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Posted by Christopher Waldrop
March 5, 2008 |
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Recently NPR’s In Character Blog had an appreciation of Louise Fitzhugh, who wrote and illustrated the children’s classic Harriet The Spy, which was first published in 1964. It was shocking and outrageous. In her private diary Harriet records terrible things about her parents and her friends (who end up ostracizing her when they steal the diary and read it). She’s very funny in her observations of adults, such as the Robinsons, who “had only one problem. They thought they were perfect.†When her friends shut her out, her first response is, “I HAVE THE FEELING THIS MORNING THAT EVERYONE IN THIS SCHOOL IS INSANE.†It was also a way for Fitzhugh to create a childhood she’d never had. Although there are resemblances, Fitzhugh was brought up in the South, and her parents went through an extremely bitter, extremely destructive divorce. Fitzhugh may have been kidnapped by her mother, who ended up leaving for Hollywood to pursue a career as a tap dancer. She returned a failure, but was never allowed to see her daughter. Brought up by her wealthy father and extremely controlling grandmother, writing and art were for Fitzhugh, as they were for Beatrix Potter, a way out. Unlike Potter, though, Fitzhugh attended college, and pursued writing only intermittently. She illustrated Suzuki Beame, written by her partner Sandra Scoppettone, then gained incredible success with the publication of Harriet The Spy and the equally successful sequel The Long Secret, which was even more shocking than its predecessor because it deals with, among other things, the onset of menstruation in Harriet’s friend Beth Ellen. A third book in the series, Sport, was published in 1979, five years after Fitzhugh’s death. A lesbian before it was safe to be “outâ€, Fitzhugh was, like Harriet, brave and uncompromising, but she was also difficult; she lived hard and drank heavily. A day after checking into a hospital she died of several aneurysms resulting from a brain tumor in 1974. She would have turned eighty on October 5, 2008. As Neva Grant
explains in her story, though, Harriet the Spy still lives. She’s still popular with young girls. A “sequel†to Harriet The Spy was approved by Fitzhugh’s estate and written by Helen Ericson titled Harriet Spies Again. In a review of it for the Houston Chronicle, writer Marvin Hoffman says, “Even decent kids from strong, supportive families are just more savvy and perhaps a bit too world-wise today. This reborn Harriet is caught in a time-warp.†He’s right that a different author in a different time can’t recapture the magic of Harriet, and even the film version is less successful than the original novel. She still has her appeal. There’s even a blogger called Harriet the Spy. Maybe Harriet survives because the main theme of Harriet The Spy, and of Louise Fitzhugh’s life, is summed up in one of her statements in her notebook: THAT IS THAT SOME PEOPLE ARE ONE WAY AND SOME PEOPLE ARE ANOTHER AND THAT’S THAT.
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