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“Jessica Mitford’s Poison Pen”

Hitchens' review of Decca: The Letters of Jessica Mitford, edited by Peter Y. Sussman. Evidently a whole world of “unknown famous” people out there. I had never heard of Jessica “Decca” Mitford or the Mitford sisters before reading this essay. Jessica was the sixth of seven children born to an English baron. She shunned her background and became a staunch adherent of communism (and later the US Civil Rights movement). Interesting, since two of her sisters and her father were staunch supporters of Hitler. She moved to the US before the 2d World War and lived in Oakland, CA until her death. She was evidently a very witty and often cutting writer. Hitchens recounts one story: “Jessica was confronted once with a racist southern educator who, skeptical of what she told him about desegregation in Oakland schools, said, ‘It don’t seem possible, do it?’ Jessica responded icily, ‘To me it do,’ and left him shriveled like a salted snail.”Seems like a fascinating writer…I will have to look for some of her work or, maybe, even read this book of letters.

New learning: “But she [Decca] was always willing to quarrel on a point of principle, nearly coming to a breach with her beloved Maya Angelou, for example, when the latter stuck up for the Supreme Court nomination of Clarence Thomas.”

New word: précis = a summary of a text or speech.

The Mitford sisters in 1935 (Decca on the left, of course)