Love, H
The Letters of Helene Dorn and Hettie Jones
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- $32.99
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- $32.99
Publisher Description
“It works, we're in business, yeah Babe!” So begins this remarkable selection from a forty-year correspondence between two artists who survived their time as wives in the Beat bohemia of the 1960s and went on to successful artistic careers of their own.
From their first meeting in 1960, writer Hettie Jones—then married to LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka)—and painter and sculptor Helene Dorn (1927–2004), wife of poet Ed Dorn, found in each other more than friendship. They were each other’s confidant, emotional support, and unflagging partner through difficulties, defeats, and victories, from surviving divorce and struggling as single mothers, to finding artistic success in their own right.
Revealing the intimacy of lifelong friends, these letters tell two stories from the shared point of view of women who refused to go along with society’s expectations. Jones frames her and Helene’s story, adding details and explanations while filling in gaps in the narrative. As she writes, “we'd fled the norm for women then, because to live it would have been a kind of death.”
Apart from these two personal stories, there are, as well, reports from the battlegrounds of women’s rights and tenant’s rights, reflections on marriage and motherhood, and contemplation of the past to which these two had remained irrevocably connected. Prominent figures such as Allen Ginsberg and Timothy Leary appear as well, making Love, H an important addition to literature on the Beats.
Above all, this book is a record of the changing lives of women artists as the twentieth century became the twenty-first, and what it has meant for women considering such a life today. It’s worth a try, Jones and Dorn show us, offering their lives as proof that it can be done.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Jones (How I Became Hettie Jones) and Helene Dorn met in 1960 when both were married to writers Amiri Baraka and Edward Dorn whose public selves overshadowed the creative lives of their wives. Struggling to make space for their own work amid marriage and motherhood, Jones and Dorn formed a mutually sustaining friendship that lasted until Dorn's death in 2004. This book tells the story of that relationship through the letters Jones and Dorn exchanged, selected and presented here with additional explanatory narrative by Jones. Part memoir, part documentary, and part eulogy for a beloved friend's passing, this volume offers a unique perspective on the late 20th century through the eyes of women fighting to define themselves as artists against economic and cultural odds. With Jones based in NYC and Horn settling in Gloucester, Mass., both women experienced economic precarity in the gentrifying Northeast, worked day jobs that pulled them away from their creative work (writing for Jones, painting and sculpting for Dorn), and launched children into adulthood. They also traded book recommendations, reflected on current events, and encouraged each other to take their work seriously. "What I didn't learn from ," writes Jones in her introduction, "was to value my moments enough to speak of them; for that I needed Helene." This moving portrait of a friendship has much to offer those with an interest in the lives of women writers and artists. B&w photos.
