"William Wright has written a riveting, massively researched biography…which is bound to be controversial, because Wright is determined to be fair. He separates the facts from the fictions Hellman created about herself, and the result is a balanced portrait of an implacable woman with a huge imagination and talent and rage, who seemed over-prepared to fight for everything and everybody she cared about. William Wright has done an extraordinary job."
—Patricia Bosworth, author of Diane Arbus
"A fascinating study of a fascinating—and very formidable—woman. William Wright's investigation of the real Lillian Hellman has the excitement and suspense of a detective story."
—Alison Lurie, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Foreign Affairs
"An important book about a woman who inspired such warm devotion and such icy dislike might sound impossible, but Mr. Wright has taken aim and come (I suspect) very close to the temperate mark."
—James Merrill, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet
"An admirably balanced portrait of a woman whose self-dramatization has possibly never been probed with so much insight, sympathy or clarity. A carefully researched and reasoned work."
—Howard Kissell, Women's Wear Daily
"A major work, enormously readable at every point. William Wright's Lillian Hellman brilliantly reveals a woman who is infinitely more complex and fascinating than the figure she created in her best selling autobiographies."
—Arianna Stassinopoulos, author of Maria Callas
