The Novellas of Martha Gellhorn
Gellhorn's place in literary history has always been as the third Mrs. Ernest Hemingway, but she was a respected journalist and novelist in her own right. Now, with the renewed interest in her life and career (e.g., Bernice Kert's The Hemingway Women , LJ 5/15/83; Carl Rollyson's Nothing Ever Happens to the Brave , LJ 11/15/90), this volume gathers 14 novellas from four previously published collections, each representing a different stage in Gellhorn's life. Such tales as "Mrs. Maddison" from The Trouble I've Seen (1936) are fictionalized versions of her Depression-era reports. Ironic stories of sex, love, and marriage from Two by Two (1958) and Pretty Tales for Tired People ( LJ 6/1/65) are perhaps metaphors for Gellhorn's own marital woes. And the accounts of British colonials in a newly independent Africa ( The Weather in Africa , LJ 3/1/80) reflect her travels. Unfortunately, this book shows that Gellhorn's strengths as a writer lie in journalism, not fiction. Some of her plots seem contrived, and her English characters are often drawing-room cliches. While recommending this book for larger literature collections, this reviewer wonders whether it would have been published if Gellhorn had not been married to Hemingway.- Wilda Williams, "Library Journal"Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to theHardcoveredition.