A Likely Story

A Likely Story: One Summer With Lillian Hellman
By Rosemary Mahoney (273 pages)
Published by Doubleday
Bookish rating: 3.75

A Likely Story is an autobiographical account of one poor (literally poor, actually), hopeful teen girl's summer spent working for the, at that point, elderly, poor-sighted Lillian Hellman (playwright) in the 1980s in Martha's Vineyard. 

Mahoney ended up hating Hellman and complains relentlessly about her. A decade or two later, she's still pissed. Now, I've read/studied/worked on a LOT of Hellman history and lit, and Mahoney's account has a ring of truth as to how Hellman likely behaved, but a good deal of her criticism stems, I think, of Mahoney's disappointment in that her visions of Hellman seeing Mahoney's own genius and mentoring her instead of criticizing her inability to properly chop onions or whatever is hugely at play here.

The autobiography is overwritten and achingly self-conscious, which actually gives an effective boost to portraying Mahoney's younger self as so very insecure. For a book with "Lillian Hellman" in the title, too much time is spent on the details of Mahoney's past and childhood, which are rather unimportant, from a literary point of view, except for the heartbreak of her mother's alcoholism, polio-disabled leg, and early death of her father. 

I felt bad, truly, for the too-smart-for-her-circumstances Mahoney, and I'm sure writing this book was cathartic for her. My feelings are mixed. For a book about Hellman, there was too much Hellman-free Mahoney memoir. And yet? That part did inform so much of why Mahoney took everything SO personally. Recommended for Hellman buffs.