As should be obvious from my username and avatar, I am, like many women of my generation and writerly profession, a little obsessed with Harriet the Spy. As such I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know Louise Fitzhugh through Brody's biography, but it left me with as many questions as it answered. Given the tactfully worded descriptions of the privacy of the Fitzhugh estate, it can have been no small feat to write this book at all. Brody does a stellar job at conjuring up the lively world in which Louise lived, connecting Fitzhugh's life and work with broader social movements and events. She made some connections between contemporary artists and work that I found insightful and interesting. I was particularly glad to see the Harriet Vane connection spoken about -- I've wondered about it for years).

But Brody's biography never really gets beyond the mythology ring-fenced by her staunch coterie of friends. Everything feels a bit cleaned up for company and rather than knowing Fitzhugh, I feel like I've seen a mosaic where each tile has been manufactured by a different acquaintance. The result is an image that looks different from different angles. This succeeds at capturing some of the complexities of Fitzhugh's life, but you come away still feeling like you don't really know her. And some things give me pause about the depth of the portrait, in which Fitzhugh seems a little too good to be true. For someone who sounds as if she was difficult to live with in a number of respects, does everyone really love her forever? Even after relationships have broken up? Everyone? I adored the descriptions of Fitzhugh's paintings, but there were no photos of them. I assume all this is an issue with the estate. I found it frustrating and can only assume the author found it even more so. But these things aside, I found new things to consider about Fitzhugh. In places where there was more material, as with the description of Fitzhugh's memorial service, Brody is meticulous and insightful. I was she had had more freedom with the materials. I also wish the editor had made one more pass to get rid of some of the repetition across chapters, but that is a minor quibble. This is still a great read and I recommend it to Harriet lovers everywhere.