![]() ![]() ![]() Harriet is unstoppable: she eats cake and egg creams in the afternoons, argues with grown-ups, climbs onto buildings and into dumbwaiters to spy, all while filled with that kind of youthful rage one can only find in children. With her matter-of-fact tone and acerbic humor, Harriet the Spy is the quintessential story of a tomboy-a queer heroine in childhood. Now Harriet’s author, Louise Fitzhugh, is the subject of a biography-Leslie Brody’s Sometimes You Have t o Lie: The Life and Times of Louise Fitzhugh, Renegade Author of Harriet the Spy, a succinct and readable portrait of the short-lived and charismatic lesbian writer and illustrator. Readers young and old, however, sixty years ago as much as today, find in Harriet a cathartic release and creative permission. As training for one day becoming a famous novelist, she ventures on a daily “spy route,” stalking a handful of brownstones on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, secretly watching her friends and neighbors, chronicling their business in a private notebook using a tone so deadpan and factual it borders on cruel. ![]() Welch, the titular character of Louise Fitzhugh’s iconic children’s book Harriet the Spy is eleven years old and determined to write everything down. The Creative Brilliance of Louise Fitzhugh: On Sometimes You Have to Lie by Leslie Brody ![]()
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