Decca: The Letters of Jessica Mitford

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Binding: Hardcover Dewey Decimal Number: 335.43092 EAN: 9780375410321 ISBN: 0375410325 Label: Knopf Manufacturer: Knopf Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 768 Publication Date: 2006-10-17 Publisher: Knopf Release Date: 2006-10-17 Studio: Knopf
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Editorial Reviews: In a profile of J.K. Rowling, The Daily Telegraph (UK), said, “Her favorite drink is gin and tonic, her least favorite food, trip. Her heroine is Jessica Mitford.” “Decca” Mitford lived a larger-than-life life: born into the British aristocracy—one of the famous (and sometimes infamous) Mitford sisters—she ran away to Spain during the Spanish Civil War with her cousin Esmond Romilly, Winston Churchill’s nephew, then came to America, became a tireless political activist and a member of the Communist Party, and embarked on a brilliant career as a memoirist and muckraking journalist (her funeral-industry exposé, The American Way of Death, became an instant classic). She was a celebrated wit, a charmer, and throughout her life a prolific and passionate writer of letters—now gathered here. Decca’s correspondence crackles with irreverent humor and mischief, and with acute insight into human behavior (and misbehavior) that attests to her generous experience of the worlds of politics, the arts, journalism, publishing, and high and low society. Here is correspondence with everyone from Katharine Graham and George Jackson, Betty Friedan, Miss Manners, Julie Andrews, Maya Angelou, Harry Truman, and Hillary Rodham Clinton to Decca’s sisters the Duchess of Devonshire and the novelist Nancy Mitford, her parents, her husbands, her children, and her grandchildren.
Spotlight customer reviews: Customer Rating: Summary: an intimidating sight Comment: Mitford-despisers complain that we fans too easily forgive them their sins on account of their rare wit and charm. Well, in the case of Decca at least, this charge is unfair. She was funny (and cruel): her account of a 1962 house party at Chatsworth is quite delicious; ditto her accounts of what passes for high society on Mull. But she was also brave, in journalism and in life. A deathbed letter to Bob - 'It's so odd to be dying, so I must just jot a few thoughts' - is a model of clarity (though perhaps you would expect this in one who had so much time and energy railing against an industry that so pointlessly prettified corpses); so, too, is a letter to Benjamin in which she urges him to seek help for his illness. The fact remains that as an example of what a woman can do once she has rid herself of, or at least decided to ignore, the expectations of others - family, men, society - Jessica Mitford will always take some beating. That she is also a hoot is merely the icing on the cake. Customer Rating: Summary: Fine collection of fascinating letters Comment: Sussman does a great job of, first, setting the scene and then laying out in a very readable way this enormous collection of Jessica Mitford's letters. She's always been a favorite of mine. This collection is adding greatly to my appreciation. Customer Rating: Summary: dissapointing Comment: the book itself is well put together and edited. the book's subject is self centered and likes mostly to hear herself talk. i found it to be boring. Customer Rating: Summary: A wonderful record of a remarkable woman Comment: I got this as a gift for my brother and I was lucky enough to receive it as a Christmas present a few months later. Jessica Mitford Treuhaft was one of the famous Mitford sisters. Her sister Nancy wrote novels of manners such as "Love In A Cold Climate", her sister Unity was a Hitler groupie who shot herself in Munich shortly after WWII was declared and spent the remainder of her life with severe brain damage, her sister Diana divorced Brian Guinness to marry the head of the Union of British Fascists, and her sister Deborah is the current dowager Duchess of Devonshire. Jessica, or Decca as she was called since childhood, ran away from home to elope with a Communist named Esmond Romilly and to fight against fascism in Spain; all of this caused rather a major rift with her family. The couple eventually moved to America; Esmond was killed in action after joing the Royal Canadian Air Force, and Decca ended up in Oakland, CA married to a radical lawyer named Bob Treuhaft. But like many who grew up in her time and class, she wrote wonderful letters - quirky, funny, sometimes about awful serious matters but always with a sense of the absurd. She was committed to the work of the Communist Party in the early civil rights movemement in California and traveled to many parts of the country to demonstrate; she and her husband were targets of Congressional investigations and denied passports for years, and she became an effective community activist. After falling away from the CPUSA, she continued her activism, and her letters describe some of the most important struggles of progressive America in the '40s, '50s and '60s. She really came into public awareness in a bigger way when she wrote a groundbreaking expose of the predatory practices of the funeral industry, "The American Way of Death." She followed that up with exposes of the prison industry and other abuses and was active until shortly before her death in the late 90s. The letters are gems - when I finished the book, I thought, "I'd really have loved to have known this woman and to have received some of these wonderful letters." Some made me laugh out loud, others made me recognize anew the courage of those who had the vision and the foresight to combat racism in America at a time when it was simply taken for granted. They show a concern for family that is poignant as well as a sense of honor that is almost rigid - when Winston Churchill, who was her cousin, freed her sister Diana and Diana's husband Oswald Mosley from prison after WWII, she wrote to him in protest, saying that their work on behalf of fascism was a danger to freedom everywhere and that they belonged in prison, and that the fact that Diana was her sister did not alter her opinion about that. The only shadow I found over this wonderful collection of letters was the lack of any sense of real recognition of the evil committed in the name of Communism by Stalin, Mao and others. She defended against this criticism by pointing out that no one but the CPUSA was taking serious action on civil rights when she came to this country in the '40s, but she never really acknowledges the darker side of the party's international activity. One gets the impression that she sees it as the lesser of two evils; and as much as one can recognize that at that time and place Fascism was certainly the more immediate and powerful threat, one is still troubled by Decca's lack in this area of the uncompromising commitment to truth that characterizes so many of her activities. I cannot imagine anyone who is familiar with this period of history in England and America not being fully engaged by this wonderful book. I can't recommend it highly enough. Customer Rating: Summary: Jessica Mitford's Letters Comment: This book was giant, in size and in scope. I must admit I did not finish it. Jessica "Decca" Mitford was a bitchy, brilliant, fascinating, annoying, funny, sarcastic and altogether mysterious woman. This book of her letters gives us a very tiny keyhole of insight into that enormous personality. I don't mean that it fails to give us enough; I just mean no book is really capable of parsing the enigma of Decca. It would be a good addition to anyone's book collection, especially Anglophiles, Francophiles, and Bibliophiles! More Reviews