Starry and Restless: Three Women Who Changed Work, Writing, and the World
This superbly-researched work of nonfiction provides a robust account of the lengthy careers of three journalists and authors—Rebecca West, Martha Gellhorn and Emily “Mickey” Hahn. All three writers were prolific, publishing numerous novels and non-fiction books across a broad array of subjects, and reporting on foreign affairs for the preeminent magazines of the mid-20th century—The New Yorker, Collier’s, and Harper’s are just a few examples.
Rather than succumbing to journalistic traditions set by men—traditions that would have restricted them to writing about fashion trends or home décor—West, Gellhorn and Hahn harnessed their outstanding skills and inborn restlessness to travel and wrote relentlessly. Often while having novels in progress, they informed the world about the suffering of ordinary people caught up in global conflicts, most notably: the bombing of London during WWII (West), the Spanish Civil War (Gellhorn) and the Sino-Japanese War (Hahn).
Cooke vividly captures the inner lives of these groundbreaking writers, and the grit and determination it took for them to roam the world while enduring the hardships of war, disruptions to family life, and the stigma that was attached to women who traveled alone. Insightful, well-written and informative. Highly recommended.
