Louise Fitzhugh

by Virginia L. Wolf

Louise Fitzhugh, a major innovator in realistic fiction for children, stunned the book world with her challenging 1964 novel Harriet the Spy. An individualist who satirized conformity in all her books including Nobody's Family Is Going to Change, and Bang, Bang, You're Dead. Fitzhugh created memorable protagonists who consistently resist deadening familial and societal conventions. Although her novels celebrate independence and self-knowledge, the absence of intimacy in Fitzhugh's fictional world also suggests the tragedy of individualism; her work thus serves as a subtle critique of contemporary American society, where neither outsider nor conformist is truly happy. In this first book-length study of Fitzhugh's published works, Virginia L. Wolf introduces new biographical information and explores the complex relationship between Fitzhugh's life and art. Wolf enhances our understanding of the homosexual artist by tracing the autobiographical sources of Fitzhugh's major themes and inspirations: alienation, the family, individualism, conformity, religion, war, and bigotry. In this careful examination of Fitzhugh's feminism and lesbianism, Wolf emphasizes the revolutionary, iconoclastic positions championed by Fitzhugh and her characters. These hitherto unexamined issues provide a unique new insight into Fitzhugh's accomplishments and further our understanding of her contribution to children's literature.

Genres: Biography

172 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1991

Reviews

[Christine Lamoreaux · Rating 1 out of 5]

Biography genre (see profile)
Beth Ellen is Louise Fitzhugh. The End.

[Liz Henry · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not very good as a biography. Mostly, this is a critical interpretation of Harriet the Spy, The Long Secret, and Nobody's Family is Going to Change. I did like some of the points it made about Harriet learning charity (or compassion or empathy; love of others) while Beth Ellen learns love of self. But that point could have been made in one article. Fitzhugh's life as a writer and artist in New York barely touched on -- merely a list of names. Instead the book dwells weirdly on speculations about Fitzhugh's own childhood. If I were Fitzhugh's friend I wouldn't have talked to the author either...

[Jeffrey · Rating 1 out of 5]

There's almost nothing available about Fitzhugh's life (though there are some good individual essays) and rather little criticism of her overall work, don't waste your time with this silly, badly written and incompetent "study" - this is the kind of book that does such damage to serious and compelling criticism because it is so pointless