Louise Fitzhugh

Louise Fitzhugh, a major innovator in realistic fiction for children, stunned the book world with her challenging 1964 novel Harriet the Spy. An individualist who satirized conformity in all her books including Nobody’s Family Is Going to Change, and Bang, Bang, You’re Dead. Fitzhugh created memorable protagonists who consistently resist deadening familial and societal conventions. Although her novels celebrate independence and self-knowledge, the absence of intimacy in Fitzhugh’s fictional world also suggests the tragedy of individualism; her work thus serves as a subtle critique of contemporary American society, where neither outsider nor conformist is truly happy. In this first book-length study of Fitzhugh’s published works, Virginia L. Wolf introduces new biographical information and explores the complex relationship between Fitzhugh’s life and art. Wolf enhances our understanding of the homosexual artist by tracing the autobiographical sources of Fitzhugh’s major themes and inspirations: alienation, the family, individualism, conformity, religion, war, and bigotry. In this careful examination of Fitzhugh’s feminism and lesbianism, Wolf emphasizes the revolutionary, iconoclastic positions championed by Fitzhugh and her characters. These hitherto unexamined issues provide a unique new insight into Fitzhugh’s accomplishments and further our understanding of her contribution to children’s literature.