Books, Arts & Manners: That Girl

Rage for Fame: The Ascent of Clare Boothe Luce, by Sylvia Jukes Morris (Random House, 491 pp., $30)

I HAVE fallen in love: I know it could only be a disaster, but when did that ever stop anyone? The young Clare Boothe Luce, as she steps vividly from this very detailed, though by no means adulatory, book, is the kind of girl I’ve always longed for and in weak approximations have fallen for-a butterscotch blonde with blue eyes, pale pink lipstick, and a perfect complexion, immaculately groomed, athletic (she tried out as an Olympic swimmer and could shoot and ride), superbly confident (or so it seemed), witty, well read, and highly intelligent, with a questing mind. She was also a monster of egotism, ambition, and untruthfulness. But you can’t have everything. Almost all the men she met did promptly fall for her: she slept with some; others she warded off: she devoured them all, and they came gladly, repeatedly, to her mincing machine.

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Anthony Lejeune

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Rage for Fame: The Ascent of Clare Boothe Luce, by Sylvia Jukes Morris (Random House, 491 pp., $30)

I HAVE fallen in love: I know it could only be a disaster, but when did that ever stop anyone? The young Clare Boothe Luce, as she steps vividly from this very detailed, though by no means adulatory, book, is the kind of girl I’ve always longed for and in weak approximations have fallen for-a butterscotch blonde with blue eyes, pale pink lipstick, and a perfect complexion, immaculately groomed, athletic (she tried out as an Olympic swimmer and could shoot and ride), superbly confident (or so it seemed), witty, well read, and highly intelligent, with a questing mind. She was also a monster of egotism, ambition, and untruthfulness. But you can’t have everything. Almost all the men she met did promptly fall for her: she slept with some; others she warded off: she devoured them all, and they came gladly, repeatedly, to her mincing machine.