Lillian Hellman admitted to being a strong-willed and often difficult person from childhood on. In Pentimento, she herself becomes a “character” in her own life story, and her skill in dramatizing herself and those with whom she interacts helps to substantiate the claims of her detractors that the book may be more fiction than truth.

She is quoted by Rollyson as “refusing to be a bookkeeper of [her] life” when faced with accusations that dates and places cited are inaccurate. As William Wright admits, however, the people in Pentimento figure so strongly in the playwright’s life (as well as providing models for characters in her plays) that minute veracity becomes a relatively unimportant issue when evaluating the book.

In a number of instances throughout Pentimento, Hellman adopts a high moral tone, which she recognizes as somewhat false. She does it in “Berthe” when she accuses her aunts of deserting the woman; she does it again in “Willy” when what she really feels is rage at her uncle’s lustful relationship with the Cajun mistress; and she repeats this pose when, after Cowan has “cracked up,” she dismisses him as “a man of unnecessary things.” Helen, however, constantly reminds Hellman that everyone is “getting ready for the summons” (death), so nonjudgmental understanding is preferable to false piety.

The chapter “Julia” is the high point of Pentimento, the one most often the focus of critical attention, both favorable and negative. Peter Feibleman in Lilly (1988) tells how Hellman had told him a story years earlier about a girlhood friend whose life paralleled Julia’s experience, although he admits that the details, such as the wallpaper in the little German restaurant, were certainly added. What may be most important about “Julia” is not whether it is fact or fiction but that it illustrates a very deep friendship between young girls who grow into committed women, illustrating Hellman’s brand of feminism and her disdain for people who simply stand by in the face of evil and do nothing. The latter idea became the major theme of Watch on the Rhine.

Toward the end of the 1930’s, politics became important to Hellman, and in “Theatre” she tells of becoming increasingly aware of the political inquisition that would peak with Hammett being jailed and her own appearance in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee. She explains the basis for her feelings about injustice, which many liberals of the period believed would be eliminated by Marxism. As she admits, “I am, in fact, bewildered by all injustice, at first certain it cannot be, then shocked into rigidity, then obsessed, and finally as certain as the Grand Inquisitor that God wishes me to move ahead, correct and holy.” This insight into her way of thinking does much to explain her so-called pro-Communist position, vis-à-vis Nazism. It was not until the nonaggression pact between Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin was signed in August, 1939, that she began to look more objectively at communism as practiced in the Soviet Union.

Another theme that runs through Pentimento is Hellman’s love of nature. She believed that the happiest years of her life were those spent at Hardscrabble Farm in Westchester, which she and Hammett bought in June, 1939. It was a peaceful time in their relationship, and Hellman loved, according to Rollyson, “to work herself to weariness, to feel good-tired from writing, or spring planting, or cleaning chicken houses, or autumn hunting.” It is here that “Turtle” is set, here that Hellman begins to ask what Hammett considers theological questions (which he refuses to answer) when the turtle survives...