time which was sometimes befuddled the narrative. Also there is a little more speculation than I feel comfortable with; “One would imagine . . .,” and similar phrasings are not uncommon, and they proceed conjectures about circumstances or inner thoughts that the author must have no documentation for. Still, on the whole I greatly enjoyed the unique perspective of this book about two intelligent, driven, influential women that I had known almost nothing about.

[Irina · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an exceptional book. It is well researched, very informative about not only the lives of Dorothy Thompson and Rebecca West, but also of the times. Ms. Hertog did an excellent job covering numerous aspects of both subjects' careers and various nuances of their complex personal relationships. It really felt like I am reading the complete story. The author relays the tough choices a woman had to make to have a successful career very well. In addition, the book reads easily and is very enjoyable. I picked this book because it was well reviewed by the Economist and I was not sure I liked it after the first 50 pages, but something in it made me keep reading and I am glad I did. No doubt this book is longer than some other books out there (as some of the reviews here state), but the subject definitely warrants the length, especially that it's a double biography. I would always rather read a thorough biography than a short one. Reading it, I never felt the book was longer than necessary, in part because of the wealth of interesting information covered and the alternating chapters definitely made it more captivating. Also, the choice to combine the biographies of Dorothy Thompson and Rebecca West is a fine one. Not only they are contemporaries, but many parallels can be drawn from their lives. And lastly, I appreciated how unbiased the author is about the subjects. Next book I am reading is another book by Susan Hertog, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Her Life.

[April · Rating 4 out of 5]

DANGEROUS AMBITION by Susan Hertog is an interesting dual biography of Rebecca West and Dorothy Thompson. It spans from 1892 to 1964.Starting with the birth of Rebecca West(Cicely Fairfield) in 1892,Dorothy Thompson born in 1893 through their deaths,. Dorothy Thompson dies in 1961 at the age of 69 and Rebecca West dies in 1983 at age of 90.It is the story of their lives,struggles,disappointment, family, their courage, faith,love,power, political journalisn, their failed relationships,social convention,ambition,sucess,challenges, feminism,regret and a true legacy.A fascinating story of two women their struggle for ambition and power at all cost. This author as done a brillant job on writing the story of two women in search of love and power. "Dangerous Ambition"is a story that shows how much the quest for power,ambition and love can cost the lovers,husbands,sons,and the women themselves. A great read for any who enjoys biography,women of the twentieth century,and history. Received from review from Goldberg McDuffie Communications,Inc.and the publisher. Details can be found at Ballantine Books, a trandmarks of Random House,Inc. and My Book Addiction Reviews.

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really wanted to love this book, the subjects were compelling and interesting. I think they will always be Dorothy and Rebecca to me, two women who sacrificed ease of life to be great. Both are terribly flawed and terribly amazing and will probably be intertwined forever for me because of this poob.

However, structurally, this book was inept, it jumped the linear train, offered major moments as passing happenstance in one chapter to return to it as if it was a grand denouement in the next. It was also another instance in which these two towering women of the 20th century were judged by what they wore and how they lived. While their sense of selves were wrapped up in who loved them and how they were loved, it felt like more was made of their marriages and affairs and the affairs of their spouses then was made of their professional acheivements. If they had been men, their marriages and affairs (that could have been equally impactful on their personal lives) would have been left out asa footnote of history.

[Lonni · Rating 4 out of 5]

If it were fiction, I would label this a dystopian novel, but it is biography. I chose this as a beginning to Women's History Month b/c it was about two women of whom I knew little. Two brilliant women, who were friends, sort of, and whose lives were parallel in many ways. Rebecca West, British and Dorothy Thompson, from the US were both authors and journalists from WWI through WWII and into the modern era. Both were very unhappy though brilliant and accomplished. Both married and also had lovers of varying lengths. Thompson married Sinclair Lewis and then competed with him as a writer.... Rebecca had a long running relationship and a son with H.G. Wells. Both women's sons were also not well adjusted and suffered from a lack of parenting. I've never read anything by either of them, and now am almost afraid to start!

[Peg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dorothy Thompson, an American and Rebecca West, English, are the subjects of this well researched dual biography. These two women were long time friends, prolific writers leading lives of influence, as well as heartache. Dorothy was married to novelist Sinclair Lewis and Rebecca was the lover of H. G. Wells, bearing him a child. Successful to varying degrees in their professional lives, both women had very difficult personal relationships in part based on their individual personalities and those around them. Although it was sad to read about two rather dysfunctional women, especially when it came to their personal lives, I learn a lot about their abilities and their professional legacies.

[Sylvia · Rating 2 out of 5]

I plodded through 3/4 of this book, but simple couldn't finish it. It seems that these two women (and I kept confusing them, never remembering who was who and who was married to whom, etc.) kept repeating their lives. Maybe we all do, but mine is a bit more interesting...at least to me. It was interesting to read about Europe during Hitler's rise to power...at least a few people recognized what was happening. Would I recommend this book? Only to those who are into biographies no matter who poorly written they may be.

[Asma · Rating 2 out of 5]

it was a kind of long book. i did not enjoy it that much. the events get sometimes very confusing because there was so many flash backs and events inside events.
the strange thing is that i was thinking that Rebecca and Dorothy were close friends but suprisenly they weren't this left me wondering why would they be both in the same biography book

[Linda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not my favorite book. I found it tedious and way too long.
It does capture the trials and tribulations of women struggling for power and a voice in that era, but it did not really spark my interest and imagination.

[Tina Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

I very much like both of these women so it made a combined comparative bio appealing. I don't necessarily buy the thesis, but the lives of these fascinating ladies make up for any "lessons" the book might want to teach you.

[Noemi Proietti · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent book. It perfectly depicts a friendship that lasted for more than 40 years across two continents, between two great women who shared the same beliefs, who went through similar experiences and were regarded as powerful voices of their time. I loved this book!!!!

[Natalie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was interesting, but very long. I read it on my kindle, so I didn't realize just how long it was in the beginning. It seems to me it could have been condensed a bit, but it was a very interesting glimpse into that time in history and society.

[Sarah Mallett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read.

Wow! What an interesting story about two different women in history. Highly recommend. Wonderfully written. Written in an easy to read story kind of way which really let you get to know the subjects personally.