Sometimes You Have to Lie

Back in the spring of 1968 when I was an 11 year old in fifth grade my elementary school held a book fair. Among the books offered for sale was a paperback with a cover showing a determined looking girl striding along a sidewalk carrying a notebook. The title was Harriet The Spy, and ordinarily I would have passed it by because I was a boy who didn’t care much for “girl books.” But something made me pick it up and leaf through it, and I quickly realized that this was a book I had to read. I read it many times over that summer, and in the fall when I entered 6th grade I made sure I carried a notebook around with me to write down my observations about life. As a brighter than average kid who was already feeling alienated from many of my classmates and developing suspicions that the adults in my life weren’t as infallible and all knowing as they would have me believe, Harriet was an excellent friend to have, along with Sport, Janie, and even Beth Ellen (whom I got to know better when I read Harriet The Spy’s sequel The Long Secret.) Harriet The Spy remains one of the books I consider to have had a great and positive influence on my life. Years later on one of my visits to New York City I spent a day wandering the Upper East Side visiting 88th Street, East End Avenue, and Carl Schurz Park just so I could feel that I had spent some time in Harriet’s neighborhood.

So who was Louise Fitzhugh, Harriet’s creator? In this fine biography Leslie Brody reveals that she was born into a wealthy but extremely dysfunctional family in Memphis, Tennessee in 1928. Given material comforts but neglected emotionally, Fitzhugh learned to depend on her friends rather than her family for support at an early age. She attended college in Memphis, but then made her way to New York City and Europe, where she was part of bohemian culture. She had a number of love affairs with both men and women, eventually living openly as a lesbian at a time when that was difficult if not actually illegal, enjoyed a great career as an artist, and in her last decade of life produced Harriet The Spy and her friends.

I really enjoyed Sometimes You Have To Lie because it told me so much about Fitzhugh and answered so many questions I had about Harriet and her world. I will always have a special fondness for Louise Fitzhugh, and I’m grateful to Leslie Brody for revealing her rich, if often chaotic, life to me.

As a preteen, the book “Harriet the Spy” was among my favorites. It was fascinating to read about the author, Louise Fitzhugh, about whom I knew little. Her upbringing and later life in NY are described succinctly, and readers also got a peek at her artwork from her NYC years. Excellent read.

Harriet the Spy is one of the books from my childhood which stuck with me always. When I saw Sometimes You Have to Lie I was excited to read more about the author. After I read Harriet, I began people watching, trying to puzzle out their lives and figuring out what makes people do the things they do. One of the things I loved was that Fitzhugh’s own way of living her life, not following the rules and living her own life and there is nothing wrong with being a little different and quirky. That’s what I took form Harriet and love that the author taught me that. This interesting, well written biography made me pull out my old copy and read again for nostalgia.
Thanks NetGalley and Leslie Brody for a chance to read this book for a review and reclaim some of my childhood!

I read Harriet the Spy when I was 8 or 9. I wanted a black and white composition notebook so I could jot my musings as I spied on people. I wanted to be a writer. I read Brody’s biography on Fitzhugh with great interest. I knew nothing about the author and hadn’t realized she wrote other books after Harriet. I did read The Long Secret as a child but it didn’t leave much of an impression. I marveled that Ursula Norton was her editor. Fitzhugh was quixotic and lived life on her own terms. I read this book with great interest and I have the urge to break out that old notebook and takes notes on people once again. Thanks to NetGalley and Seal Press for the advance read.

Okay, if you were an aspiring writer like me as a kid, who came from a boring suburban middle-class town, after you first devoured “Harriet the Spy,” you may have fashioned your own “spy notebook,” and went around jotting down acerbic notes about your family, friends and neighbors, but it sucked because the local drugstore did not sell egg creams, which sounded kind of gross because who puts egg in a drink, (though you find out years later that they don’t actually have egg), and you didn’t go to a weird private school that featured a pageant with dancing Thanksgiving dinner ingredients, and also would it have killed your parents to get you a live-in nanny who spouts aphorisms and knows just how to resolve a conflict with all your classmates shunning you. Or at least a cook who made cake every day? Anyway, if you ever wondered about the life of “Harriet’s” creator, Louise Fitzhugh, here’s your chance to find out.

Fitzhugh’s life was colorful from the beginning, as her parents, a high society lawyer and a dance instructor from a more modest background had a public and messy divorce when she was an infant (which she found out later about by reading back articles of the local newspaper as a teen). Raised by her mother’s in-laws and then her father and stepmother, Fitzhugh was an intrepid tomboyish kid with an interest in art and writing. As an adult, she lived openly as a lesbian with a wide circle of literary and artsy friends, lovers and colleagues. She would study art abroad in Europe and exhibited her work in the US. Later, she’d enjoy commercial success with a young adult book that explored themes unique to that genre back then, but would still remain conflicted on how that ranked alongside visual art. Though her artwork today is considerably less well known, she still managed to secure her place in children’s literature with a classic that’s still beloved today.

The book does a good job of portraying Fitzhugh’s lively and complex life and character. I did wish there was more dedicated to the literary side of her life, but overall, I enjoyed it.

Galaxyaudiobook Member Benefit

- Able to comment

- List watched audiobooks

- List favorite audiobooks

- Bookmark will only available for Galaxyaudiobook member