Customer Reviews

Katharine and E.B. White: An Affectionate Memoir

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This book purports to be an "affectionate memoir." In reality, Russell paints an extremely unhappy picture of Katharine White's declining years. Russell entered the White household as Mrs. White's secretary, and while her account of Mrs. White's loosening grasp on reality is likely true (Mrs. White suffered from a number of serious health problems and was on countless medications) Russell's need to expose this story and to constantly portray herself as a victim leaves a very nasty aftertaste. The book ultimately says much more about Russell (almost all of it negative) than about either of the Whites.It should be mentioned that Russell adored E. B. White. Her perceptiveness concerning the White marriage, or any self-awareness, however, unfortunately seem to be nil.

I borrowed "An Affectionate Memoir" because I wanted to learn more about the later years of Katharine Angell White, the first fiction editor of The New Yorker, and her relationship with her second husband, writer E.B. White. Unfortunately, this memoir doesn't contain any particular insight into the Whites other than as a backdrop to the author's immense ego and unending Pollyannaesque vision of the world.

If you take the events described in this book at face value, Isabel Russell was the sweetest, gentlest, most accommodating, most caring, most innocent, and most important person in the Whites' lives. She sacrifices for them, she chooses not to stand up for herself (not because she's in the wrong but because she's Just That Good A Person), she tells us about her daily affirmations and her poetry reading - and to quote another New Yorker writer, Tonstant Weader fwowed up. By page 20 I wanted to throw the book against the wall. She is so saccharine and so cloying that the book simply doesn't ring true. I do not believe that the events described in this book occurred as Mrs. Russell describes them.

The Mary Poppins view of the sophisticated, erudite Whites leads to the second problem: this memoir contains very little about them as people. The main topic is Isabel Russell. On every page Mrs. Russell tells us about what she thought and how difficult her job was and how she dealt with the Whites and what she wrote to them and where she lived and who she met: very little comes through of the Whites as anything but backdrops to the Tragedy of Isabel Russell, Noble Professional Victim.

Worse, though, are Mrs. Russell's constant attacks upon Katharine White. Never does there seem to be any understanding that Mrs. White really was medically unwell. Every time Mrs. White loses her temper or forgets something or is too ill to carry out what she intended to do, the author has a borderline catty remark to make or has to show herself as the victim. She mentions in passing many times that Mrs. White (whom she constantly calls "K") was a hypochondriac, but from everything she shows it's clear that Katharine was really physically ill with a condition that fluctuated in severity - as many illnesses of old age do. Most tellingly, Mrs. Russell is nowhere near as severe on E.B. White when he suffered from exactly the same problems. I don't know if the problem was jealousy or simple resentment (how dare a woman be sick and not keep herself healthy for Her Man), but it comes across as bitter and almost misogynistic in tone.

I really don't recommend this book. Putting the Whites' names on the cover is almost false advertising.

This book purports to be an "affectionate memoir." In reality, Russell paints an extremely unhappy picture of Katharine White's declining years. Russell entered the White household as Mrs. White's secretary, and while her account of Mrs. White's loosening grasp on reality is likely true (Mrs. White suffered from a number of serious health problems and was on countless medications) Russell's need to expose this story and to constantly portray herself as a victim leaves a very nasty aftertaste. The book ultimately says much more about Russell (almost all of it negative) than about either of the Whites.It should be mentioned that Russell adored E. B. White. Her perceptiveness concerning the White marriage, or any self-awareness, however, unfortunately seem to be nil.

One truth certainly emerges in reading Russell's memoir of E. B. and Kathrine White: Affectionate apparently doesn't mean what I thought it did.