Very Much A Lady by Shana Alexander
Note: This review was originally written for a library service called Tele-book in which people could call a special number to hear reviews read. I also used this book extensively in the article I wrote about the Jean Harris-Herman Tarnower case that appears at http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/women/harris/1.html.
Very Much A Lady by Shana Alexander, author of a book on Patty Hearst called Anyone’s Daughter, is the sympathetic and immensely readable story of Jean Harris. For anyone who has lost track of yesterday’s headlines, Harris is the headmistress of a posh girls’ school who shot and killed her lover, Herman Tarnower, a respected cardiologist who authored the best-selling Complete Scarsdale Diet Book. To this day, Jean Harris maintains that the fatal shooting of Dr. Tarnower was an accident that occurred when the doctor fought with Harris over the gun she planned to use to kill herself.
Alexander traces the lives of both major characters from childhood on and sees the seeds of their destruction planted early on. The same character traits that brought them together as lovers doomed them to a terrible and sad ending. Harris’ relationship with her impossible-to-please father formed her early identity as a “good girl” and led to her powerful need for a dominant male image to shore up her shaky sense of self. The classic overachiever, Harris had to excel in any project she tackled. She craved a stimulation that she failed to get from her brief first marriage to a decent but unexciting mate. Harris divorced him and began a fourteen-year-long affair with Dr. Herman Tarnower. Tarnower was a dedicated physician with old-fashioned attitudes toward women and a deep fear of marriage. After breaking their engagement, he urged Harris to find a man who would marry her. But Harris could not break the psychic and sexual attachment that bound her to the self-centered Tarnower.
There is one puzzling aspect to the Jean Harris-Hy Tarnower story that deserves fuller attention than Alexander gives it. That is Jean Harris’s religious background. According to Alexander, Jean Harris’s Mom was a devout Christian Scientist who saw her kids through the usual childhood illnesses without the benefit of medical treatment. When the Struven youngsters took sick, they were tucked in bed and given chicken soup while their mother read to them from the works of Mary Baker Eddy. The one time this formula didn’t work and a son almost died, Mrs. Struven rushed him to the hospital. In the words of the author “The woman was a believer but not a fanatic.”
The heavy irony of Jean’s passion for a doctor should have been examined in light of the Christian Science beliefs in which she had been indoctrinated. The additional irony of Jean’s being (perhaps) the victim of misguided medical practice, i.e., her dependence on amphetamines prescribed by her lover-doctor, should have been explored. Indeed, one reading of the Harris case might be the irony that the deterioration of her health could conceivably be traced the her new-found faith in medical science.
The jury rejected Harris’ version of events and found her guilty of murder. Alexander, who is unabashedly Harris’ partisan, brilliantly dissects the defense errors that led to Harris’ conviction. Among the chief of these were her attorney’s misguided interpretation of the explosive Scarsdale Letter (a chronicling of her woes and complaints that she mailed to Tarnower but which he never received), the jury’s class and background distance from the accused, and the failure of her defense lawyer’s to understand the personality of this brittle, high-strung “lady.”
In a story laced with ironies, the greatest is that in the version of events told by the prosecutor and accepted by the jury, Herman Tarnower is just another murder victim whereas according to Harris’s defense Tarnower died a heroic death, tragically putting his life in jeopardy to save hers.
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March 27th, 2008 at 10:02 pm
Do you understand how many women decided (or were told by their attorneys) they could use this amusing construct (”I went to kill myself, and we struggled until I accidentally shot him until the gun was empty”) to get away with murder?
Her standard of living as a convicted murderer is only slightly more modest than what her own efforts would have provided in life: a private cottage with her choice of curtains, a (forgive the pun) captive audience of eager acolytes (including the staff), and a door locked from the inside.
The story of Mrs. Harris should be told as follows: “It is the judgment of this Court that you be taken to a place designated for the purpose, and hanged by the neck until dead.” You know – like in that Bible?
March 28th, 2008 at 12:54 am
It must be difficult for a reviewer to maintain an impartiality. But it should be attempted some day. With this nod to your quite normal and usual dispositions, Denise, how do you overlook the small biases that creep in?
This one for example: “….sexual attachment that bound her to the self-centered Tarnower”. You mentioned little about his character and nothing at all about him being self-centred. Indeed you say he was a “dedicated physician “. Can one be both, simultaneously? Not that I am judging him either way. I have precious little to go on.
How about this doozy for an unsupported view: “Harris’ relationship with her impossible-to-please father formed her early identity as a “good girl” and led to her powerful need for a dominant male image to shore up her shaky sense of self.” Wham bam! No thank you ma’am.
Impossible to please? Not just difficult but impossible. Really? And a relationship with someone who is impossible to please produces ‘good girl’ attributes, does it? Well, that should chuck a fox in the ‘Raising Kiddies’ hen house.
And since when do women have a shakey self image? Why hasn’t a MAN !! ™ been jailed for that? Surely women have a right to whatever image they damned well want. There isn’t a chance that she made her self-image – a notoriously hard image to get right – all by herself, is there? After all we are talking of a middle-aged women here. Why not bring her potty training into the equation? Or the Avon Lady.
I like this one: “…old-fashioned attitudes toward women and a deep fear of marriage” Hmmmmm. The two don’t seem to ‘hang together’. Maybe Panic, above, is right. Leave the poor chap Tarnower out of it. She should hang by herself.
March 28th, 2008 at 6:08 am
amfortas said,
It must be difficult for a reviewer to maintain an impartiality. But it should be attempted some day. With this nod to your quite normal and usual dispositions, Denise, how do you overlook the small biases that creep in?>>
(Denise) Hello amfortas. I hope one of my most incisive critics is doing well these days.
amfortas: This one for example: “….sexual attachment that bound her to the self-centered Tarnower”. You mentioned little about his character and nothing at all about him being self-centred. Indeed you say he was a “dedicated physician “. Can one be both, simultaneously? Not that I am judging him either way. I have precious little to go on.>>
(Denise) I was reviewing Alexander’s book which does indeed depict him as both self-centered and a very dedicated physician. You might read the far more detailed article I have on the case at Crime Library. In that piece, I point out that, after his father died, Herman Tarnower supported his mother — who had not worked outside of the home and had few marketable skills — for the rest of her life. I also point out that he was not jealous of the ladyloves in his life and never tried to bind any of them to him. Indeed, he urged Jean Harris to look for a man who was the marrying kind.
amfortas: How about this doozy for an unsupported view: “Harris’ relationship with her impossible-to-please father formed her early identity as a “good girl” and led to her powerful need for a dominant male image to shore up her shaky sense of self.” Wham bam! No thank you ma’am.
Impossible to please? Not just difficult but impossible. Really? And a relationship with someone who is impossible to please produces ‘good girl’ attributes, does it? Well, that should chuck a fox in the ‘Raising Kiddies’ hen house.
(Denise) In Alexander’s book, Jean Harris’s father does indeed seem “impossible to please.”
amfortas: And since when do women have a shakey self image? Why hasn’t a MAN !! â„¢ been jailed for that? Surely women have a right to whatever image they damned well want. There isn’t a chance that she made her self-image – a notoriously hard image to get right – all by herself, is there? After all we are talking of a middle-aged women here. Why not bring her potty training into the equation? Or the Avon Lady.
I like this one: “…old-fashioned attitudes toward women and a deep fear of marriage” Hmmmmm. The two don’t seem to ‘hang together’. Maybe Panic, above, is right. Leave the poor chap Tarnower out of it. She should hang by herself.
(Denise) Tarnower DID have both. However, as I already stated, he showed great kindness to his own mother by supporting her after his father died. Since he did not want to marry, he urged those women for whom marriage was important — like Jean Harris — to find a man who did.
March 28th, 2008 at 10:33 pm
(Denise) Hello amfortas. I hope one of my most incisive critics is doing well these days.
(Me) I am as well as can be expected for a poverty-striken knackered old shite, Denise, and all the better for your kind hopes for me.
Estne volumen in toga, an solum tibi libet me videre?
Thank you for explaining that it was Alexander’s assessment and that you have pointed out other qualities in Tarnower that show a better aspect, less affected by prejudice. I must read more as you suggest.