Isabel Russell

Isabel Russell was hired as Katharine White's secretary, and she worked for her for the last seven years of KSW's life. Because of illness and aging, increasing issues with her sight, and her own strong personality traits that had little to do with being an octogenarian, KSW was a difficult person to work for, particularly if you happened to be her personal secretary.

I think one of the reasons I had problems early on with Russell's presentation in this book was because she was writing about a woman whom she didn't meet until she was in her late 70s to mid-80s. I wondered, had Russell known KSW at an earlier time in her life--like in her 40s or 50s, for example--and had she written the same things about her, would what she wrote have struck me as being so negative and harsh? Probably not. I think what bothered me was that Russell's critique of KSW came at a time when Katharine was an old woman. She was a strong personality all of her life, and through her job of 50-some years she exercised a great deal of power and control. It seems to me that a lot of the behaviors that made her so difficult for a secretary to work for were mainly strategies used by an aging woman trying to hang on to accustomed influence and control.

I think that Russell had an ethical dilemma in writing this memoir that she didn't deal with effectively. There are parts of this memoir that have the emotional tone of revenge. Clearly Russell had been wounded at times, and maybe many times, by KSW's treatment of her. A first draft where she could have written all of that out, helping her come to terms with all of it, might have been a good idea. Then another draft and maybe another, where she might have eased up on some of her harsher judgments, probably would have been a good idea. I'm sure that Russell felt she was writing the "truth," but an acknowledgment that hers was only one truth would have given Russell more credibility as a fair memoirist. There is a lack of compassion for KSW in the memoir that is troubling.

The writing in this book was excellent, which only makes me wish even more that Russell had found a way to deal more effectively with the way she approached her issues with Katharine White.

This was a difficult book to rate. It was interesting and well-written, although, in my opinion, flawed. I would recommend it for anyone who is interested, for whatever reason, in reading about Katharine and E.B. White. Readers who are disposed to want pure hagiography about this couple obviously won't like this book. However, I think the book is useful in rounding out the public portrait of this couple. 3 stars… (plus d'informations)