Word: mitfordly
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...Jones is a peculiarly American American novelist. His method is oldfashioned, gulp-and-sob realism. His characters-most frequently, of late, the American newly rich who took the cash and let the culture go-are presented pretty much in their own words. The result often brings to mind Nancy Mitford's unkind remark that citizens of the U.S. speak English as if wrestling with a foreign tongue. That confronts the thoughtful pro-Jones reader with a dilemma. If Jones takes these clichés seriously, can he be any smarter than the people he writes about? If he doesn...
Chemist Linus Pauling, twice a Nobel laureate, was on the list (described as "affiliated with" the Communist Party); so were Author (The American Way of Death) Jessica Mitford (also alleged to be connected with the Communist Party) and Social Critic Nat Hentoff (for affiliation with the Socialist Workers Party, S.D.S. and the Spring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Viet Nam). The list also contained the names of many self-proclaimed radicals, among them Yippie Founder Abbie Hoffman, Pacifist David Dellinger, Black Panther National Chairman Bobby Scale and Black Panther Fred Hampton (although he was slain in a Chicago...
Some of those who made the list spoke indignantly, in the words of Nat Hentoff, of "selective repression." Most met inclusion with scorn. Jessica Mitford vowed to "add it to my list of awards and honors in Who's Who." One of the more intriguing facts in the report was that the speakers had earned a total of $108,000 so far in campus lecture fees, showing that radicalism can be profitable. In fact, the blacklisting probably made them still more desirable as campus speakers...
...Miss Mitford had trouble once before selling a story. She wrote a muckraking piece in 1958 on the undertaking industry in the U.S. "The article was turned down by every major magazine as too dreary and unpleasant," she recalls. She finally sold it to an obscure journal called Frontier for $40. Then she used the article as an outline for her book that became a bestseller in 1963, The American Way of Death. Miss Mitford has since written another book, The Trial of Dr. Spock, and turns out several magazine articles a year. She is currently preparing a piece...
Eccentric Roots. Despite her disavowal, British-born Jessica Mitford, 52, has become a queen among U.S. muckrakers. The ingredients of her art include dry wit, sharp observation and a talent for pricking pretense in manners, morals and mercenary matters. She has been in the U.S. since 1939 and now lives in Oakland, Calif., with her second husband, Lawyer Robert Treuhaft. But she remains a quintessential Mitford, the offspring of an eccentric English baron whose six daughters were celebrated for their madcap escapades in a quarter-century of headlines...