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E-book
Author Ackerman, Alan L. (Alan Louis)

Title Just words : Lillian Hellman, Mary McCarthy, and the failure of public conversation in America / Alan Ackerman
Published New Haven : Yale University Press, ©2011

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Description 1 online resource (xi, 361 pages) : illustrations
Contents Introduction -- Libel and life-writing -- Language lessons -- Words of love -- Choice words and political dramas -- Criticism versus libel -- Conclusion
Summary 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
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes English
Print version record
Subject Hellman, Lillian, 1905-1984 -- Trials, litigation, etc
McCarthy, Mary, 1912-1989 -- Trials, litigation, etc
SUBJECT Hellman, Lillian, 1905-1984 fast
McCarthy, Mary, 1912-1989 fast
Dick Cavett show (Television program) http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n79116709
Dick Cavett show (Television program) fast
Subject 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
LAW -- Administrative Law & Regulatory Practice.
SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Media Studies.
Freedom of speech
Libel and slander
Politics and literature
Television talk shows -- Political aspects
Trials (Libel)
Law.
New York (State) -- New York
United States
Genre/Form History
Trials, litigation, etc.
Form Electronic book
LC no. 2010052126
ISBN 9780300171808
0300171803
9786613150615
6613150614