Review
“Utterly engrossing, for it touches on a variety of thorny, provocative themes: the power of race, the nature of friendship, the role of personality, the capacity for brutality and for forgiveness.”—Publishers Weekly (Publishers Weekly)
“There are volumes of scholarly works on the Civil Rights Movement, but this book is different. By tracing the two women’s journeys, . . . often in their own words, Margolick artfully lays bare [their] emotional and mental wounds and struggles, [and] also places the women in the context of the wider civil rights era and beyond. . . . This work is simply a must-read.”—Library Journal, starred review (Library Journal)
“A very nuanced analysis of how Elizabeth and Hazel were affected by the scene that made them famous . . . A complex look at two women at the center of a historic moment.”—Booklist, starred review (Booklist)
"[Margolick] tells a story that is almost novelistic in its complexity. . . . Someday Elizabeth and Hazel will be a textbook. Long before, on the civil rights bookshelf, it will be considered a classic.”—Jesse Kornbluth, Headbutler.com, Huffington Post (Jesse Kornbluth Huffington Post)
“Margolick’s unforgettable new book, Elizabeth and Hazel: Two Women of Little Rock, takes as its touchstone a famous civil rights-era photograph. . . . eloquently chronicl[ing] their lives since that iconic photo was taken.”—Kate Tuttle, TheAtlantic.com
(Kate Tuttle TheAtlantic.com)
“The remarkable story of a historic civil-rights photograph and the intertwined lives of its subjects.”—The Daily Beast (The Daily Beast)
"A patient and evenhanded account of their messy relationship over the decades. . . . Margolick proposes no fairy-tale resolutions to such moral impasses. To his credit, he spares us none of the unruly facts as his subjects, still wrestling with history, wander off message."—Amy Finnerty, The New York Times Book Review (Amy Finnerty The New York Times Book Review)
Christian Science Monitor, A Top 10 Nonfiction Book for 2011 (Christian Science Monitor)
"The iconic image of Elizabeth and Hazel at age fifteen showed us the terrible burden that nine young Americans had to shoulder to claim our nation's promise of equal opportunity. The pain it caused was deeply personal. David Margolick now tells us the amazing story of how Elizabeth and Hazel, as adults, struggled to find each other across the racial divide and in so doing, end their pain and find a measure of peace. We all need to know about Elizabeth and Hazel."—President Bill Clinton (President Bill Clinton)
"David Margolick's dual biography of an iconic photograph is a narrative tour de force that leaves us to grapple with a disturbing perennial—that forgiveness doesn't always follow from understanding. I read Elizabeth and Hazel straight through in one sitting."—David Levering Lewis, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of W. E. B. Du Bois (David Levering Lewis)
"The iconic photograph of Hazel Bryan and Elizabeth Eckford has now riveted us for more than fifty years. David Margolick's effort to bring the photo to life is equally riveting. It makes for a deeply compelling story of race and our ongoing efforts at understanding."—Julian Bond, Chairman Emeritus, NAACP (Julian Bond)
"Elizabeth and Hazel is a story that has been crying out to be told ever since two teenaged girls stumbled into history on a street in Little Rock, more than a half-century ago. Once again, Margolick, one of our best reporters, reveals his remarkable gift for uncovering intimate disputes that illuminate an epoch."—Diane McWhorter, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama; The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution (Diane McWhorter)
"The story of Elizabeth Eckford, the heroic poster child of the struggle to desegregate Little Rock’s Central High, which so many have forgotten, and her tormentor, Hazel Bryan, which so few ever knew, needed to be told. David Margolick has done so masterfully, in a narrative so gripping that one has difficulty putting down his book before arriving at the last page. His Elizabeth and Hazel is required reading for every American who wants to understand why the wounds inflicted by the heritage of slavery and Jim Crow remain unhealed."—Louis Begley, author of Why the Dreyfus Affair Matters (Louis Begley)
“As David Margolick’s brilliantly layered exposition reveals, plumbing ‘the depths of the depths’ of race and racism is a most complex exercise. And as I plumbed the depths of his narrative, I found it at once painful, as well as elevating, and unlike anything I’ve ever read on the subject. It should be required reading for a nation still struggling with what Margolick refers to as ‘the thicket of race.’”—Charlayne Hunter-Gault, author of In My Place
(Charlayne Hunter-Gault)
"As surprising and unusual as its two protagonists, Elizabeth and Hazel—densely-researched, empathetic, measured, revelatory—not only lets us live, as completely as we would in a novel, the confrontation in Little Rock and the creation of an iconic photo, but lets us hear the central figures as they work, for the subsequent half-century, to come to terms with what has happened to them. David Margolick has written a beautiful and moving meditation on race, struggle, and the forgiving and unforgiving passage of time."—Rachel Cohen, author of A Chance Meeting (Rachel Cohen)
“Riveting reportage of an injustice that still resonates with sociological significance.”—Kirkus Reviews (Kirkus Reviews)
“A marvelous example of bringing history to life through individual stories, . . . [and] a fascinating story of race, relationships, and the struggle to forgive.”—Marjorie Kehe, Christian Science Monitor, “Fall Books: 20 Nonfiction Titles You Don’t Want to Miss” (Marjorie Kehe Christian Science Monitor)
“A patient and evenhanded account. . . . Margolick proposes no fairytale solutions. . . . To his credit, he spares us none of the unruly facts as his subjects, still wrestling with history, wander off message.”—New York Times Book Review (New York Times Book Review)
“Surprising, disturbing, occasionally inspiring, often baffling, and ultimately sad. . . . Elizabeth and Hazel represents, in microcosm, the debilitating power of race that remains powerful 50 years after that photo. . . . An amazing story, told with brio.”—Boston Globe (Boston Globe)
“An amazingly intimate portrait. . . . The lesson of Elizabeth and Hazel may be that we shouldn’t define other people’s lives by one single moment. Instead, we can use their actions to define other lives—our own.”—Christian Science Monitor (Christian Science Monitor)
“It is a story, beautifully told, of heroism – and, alas, it also an achingly painful account of the obstacles that stand in the way of racial reconciliation.”—Glenn Altschuler, Florida Courier (Glenn Altschuler Florida Courier)
“Powerful and extraordinary. . . . Armed with a perceptive eye and a sensitive heart, Margolick brilliantly tells the story of Elizabeth and Hazel. He chronicles a key moment in American history and its complex aftermath, inserting readers into an intensely personal story of two women caught in history’s web.”—Randy Dotinga, Christian Science Monitor (Randy Dotinga Christian Science Monitor)
“Engrossing . . . Elizabeth and Hazel serves to explode the simplifications of The Help and exposes the limits of apology and forgiveness. There is nothing about which to feel upbeat, no easy moral, no simple narrative. The story is a corrective to our collective fantasy that we can rectify the past.”—Louis P. Masur, The Chronicle Review (Louis P. Masur The Chronicle Review)
“In his engrossing new book Elizabeth and Hazel, David Margolick expands the frame to consider the difficult lives of its two central figures, their attempt at reconciliation, and the fact that they don't speak now. . . . Elizabeth and Hazel raises the specter that some damage doesn’t heal. It is a notion profoundly unsettling to the story we Americans tell about ourselves.”—Karen R. Long, Cleveland Plain-Dealer (Karen R. Long Cleveland Plain-Dealer)
"Intricately woven and deeply affecting....[Margolick's] choice to broaden and complicate the narrative - to include the larger minefield of race matters and honest discourse - is what makes this book salient, not sentimental. Elizabeth and Hazel's winding, rocky relationship, then, is a much more fitting and accurate metaphor for the country; this book, an attempt at a different, lasting after-image - this time in words."—Lynell George, Los Angeles Times (Lynell George Los Angeles Times)
"Judicious and bittersweet....Margolick excels at framing the intimate details of each woman's life with a half-century of social and cultural upheaval....The deeper motives and psyches of the protagonists remain as elusive as any resolution to their story—and, perhaps, just as tangled. Nonfiction, as with photographs, can only do so much—though in Elizabeth and Hazel, it does more than enough."—Gene Seymour, Newsday (Gene Seymour Newsday)
For Elizabeth and Hazel, “it would have been simple enough to turn their stories into a ‘where are they now’ piece. But Margolick is after something bigger. Through Eckford and Bryan’s tangled lives, he hopes to capture the complexity of race, forgiveness, and reconciliation in modern America.”—Kevin Boyle, Washington Post (Kevin Boyle Washington Post)
"Margolick, rather than sanitizing it, captures the full fraught sweep of history—with wounds so deep that friendship may never be possible."—Elizabeth Taylor, Chicago Tribune (Elizabeth Taylor Chicago Tribune)
“Margolick’s story about what became of Elizabeth and Hazel, and how the incident shaped their personalities and their lives, is compelling. . . . Transformation comes for both Elizabeth and Hazel but not as the reader expects, and this is the startling revelation in Margolick’s narrative. A story of atonement and forgiveness, it is also one of simmering bitterness and pride—on both sides of the racial divide.”—Jane Christmas, Maclean’s (Jane Christmas Maclean’s)
“What gives the story of Elizabeth and Hazel its sustaining power is that both of them, separately and together, have struggled for nearly all their lives after that day to free themselves. . . . It’s a testament to Margolick’s skill as a storyteller, and to the story Elizabeth and Hazel have to tell, that the reader won’t discover until the book’s very end whether they’ve succeeded.”—Lee A. Daniels, The Defenders Online (Lee A. Daniels The Defenders Online)
"A riveting portrait of the two women behind the faces of an iconic image and how that image indelibly affected their lives."—Amy Schapiro, Washington Independent Review of Books (Amy Schapiro Washington Independent Review of Books)
“Margolick’s story about what became of Elizabeth and Hazel, and how the incident shaped their personalities and their lives, is compelling....Transformation comes for both Elizabeth and Hazel but not as the reader expects, and this is the startling revelation in Margolick’s narrative. A story of atonement and forgiveness, it is also one of simmering bitterness and pride—on both sides of the racial divide.”—Jane Christmas, Maclean’s (Jane Christmas Maclean's)
“What gives the story of Elizabeth and Hazel its sustaining power is that both of them, separately and together, have struggled for nearly all their lives after that day to free themselves....It’s a testament to Margolick’s skill as a storyteller, and to the story Elizabeth and Hazel have to tell, that the reader won’t discover until the book’s very end whether they’ve succeeded.”— Lee A. Daniels, TheDefendersOnline (Lee A. Daniels TheDefendersOnline)
“Where this book really shines, and why I think you should read it, is when Margolick chronicles the reconnection of Elizabeth and Hazel in their later years and their on again, off again relationship. With a minimum of moralizing, Margolick shows the reader why racial reconciliation is more difficult in practice than in theory, especially for those who lived through some of the worst moments in our racial history.”—Kris Broughton, Big Think (Kris Broughton Big Think)
"The chief virtue of "Elizabeth and Hazel" is that it takes a long view. . . . Margolick follows these two women beyond their purported happy ending at the 50th anniversary celebration to a more complicated long-term reality."—Olivia Williams, The Post and Courier (Olivia Williams The Post and Courier)
“Weaving in and out of both women’s lives from a young age to current day, Margolick reveals new facts about the civil-rights movement. . . . Readable, and with plenty of photos, this title should be available to all high school students as well as adults. Elizabeth and Hazel is a poignant reminder that equality and freedom came with a steep price.”—Angela Carstensen, School Library Journal, blog, Adult Books 4 Teens (Angela Cartensen School Library Journal)
From the Author
Your previous book, Beyond Glory, was about the great boxing matches between Joe Louis and Max Schmeling. How did you get from there to Little Rock, 1957?
Actually, I began the two projects at roughly the same time. While in Little Rock to do a Clinton-related magazine story in 1999, I visited the museum across from Central High School. Like so many others, I well knew the picture of Elizabeth and Hazel from 1957. So I was flabbergasted to see a poster there showing the two of them, now grown women, standing next to one another, smiling, apparently reconciled. How had that happened? It seemed inconceivable. So I began gathering material on it. The two projects share a lot, in addition to their racial themes; each focuses on a discrete event—the first, a fight lasting about two minutes, the second, an exposure lasting probably a sixtieth of a second—to reveal an era.
Was it difficult to find Elizabeth and get her to speak with you?
No, Elizabeth was in the same house she'd lived in the day the picture was taken. I had expected her to be resistant but she wasn't at all, particularly once we got going. Elizabeth has an enormous respect for history and the historical process.
And Hazel?
Hazel was much more reluctant. Though she left school at seventeen, she's read widely in the history of American race relations, and knew of the historic alliance between blacks and Jews. For that reason, among others, she feared that Elizabeth and I would gang up on her. I made a very poor impression on her in our first meeting, and as the fragile friendship she'd struck up with Elizabeth faltered, her position toward me hardened. It was only seven years later, after an early version of this story appeared in Vanity Fair, that she relented. Then she opened up to me, and I came to realize how remarkable a person she, too, is.
Did you have any idea that their personal stories would intersect in such a fascinating way?
I knew, from the poster, that they'd come together again. But only later did I learn that five years or so after the picture was taken, Hazel had called Elizabeth to apologize. That was enormously significant to me, a key to her character. It said to me that for all the skepticism and hostility Hazel has encountered over the years, she in fact did the right thing in the right way: early on, when no cameras were rolling.
The book took you twelve years to complete. Why so long?
Well, apart from the multitasking that all journalists must do these days, the story turned out to be endlessly rich. I interviewed dozens of people, some repeatedly, including seven of the other eight of the Little Rock Nine. I shudder to think how many times I questioned Elizabeth; whenever I told her I was almost certainly done she laughed, because she knew there would be more questions. Hazel also put up with a lot of me.
Can you tell us something about your most recent trip to Little Rock?
Though my reporting was pretty much finished, I accompanied my friend Larry Schiller as he took portraits of the two women. We thought it essential to capture how two faces that are seared into the national memory had evolved with time and experience. Two of those photographs appear on the jacket of my book. Being with Elizabeth and Hazel one last time, and recording them once more for history, was very moving.
About the Author
David Margolick is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and a frequent contributor to the New York Times Book Review.
