Not Pretty Enough: The Unlikely Triumph of Helen Gurley Brown

by Gerri Hirshey Narrated by Eliza Foss

Overview

A bold and deeply researched biography of a complicated cultural icon

When Helen Gurley Brown published*Sex and the Single Girl*in 1962, it sold more than two million copies in just three weeks, presaging the self-help boom and helping to usher in the unapologetic self-affirmation of second wave feminism. Brown declared that it was okay, even imperative, to enjoy sex outside of marriage; that equal rights for women should extend to the bedroom; that meaningful work outside the home was essential for a woman's security and self-esteem. The book catapulted Brown into national renown, cementing her status as a complex and divisive feminist personality. And the ripple effects of her outspokenness about sex and her emphasis on friendships between women can still be seen today, on TV shows like*Sex and the City*and*Girls, and in the magazine world as well.When she died in 2012, her obituary appeared on the front page of*The New York Times, which noted that "the look of women's magazines today . . . is due in no small part to her influence." She may not always have been loved--but she was always talked about.

Brown's life story--a classic American rags-to-riches tale--is just as juicy as her controversial books. In this wonderful new biography, the writer and reporter Gerri Hirshey traces Brown's path from deep in the Arkansas Ozarks to her wild single years in Los Angeles, from the New York magazine world to her Hollywood adventures with her film producer husband. Along the way she became the highest-paid female ad copywriter on the West Coast, and transformed Hearst's failing literary magazine,*Cosmopolitan, into the female-oriented global juggernaut it is today. Full of firsthand accounts of Brown from some of her closest friends, including Liz Smith, Gloria Vanderbilt, Barbara Walters, and more, as well as those whose paths she brushed--her 1939 prom date, a sorority sister from business school,*Cosmo*cover girls like Beverly Johnson and Brooke Shields--and writing from the woman herself,*Not Pretty Enough*is a vital biography that shines new light on the life of one of the most incomparable and indelible women of the twentieth century.

Editorial Reviews

SEPTEMBER 2016 - AudioFile

Helen Gurley Brown, author of SEX AND THE SINGLE GIRL, and legendary editor of COSMOPOLITAN magazine, was a singular woman who really did change the world. How she did it, and the prices she paid as well as the rewards she reaped, make for a truly fascinating listen. The Hearst Corporation apparently has a stranglehold on Brown’s archives at Smith College, though she meant them to be available to researchers. Gerri Hirshey has found ingenious ways around their self-serving obstructions; she tells a full, complex story of a unique personality and her mid-century world. Eliza Foss is perfectly equipped to narrate this juicy saga with warmth, sympathy, and enthusiasm. Her attention never flags, and the only unwelcome distractions in this excellent production are audible edits. B.G. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine

The New York Times Book Review - Moira Weigel

As Hirshey states in her introduction, her book is concerned more with the character and psychology of its protagonist than with her cultural surroundings…Hirshey's psychological insights into Brown's childhood, as well as the book's treatment of Brown's long partnership with her husband, deepen and complicate the plucky image that Brown projected in public.

The New York Times - Jennifer Senior

[Ms. Hirshey] is a studious and generous biographer, embracing the philosophy of the Crunch gym chain—"No judgments"—when approaching her subject. The debate about whether Brown was good for feminism does not interest her. "She was a realist," the author writes, "not a revolutionary." This attitude has clear advantages. It frees Ms. Hirshey to do a compassionate, psychologically complex biography, arguing the world from her subject's point of view. Brown, who could run the risk of appearing like a caricature, never once does so here…Ms. Hirshey writes with energy and swing, and she's great at capturing the sound of her subject's cooing speech…[Her] meticulous re-creation of Brown's single-girl years in Los Angeles, where she went through 19 secretarial jobs and juggled boyfriends like plates, are alone worth the price of admission to this circus.

Publishers Weekly

05/23/2016
Reviewed by Mary Kay Blakely Hirshey’s compelling biography of Helen Gurley Brown chronicles a peculiarly American sexual history, beginning with the breadwinner-housewife marriages that birthed the baby boom generation. So it’s more than a little amazing that when in 1964 Brown published Sex and the Single Girl—in which she acknowledged having 178 affairs before marrying David Brown at age 37—she didn’t think encouraging unmarried women to enjoy sex was radical or revolutionary. She described the book as mainly practical, sharing what she and her girlfriends had been talking about for nearly two decades. If a woman had challenging work and great sex, children and husbands could come later. This 500-page biography, thoroughly researched and reported, covers Helen’s childhood in rural Arkansas, sometimes inflating difficulties common to Depression-era families. Brown’s mother, Cleo, made thoughtless comments that damaged her self-confidence. (Didn’t all mothers of her generation do that?) A fatal elevator accident killed her father, leaving his 10-year-old daughter with “daddy issues” for life. Brown’s older sister, Mary, contracted polio and lost the ability to walk. Those childhood difficulties may or may not have triggered the neuroses Brown battled throughout life. She sought psychiatric help for depression at age 22 and financial insecurity plagued her. Weight preoccupations caused other neurotic behavior. She exercised fanatically at home and at the office, where she once stripped down to her underwear to work out in the stairwell. While Hirshey offers copious evidence of Brown’s eccentricities, she also documents truly admirable traits. A solid work ethic powered her through 17 low-wage clerical jobs before she was finally promoted to a copy writing position at the ad agency Foote, Cone & Belding. As editor of Cosmopolitan, she worked 70–80 hours per week. An exacting perfectionist, she was admired by her staff as a fair and thoughtful boss with business acumen learned on the job: she managed a tight budget, repackaged book chapters into articles, expanded ads, and increased circulation. She lived leanly and sent a quarter of her monthly salary home to her difficult mother and paralyzed sister. Brown’s compete makeover of Cosmopolitan overloaded the magazine with self-help articles about sex, beauty, fashion, girlfriends, jobs, money, and pleasing your man. She drove most of her writers bonkers at least once (myself included), rewriting copy that might make her “girls” mad, guilty, sad, wounded, or insulted. She made some tremendous blunders (refusing to examine AIDS and the need for safe sex) and ignored important issues (both abortion and birth control were illegal in some states), exempting herself from controversy because she was “a pragmatist, not an activist.” But, as Hirshey concludes, she ruled with naïveté and sincerity that were impossible to fake. (July)Mary Kay Blakely is a professor of magazine journalism at the Missouri School of Journalism and coeditor of Words Matter: Writing to Make a Difference (Univ. of Missouri, Apr.).

From the Publisher

"[Not Pretty Enough is] like a novel in its attention to narrative tension and pacing and smooth writing. Moreover, Hirshey cleverly transforms her final pages into something akin to an oral history, with several of Brown's good friends—from the playwright Eve Ensler to Barbara Walters—chiming in." —Lorrie Moore, The New York Review of Books

“[Hirshey] is a studious and generous biographer . . . a compassionate, psychologically complex biography . . . Ms. Hirshey writes with energy and swing, and she’s great at capturing the sound of her subject’s cooing speech. There are some hilarious stories here . . . Ms. Hirshey’s meticulous re-creation of Brown’s single-girl years in Los Angeles, where she went through 19 secretarial jobs and juggled boyfriends like plates, are alone worth the price of admission to this circus.”—Jennifer Senior, The New York Times

“This rollicking, masterful biography celebrates a woman who had the audacity to tell us something we secretly already knew: Sex matters.”—People magazine

"Hirshey's psychological insights into Brown's childhood . . . deepen and complicate the plucky image that Brown projected in public." —The New York Times Book Review

“This engrossing biography of Helen Gurley Brown, the legendary editor of Cosmopolitan, who shook up the sixties with her book ‘Sex and the Single Girl,’ is written in a style worthy of its subject.”—The New Yorker

“Instructive, entertaining, and briskly told . . . The Helen Gurley Brown who will be remembered is the one who beams from the cover of Hirshey’s book, a bony dynamo with missionary zeal and pep-rally enthusiasm who left her lipstick mark on history.”—James Wolcott, Vanity Fair

“Vivid, funny, and terrifically entertaining.”—Kate Tuttle, Newsday

"Simply the best, brimming with fresh dish and insight . . . If you truly have to choose only one item from the Helen Gurley Brown biography buffet, this is definitely your selection." —Deirdre Donahue, The AARP magazine

“[Hirshey] delivers us Helen as a pioneer of female assertiveness and dream-realization . . . You can read this book for a look at how far we have come, how much we have changed, how absurd we were in our ‘civilized’ middle-class superiority . . . This is a wonderful deep read for those willing to study yesterday’s history and popular culture and also willing to entertain a new realization . . . And if you only read for fun, you will have a simply hilarious time with a really influential ‘character’ who was an unbelievable woman (although she famously preferred ‘girl’)—a woman more realistic and intelligent than many of her detractors. Helen more than deserves this splendid re-examination.”—Liz Smith, New York Social Diary

"Hirshey offers a well-researched, in-depth look at Helen Gurley Brown . . . With numerous firsthand accounts from acquaintances and close friends, including Gloria Vanderbilt and Barbara Walters, Hirshey takes readers on a rags-to-riches journey of Brown's life . . . This account sheds lights on a complex woman whose controversial personality helped form both second-wave feminism and the magazine industry." —Mattie Cook, Library Journal

"Gerri Hirshey delivers a fascinating portrayal of the ultimate fun, fearless female." —Cosmopolitan

“[A] precise, explicit, true-life picaresque . . . Hirshey is entrancing and enlightening throughout this detailed chronicle of Brown’s brimming life . . . A pointillistic portrait essential to understanding the seemingly endless fight for women’s equality.” —Donna Seaman, Booklist (starred review)

“Thoroughly researched and reported . . . Compelling” —Publishers Weekly

“In Not Pretty Enough, Gerri Hirshey brings to life the mass of contradictions that was Helen Gurley Brown—a poor, acne-scarred girl from the other side of the tracks who transformed herself into a glamour girl and one of the top magazine editors in the world. Was she a feminist or a traitor to feminist ideals? Did she prostitute herself to succeed, objectify women to sell her brand? In what was still a man’s world, Helen did what she had to do to get ahead. And in this lively, deeply researched, and entertaining book, Hirshey humanizes the ongoing struggle of women everywhere through the tale of this iconic firebrand.” —Nancy Jo Sales, bestselling author of American Girls: Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers

“Deeply researched . . . Before the author narrates Brown’s unlikely ascension to influence and fame in New York City, she relates remarkable, telling details about her subject’s childhood and young adulthood in rural Arkansas and then Los Angeles . . . Hirshey vividly relates how [Helen’s] husband, David Brown, parlayed his experience in both publishing and cinema into helping Helen conceive her bestselling books and turn around Cosmopolitan. Unlike numerous other biographers, Hirshey never falls into the trap of reductionism. Although Brown sometimes presents contradictions that cannot be easily resolved, the author portrays the complexities with skill.” —Kirkus Reviews

Library Journal

06/01/2016
Hirshey (We Gotta Get Out of This Place) offers a well-researched, in-depth look at Helen Gurley Brown (1922–2012), editor in chief of Cosmopolitan magazine from 1965 to 1997. Beginning with Brown's roots in rural Arkansas and later move to Los Angeles, this biography follows its subject through the events that shaped the opinions she went on to broadcast to the world from atop her media perch. With numerous firsthand accounts from acquaintances and close friends, including Gloria Vanderbilt and Barbara Walters, Hirshey takes readers on a rags-to-riches journey of Brown's life, recounting her often unstable childhood and time working for advertising agencies early in her career. Later chapters explore her partnership with film producer husband David Brown, her best-selling book Sex and the Single Girl, and her revitalization of Cosmopolitan after taking the editorial reins. This account sheds light on a complex woman whose controversial personality helped form both second-wave feminism and the magazine industry. VERDICT The story of Brown's rise to the top will appeal to readers of biography and those with an interest in the feminist movement.—Mattie Cook, River Grove PL, IL

SEPTEMBER 2016 - AudioFile

Helen Gurley Brown, author of SEX AND THE SINGLE GIRL, and legendary editor of COSMOPOLITAN magazine, was a singular woman who really did change the world. How she did it, and the prices she paid as well as the rewards she reaped, make for a truly fascinating listen. The Hearst Corporation apparently has a stranglehold on Brown’s archives at Smith College, though she meant them to be available to researchers. Gerri Hirshey has found ingenious ways around their self-serving obstructions; she tells a full, complex story of a unique personality and her mid-century world. Eliza Foss is perfectly equipped to narrate this juicy saga with warmth, sympathy, and enthusiasm. Her attention never flags, and the only unwelcome distractions in this excellent production are audible edits. B.G. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

2016-04-07
Journalist Hirshey (We Gotta Get Out of This Place: The True, Tough Story of Women in Rock, 2001, etc.) presents a deeply researched biography of daring author and hugely influential magazine editor Helen Gurley Brown (1922-2012). Brown's Sex and the Single Girl (1962) and her decadeslong editorship of a seemingly moribund Cosmopolitan magazine starting in 1965 seem easy to dismiss in an era of pervasive feminism beginning around 1970. However, Hirshey convincingly shows how Brown demonstrated some feminist tendencies and was certainly no shallow airhead (a term that fits with some of the informal prose peppered throughout the book). Before the author narrates Brown's unlikely ascension to influence and fame in New York City, she relates remarkable, telling details about her subject's childhood and young adulthood in rural Arkansas and then Los Angeles. After Brown's father died when Helen was 10 years old, her mother, Cleo, became unmoored geographically and unhinged emotionally. As a result, Helen and her older sister had to survive an unstable and sometimes poverty-stricken stretch. "Much of what Helen understood about her people was colored by her mother's melancholy worldview," writes Hirshey. In Helen's case, the agony was magnified by an inherent shyness and a terrible extended period of acne, which she believed rendered her physically unattractive. Although she outgrew the acne, she never felt that she was "pretty enough." Nonetheless, through sheer will, Brown succeeded in the advertising world, charted an ambitious social life that included open pursuit of premarital sex, and married late and well. Hirshey vividly relates how her husband, David Brown, parlayed his experience in both publishing and cinema into helping Helen conceive her bestselling books and turn around Cosmopolitan. Unlike numerous other biographers, Hirshey never falls into the trap of reductionism. Although Brown sometimes presents contradictions that cannot be easily resolved, the author portrays the complexities with skill.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169295238
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	07/12/2016
Edition description:	Unabridged

Videos