286 “slight tight-rope—between going up to her room”: JM to Debo, 18 June 1969, OSU.
286 “another planet, another century”: JM to Durr, 26 March 1969, OSU.
286 “rather lost interest in the book, in all the worry over Nancy”: Ibid.
287 “swoop in” . . . “nothing but rapid-fire jokes”: Ibid.
287 “To Virginia she said”: Ibid.
287 Debo, “who was the go-between, the manager of it all”: Fursland,
Jessica Mitford
, 181.
287 “Diana and I are getting on”: JM to Marge Frantz, 22 May 1969, OSU.
287 “a really marvelous statue”: Fursland,
Jessica Mitford
, 182.
288 “a sort of awful betrayal not to tell the truth” . . . “I do feel most”: JM to Debo, 17 July 1969, OSU.
289 “Shall I give up writing & take Laurent’s massage class, instead?” JM to Marge Frantz, 25 October 1969, OSU.
289 “state-of-mind trial” . . . “charged with carrying certain ideas across state lines”: Abbey Hoffman, as depicted in the animated film
Chicago 10
, directed, produced, and written by Brett Morgan (Paramount, 26 August 2008; DVD); transcript of film.
292 “wouldn’t it be equally unethical to publish a piece blasting them!!!”: JM to Barbara Kahn, 2 December 1969, OSU.
292 “I am
furious
”: Ibid.
292 “more pleasure from start to finish, than any other”: JM,
PP
, 170.
293 “special stroke of genius”: Alvarez, “Memento Mori,”
New York Review of Books
, 24 September 1998.
293 “spontaneous and true”: Patricia Holt, interview by author, March 2008.
293 “Of course, the whole thing is a terrific fraud”: JM to Aranka Treuhaft, 3 January 1970, OSU.
293 “I’m an awful ham”. . . “a very hard sales pitch, an appeal to the gullible”: JM,
PP
, 156.
293 “Would you prefer to paraphrase”: JM,
PP
, 156.
294 “one of the clear-cut successes”: JM,
PP
, 170.
294 “Wasn’t it sad about Bennett Cerf croaking. I felt v. put out about that”: JM to NM, 21 September 1971, in
Decca
, ed. Sussman, 434.
294 “I know in my heart of hearts”: JM to Virginia, 5 March 1968, OSU.
295 “this cat”: JM to Various Friends, 1 February 1993, in
Decca
, ed. Sussman,668.
295 “He slept in his clothes, seldom bathed, and lived on a diet of Gitane cigarettes and Nembutals”: Ibid., 532.
295 “You’re at Donald Sutherland’s. I’ll be right over”: White,
Genet
, 530.
295 “wearing green socks”: Ibid., 531.
295 “like a street fair”: Herb Gold, interview by author, December 2007.
296 “Bay Area radicals, politicos”: Herman, “Before I Forget,”
Huffington Post
, 2 January 2008.
296 “to hear the latest news and to rally”: Ibid.
296 his “fuse”: Hilliard and Cole,
This Side of Glory
, 260.
297 “Isn’t it nice”: JM to Various Fiends, 1 February 1993, in
Decca
, ed. Sussman, 668.
297 “What do you think we should
do
?” . . “
You
ask
me
how”: JM to Various Friends, 1 February 1993, in
Decca
, ed. Sussman, 668.
297 “composed as a turtle”: Herman, “Before I Forget.”
297 “the sandbags and automatic weapons put them off”: Albert,
Who the Hell Is Stew Albert?
154.
298 “The old, balding”: Ibid., 157.
298 “It’s always the children who get hurt in wars”: Decca was paraphrasing Michael McClure in a letter to various friends (JM to Various Friends, 1 February 1993, in
Decca
, ed. Sussman, 668.)
CHAPTER 28
303 “wit’s end”: Dinky, interview by author, February 2010.
303 “to protect the public”. . . “they never mention punishment”: Don Wegars, “A Radical Switch,”
San Francisco Chronicle
, 1973.
303 “ . . . “hot stuff”. . . “nobody seems to know”: JM to Robert Gottlieb, 5 September 1972, OSU.
304 “more proud of sticking pins”: Leah Garchik, interview by author, March 2006.
304 “ruthless gutter fighter”: Robert Gottlieb, interview,
Portrait of a Muckraker: The Stories of Jessica Mitford
, produced by Stephen Evans, Ida Landauer, and James Morgan, KQED, 1990 (DVD and VHS).
304 “I don’t think of myself as a muckraker”: “The Press; Queen of Muckrakers,”
Time
, 20 July 1970.
304 “I really don’t understand”: JM, interview,
Portrait of a Muckraker: The Stories of Jessica Mitford
, produced by Stephen Evans, Ida Landauer, and James Morgan, KQED, 1990 (DVD and VHS).
304 “I’d got him”: Ibid.
304 “This hard heart”: JM,
PP
, 175.
305 “Miss Mitford is artful”: Doug Smith, “James Dean Walker,” quoted in,
Decca
, ed. Sussman, 538n196.
306 “gallant little” . . . “Her hair is thin”: James Degnan, “Jessica Thumb Her Toes,”
Change
(winter 1974-1975): 38-41.
307 “From a distinguished professor”: Ibid.
307 “Every time she gets a chance she tries to stick”: Ibid.
307 “Some day my prints will come”: JM to Aranka Treuhaft, 17 January 1974, in
Decca
, ed. Sussman, 466.
307 “that the university’s fingerprint requirement”: JM,
PP
, 213.
308 “cremate them”: JM,
PP
, 213.
308 “Pay the lady”: JM,
PP
, 213.
308 “Jessica succeeds”: Degnan, “Jessica Thumb Her Toes.”
308 “Nancy’s favorite symbol”: JM, “The Saga of Swinbrook,”
San Francisco Chronicle
, 24 March 1985.
309 “This he sold you . . . throw it at his head!” JM,
AFOC
, 145.
309 “Radical chic marches”: Herb Caen,
San Francisco Chronicle
, 7 October 1975, quoted in U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Jessica Mitford File, FBI archives.
310 “grim feminist who talks sociologese”: JM to Dinky, 9 November 1975, OSU.
310 “thoroughly muddled”: Ibid.
310 “in adversary position against all comers”: JM to Marge Frantz, 29 August 1974, OSU.
310 “I’m afraid I was a rather rotten mother”: Decca to Tilla Durr, 6 March 1984, OSU.
311 “some of the
unutterably beastly
”: JM to Katharine Graham, 9 April 1990, OSU.
311 “about the whole thing of Nicholas”: JM to RT, 10 October 1990, OSU.
312 “really extreme prejudice . . . had to go to a psychiatrist”: Dinky, interview by author, January 2007.
312 “I was militantly pro-mania”: Benjy, interview by author, January 2007.
312 “the whole experience . . . farcical anecdote”: Bernstein,
Loyalties
, 76.
312 “ex-menaces . . . had to be done”: Marge Frantz, interview by author, November 2005.
313 “incredibly upsetting . . . but then what else could it be?” JM to Sonia Orwell, 14 October 1976, OSU.
313 “sibling rivalry—horrid phrase”: JM,
AFOC
, 15.
313 “one experience but two outcomes, opposed in externals though in fact”: JM,
AFOC
, 16.
313 “thousands simultaneously”: JM,
AFOC
, 16.
314 “two sides of the same coin”: JM,
Faces of Philip
, 101.
314 “Stalinism may well have been almost as horrible”: Ibid.
CHAPTER 29
315 “I bloody well don’t see why she is self-appointed arbiter”: JM to Ann Farrer Horne, 23 February 1980, in
Decca
, ed. Sussman, 522.
315 “Victorian old ladies”: Anthea Fursland, interview by author, 186.
316 “Obviously I applaud many of the changes you enumerate”: JM to Hillary Rodham Clinton, 10 May 1980, in
Decca
, ed. Sussman, 527.
317 “When we hit Bilbao”: Brahms, Sherrin, and Greenwell,
The Mitford Girls A Musical
, Warner/Chapel Music, 1998.
317 “the boy in the attic”: Katie Edwards, interview by author, December 2006.
318 “it would be in no sense another spinoff”: Patricia Holt, interview by author, March 2008.
318 “three packs a day . . . a Jack Daniels or two”: Kevin Ingram, telephone interview by author, September 2006.
318 “I’ve never written a biography”: JM to Kevin Ingram, 13 October 1981, in
Decca
, ed. Sussman, 550.
318 “rat-like cunning, a plausible”: JM,
PP
, 1.
319 “If my parents believed in God”: Dinky, interview by author, May 2009.
319 “I’m glad she’s found”: Ibid.
321 fretful “if Bob was out of her sight”: Katie Edwards, interview by author, December 2006.
321 “Oh he’s perfectly splendid”: Pele deLappe, interview by author, October 2006.
321 “My daughter tells me I’m an alcoholic”: Dinky, interview by author, January 2007.
322 “chuck in all sorts”: JM to Kevin Ingram, 13 October 1981, in
Decca
, ed. Sussman, January 2007.
322 “narrative style is so peculiar”: Raymond Mortimer, quoted in Hastings,
Nancy Mitford
, 219.
322 “Toynbee memoir proceeds”: JM to William Abrahams, 20 July 1983, OSU.
322 “[Decca] has a strong element of genuine”: Toynbee, “Decca Mitford,” 1, OSU.
324 “riveted” . . . “I, of course”: JM to Michael Straight, 25 February 1983, OSU.
324 “caused temporary loss”: Katie Edwards, interview by author, December 2006.
324 “indictment nor an expose”: Patricia Holt, interview by author, March 2008.
325 “SURPRISINGLY good”: JM to Edward Pattillo, 24 February 1985, OSU.
325 “happy that he’d finished it”. . . “weighed in so”: Kevin Ingram, telephone interview by author, September 2006 .
325 “SANE and AMUSING” . . . “You know how desperately worrying”: JM to Robert Gottlieb, 26 May 1981, OSU.
325 “dreadful, and absurd”: JM to Benjy, 24 January 1984, in
Decca
, ed. Sussman, 582.
325 “disgusting manic episodes”: Ibid.
326 “snakepits,” where “they shoot you full of thorazine”: Benjy, interview by author, May 2006.
326 “you wouldn’t be”: JM to Benjy, 24 January 1984, in
Decca
, ed. Sussman, 582.
326 “Bob’s affair was very very painful”: Dinky, interview by author, March 2009.
326 “the Loved One” . . . “only interested in”: JM to Sally Belfrage, 8 August 1985, OSU.
326 “SQUALOR of it all”:
Decca
, ed. Sussman, 593.
326 “given persistence & good will”: JM to Sally Belfrage, 22 August 1985, OSU.
327 “if it was easier & less painful for him to give up”: JM to Sally Belfrage, 22 November 1985, OSU.
CHAPTER 30
329 “began in a cocaine”: Benjy, interview with author, January 2007.
330 “And why not? Say I,” JM, letter to the editor of
Harper’s
magazine, November 1992.
330 “Hillary Clinton had interned”: “Jessica Mitford’s Diary,”
The Times Magazine
, 9 October 1993.
330 “I think Decca probably”: Diane Johnson, interview by author, May 2010.
330 “anything which sniffs of phoniness or misplaced earnestness”: Toynbee, “Decca Mitford,” OSU.
331 “There had, she said, been”: Alexander Cockburn, “Farewell, Lady Decca,”
Salon
, February 8, 2005.
331 “some v. catty items about me & Bob, many more”: JM to Debo, 28 October 1994, OSU.
331 “to take out” Charlotte Mosley, letter to author, 19 October.
331 “before an interview a”: Katie Edwards, interview by author, December 2006.
332 “Help I’m trapped at this ghastly dinner”: Leah Garchik, interview by author, March 2006.
332 “Have I ever told you about my abortion?” . . . “grisly details” . . . “Of course we were going to America”: Barbara Hall, telephone interview by author, February 2006.
332 “An obvious omission”: JM, fax to Robert Boynton, August 1992, OSU.
332 “So get your safe, legal abortion”: JM et al., “She’s Come for an Abortion,”
Harper’s
, November 1992, 43-54.
333 “I don’t think I’ll get death threats”: Robert Boynton. “Profile of Jessica Mitford”
Newsday
, 13 December 1992.
333 “were prob. due to being more than tiddly at the time”: JM to Debo, 23 December 1994, in
Decca
, ed. Sussman, 689.
333 “grossly inflated with alcohol”: Dinky, interview by author, March 2009.
333 “intellectual”: Ibid.
333 “I’ve ruined your life”: Dinky, interview by author, May 2006.
333 “eventually Decca thought that Dinky was the strongest person in the world”: Kathy Kahn, interview by author, December 2006.
334 “I know I wouldn’t be any good at it—all that appalling Frank Talk etc”: JM to Debo, 23 December 1994, in
Decca
, ed. Sussman, 689.
334 “A time aeons ago Pele”: JM to Dinky, 6 February 1995, OSU.
334 “I’ve gone on the wagon”: JM to Debo, 23 December 1994, in
Decca
, ed. Sussman, 689.
335 “cut a Rock and Roll record”: Karen Leonard, interview by author, October 2008.
335 “profound depths . . . which only bullfrogs could duplicate on a clear night”: Cynthia Robbins, “The Gentle Art of Singing ‘Bang! Bang!’ Jessica Mitford Cuts a Record,”
San Francisco Express
, 30 January 1995.
335 “doesn’t have a lot”: Patricia Holt, “Barroom Belter,”
San Francisco Gate
, 28 July 1996.
336 “Can’t you make her stop?”: Katie Edwards, interview by author, December 2006.
336 “T’was on the ground of Swinbrook”: Kathi Goldmark, interview by author, July 2009. Audrey deChadenedes and Tony Goldmark are also listed as lyricists.
337 “Needless to say I was absolutely astonished”: JM to Fred Hill, 6 October 1995, OSU.
337 “cast SCI in a bad light clothed in wit and humor”: JM, quoting Thomas McDade fax to JM, 27 January 1996, in
Decca
, ed. Sussman, 703n159.