Troublemaker: The Fierce, Unruly Life of Jessica Mitford

by Carla Kaplan

From British high society to republican Spain and civil rights America, the inspiring, wildly entertaining story of Jessica Mitford—investigative journalist, radical activist, renegade aristocrat.

'The cult of the Mitfords, which now features a shelf of books and several TV documentaries, threatens in itself to become a bore on an almost Bloomsbury scale. But [their] mad father, when making dispositions of his property, wrote in his will the words "except Jessica." And the bookstore at the Devonshire stately home in Chatsworth displays works by and about every Mitford sister but her. These paltry aristocratic gestures confirm, as do [her] letters, that it was Decca, exiled and intransigent, who was the exceptional one.' — Christopher Hitchens

Jessica ‘Decca’ Mitford was raised to marry well, not fight for others’ rights. Yet she rejected her eccentric, blue-blooded roots, running away from England to become an antifascist and antiracist. Why is this rebellious heroine less famous than her glamorous sisters, who ranged from naughty to Nazi?    

Troublemaker is the remarkable story of Decca’s life in pursuit of justice, in the Spanish Civil War and the Communist Party USA; her intrepid social reporting, and her relentless antics. Carla Kaplan celebrates a fierce intellect and powerful ally who brought joy to the struggle, unearthing fascinating details through interviews with the Mitford family, and exploring Decca’s thousands of witty letters. From pioneer Dr Spock to Decca’s best friend Maya Angelou, this Mitford sister’s irreverent anti-authoritarianism deeply influenced American culture. Back home in Britain, her activism shamed those of her class—and her family—on the wrong side of history.    

This passionate, often hilarious biography captures an extraordinary woman, and an extraordinary time in world history. Facing today’s injustices, we need Decca’s vibrant, committed example more than ever.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, Biography Memoir, Audiobook, History, Politics, Adult

561 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 25, 2025

About the author

Carla Kaplan is the Davis Distinguished Professor of American Literature at Northeastern University. She is the author of The Erotics of Talk: Women's Writing and Feminist Paradigms, Zora Neale Hurston: A Life in Letters, and Miss Anne in Harlem: The White Women of the Black Renaissance She is also editor of Every Tongue Got to Confess: Negro Folk Tales from the Gulf States and Dark Symphony and Other Works by Elizabeth Laura Adams.

Reviews

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kaplan has created a masterpiece in biography.

Decca was a (unwilling) member of the famous Mitford family, "such a perfect reflection of the times that it was often difficult to believe that the Mitford family had not been invented."

Nancy the writer, Pam the unassuming, Tom, the only brother who died in WWII, Diana the fascist, Unity the fascist who loved Hitler, Decca the communist, and Debo the Duchess of Devonshire. Despite her ongoing frostiness with family, she always used the Mitford name in print so more eyes would see her work.

Decca invested heavily with time, money, and freedom in the causes she believed in--fair wages, civil rights etc. Far more than any of her siblings. Despite her communist ways, she never quite lost her aristocratic tendencies. First class travel, staying at Debo's Chatsworth when visiting, left child rearing to someone else etc. One of my favorite lines is how Decca was "suspicious of refrigeration."

Decca was not moved to ever forgive Diana for marrying the UK's fascist leader (in the presence of Hitler), but would let Unity's loyalty to the Nazis go unchallenged (Unity attempted to commit suicide when war was declared between the UK & Germany). Her parents' marriage fell apart when her mother was supportive of Hitler, and the parent she cut off was her father.

At the beginning of WWII, Decca ran away with her cousin to Spain, and they later married and moved to the USA. Her husband, Esmond was killed in action. Decca stayed in the US to raise their daughter, who would become a vital member of the Civil Rights movement. Her second marriage was to Bob Treufhoft, a Jewish communist/civil rights lawyer--who coincidentally mentored Hillary Clinton--and would bring two more children. Decca's independent claim to fame was exposing the excessive amount of money it took to die in the United States. She took on other subjects such as prison and the cost of giving birth, but none took off like "The American Way of Death."

Decca was critical and often unforgiving. She was upset when her daughter dropped out of college to join the civil rights movement. Decca begged her parents for a proper education, which she never received (common for the time, as daughters were often raised to manage only a household), and she remained bitter about it until the end of her days. Decca experienced a hard life, losing two of her four children (infant to measles and hit by a bus) and sometimes her ability to work because of causes she supported.

Decca also kept up the absurd Mitford nicknames. Her daughter's name is Constancia and is commonly known as Dinky to this day.

I underlined a lot in this book, but here is one for the record:

Central Heating and American bathrooms captivated her, as did American generosity and open curiosity. Americans were so interested, she marveled, so unrestrained in their enthusiasms.

[Beth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Why is this book not getting more attention?!? Jessica Mitford's life is truly fascinating and this is a beautifully researched and written account of it. The number of causes she was involved in and people she knew is mind-boggling.

[Bonnie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Carla Kaplan has written a very comprehensive biography of a very interesting person. Jessica Mitford was the daughter of Lord and Lady Redesdale. She was the fifth of six sisters; there was also one brother. The sisters were extremely close, partly because they really only had each other for companions. Their father disapproved of educating girls; he claimed it gave them thick ankles. They didn't even have a tutor. Despite the lack of education, Nancy and Jessica were autodidacts and both became writers, Nancy a novelist and Jessica a muckraker, most famous for "The American Way of Death." Jessica (or Decca as she was known) eloped with her second cousin, Esmond Romilly, who had fought with the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War, and joined the Royal Canadian Air Force during WWII. He was killed when his plane went down, though his body was never found. Aside from the story about Decca's life, what made the book compelling for me was the portrait of the eras: the Spanish Civil War (which was like the civil rights movement and the anti-war movements for 60s radicals), WWII, the anti-Communism of the 1950s (Decca and Esmond, and her second husband Robert Truehaft were all communists), the civil rights movement in the 1960s, and the student movement in the 60s and 70s. Kaplan portrays Decca sympathetically, but the book is no hagiography. Decca was a very complex person. On the one hand, she gave up her aristocratic life and privileges to fight for social justice. On the other hand, she had no compunctions about fiddling her income taxes in order to pay for some of the luxuries she really wanted. I know several people who knew her, includng her daughter, Dinky, and Dinky's husband, Terry Weber, who was a year behind me in high school and was my younger sister's boyfriend. Decca absolutely captivated people, but she could be terribly mean, especially when drunk. The book is also good on gossip about important figures, but no spoilers!

[Benjamin Lettuce Treuhaft · Rating 5 out of 5]

My son the math whiz tells me I've read 1.7% of this fat tome but I'm loving the first 9 pages of the introduction so much that I'll write a (rare) review. Ms. Kaplan seems to have researched the hell out of her subject and already I've learned two things I didn't know, and I'm the subject's black sheep son. And she's already revealed several Mitford jokes so I've had to burst out laughing twice on this quiet car on my train to Edinburgh.

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little too much detail…skipped a chapter or two.

[Laurie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read most of the books by Jessica, Diana, Debo and Nancy, and I devoured this one in a day or two, even though it's 500 pages long. It tells us a lot about Jessica's political life, her writing life, her sense of humor about death, and how such a fiery progressive came out of a family of blue-blooded fascists.

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've read a fair bit about the Mitford family but didn't know much about Jessica. So I was looking forward to learning about her life and work. She was very interesting and absolutely lived true to her convictions. That said, I thought this book was very problematic. Did it have an editor assigned???? It was unnecessarily long with a good deal of repetition, backtracking and hopping around in time and place. Other parts, that were seemingly greatly important to Jessica, were glossed over with no real depth (her children's marriages, etc...). There are many 5 star reviews (I find that very common on Good Reads) which seem more based on her life which is admittedly fascinating and not about the actual book. 3 stars is generous (more like 2 stars but I bumped it up for the sheer amount of research that was probably required). I recommend only if you are unexplainedly fascinated with this family, as I am. Otherwise, give it a pass and read something else.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful read—I’ve been fascinated by the Mitfords since I was a teenager and read Poison Penmanship and The American Way of Death. I still was unprepared by the absolute madness of her early life and the quantities of people she knew. Her daughter’s partner was James Forman! She knew Grace Paley! “Cousin Winston” was Churchill! Etc.

[Mal Warwick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Aristocrat, Communist, muckraker, she grabbed headlines all her life

A dwindling number of American readers recognize the name Jessica Mitford (1917-96). And those who do probably think of her as the author of her most successful book, The American Way of Death. It shot to the top of the New York Times bestseller list on its publication in 1963 and stayed there for six weeks. Its revised edition is still in print today. And, more important, its savage takedown of the funeral industry led to major federal reform.

But it was only one of a dozen books she wrote. And writing never defined her. She herself, and most of her many friends on both sides of the Atlantic, saw Mitford as an activist dedicated to social justice. In short, she was a troublemaker. And author Carla Kaplan accurately characterizes her that way in her deeply researched biography, Troublemaker: The Fierce, Unruly Life of Jessica Mitford.

An author who was, above all, an activist

Mitford’s contemporaries, however, knew her as one of the six notorious Mitford sisters. Known as Decca to friends and family throughout her life, she was the “red sheep” of the family. Her parents, Lord and Lady Redesdale, were extreme right-wing Conservatives who admired Adolf Hitler. Her sister Diana married Oswald Mosley, head of the British Fascist Party. Like him and her parents, she was pro-Nazi and antisemitic. Her sister Unity moved to Germany and became Hitler’s companion and possibly his lover.

But early in life Decca declared herself a Communist. And at the age of 19 she ran away to live with her cousin, Esmond Romilly. He was a democratic socialist (not a Communist) who had fought in Spain. They first moved to Spain, where Esmond worked as a foreign correspondent. They married there. Then in 1939 the couple emigrated to the United States.

A life lived in the public eye

Esmond and Decca traveled throughout the United States, supporting themselves by working odd jobs. But when World War II broke out, he enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force. She gave birth to his daughter, Constancia Romilly. (Decca called her “the Donk” or “Dinky.”) They lived then in Washington, DC, with a couple who were prominent Southern civil rights activists.

Decca got a job with the federal Office of Price Administration (OPA) working to prevent wartime profiteering. But in 1941 Esmond died in battle. Two years later Decca met and married civil rights attorney Robert (Bob) Treuhaft (1912-2001), an enforcer at the OPA. After a time, she moved to Oakland, California. Bob followed her there and joined a progressive law firm. After a promotion, Decca continued her government work.

The Communist Party and the Civil Rights Movement

Bob and Decca enrolled in the Communist Party in 1943. Soon, the Party became the centerpiece of Decca’s life. She took on one job after another in the Party, working as an organizer both in the Party’s local chapter and in the closely aligned Civil Rights Congress. That work consumed her for the next 15 years, even as Decca gave birth to two sons—and one died when hit by a bus. Despite the growing demands on her, she became nationally prominent in the defense of several Black men unjustly accused and imprisoned for crimes they didn’t commit.

These activities, and her growing role in the Party, continued until well after NIkita Khruschchev’s “Secret Speech” in 1956. But Decca and Bob left the Communist Party in 1958, disillusioned by the revelations of Stalin’s monstrous crimes. By that time, Decca felt the party, shrunken in numbers and widely discredited, had become “rather useless.

In the 1960s, Bob forged a high-profile career in the law. He founded his own firm in 1963. The following year he famously represented more than 700 Free Speech Movement students arrested during a sit-in at the University of California in Berkeley. He and his partners (including my friend Mal Burnstein) also represented anti-Vietnam War protesters, the Black Panther Party, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE).

How we best remember her—for her books

Decca’s first book, the bestselling (and hilarious) memoir of her life in the Mitford family, Hons and Rebels, appeared in 1960. The book sold briskly on both sides of the Atlantic and outraged her sisters. They, especially Diana (Mrs. Oswald Mosley), had long since written her off as having strayed far off the family reservation. But her biting treatment of the fascist views and antisemitism of practically everyone in her family did not go down well. (Only her older sister Pam, a farmer who later came out as a lesbian, and her brother, Tom, escaped the lash of her tongue.)

Decca came reluctantly to her career as a muckraker. But the publication in 1963 of The American Way of Death forever fastened her image in the public mind as a social critic. The book was a sensation. Ten other books followed in the years ahead. Several were successful, as were some of the articles she wrote for The Atlantic and other magazines. But none even came close to the success of Hons and Rebels, much less The American Way of Death. (The Trial of Dr. Spock and Kind and Unusual Punishment: The Prison Business were the standouts.) But for years Decca earned a sizable income as a public speaker about the topics she addressed in her books.

On a personal note

I knew Jessica Mitford slightly. Sometime in the 1970s—my memory is foggy—I spent a half-day with her. I’d invited her to speak to a breakfast group I’d helped organize in San Francisco. She was a huge hit: eloquent, nonstop funny, and insightful. And I was her chauffeur for the day, having picked her up at her home on the border of Berkeley and Oakland and driving her home afterward. She was a delight.

I also met her second husband, Bob Treuhaft, but only once and very briefly. However, I was a close friend of his longtime partner, Mal Burnstein (1934-2023), who worked with him on the Free Speech Movement and other high-profile cases. Mal and I were friends for six decades.

About the author

According to Google Books, “Carla Kaplan is Associate Professor in the English Department at Yale where she also teaches in Women’s Studies, African-American Studies, American Studies. She publishes widely on feminist theory and criticism, women’s writing, African-American literature, American literature, and modernism.” She has written three books.

The author’s own website notes that “Caplan is the Davis Distinguished Professor of American Literature at Northeastern University, where, as the Founding Director of the university’s Humanities Center, she created a conversational hub dedicated to diversity. She has held positions at Yale University, the University of Southern California, Wellesley College, and the University of Illinois, and also teaches writing through arts councils and writers’ centers. . .

“Born in Worcester, Massachusetts, Kaplan grew up in Evanston, Illinois, spending summers in Cape Cod and going to camp at Circle Pines Center, one of the nation’s first interracial cooperatives; she lives in Boston and Eastham, Massachusetts.”

[Douglas Noakes · Rating 5 out of 5]

jessica Mitford (or "Decca" to her family and friends) lived the sort of vibrant and electic life that could have created by a novelist. Growing up in the English nobility, she was one of six sisters and one brother who were celebrities in their day. Two of them became die-hard fascists (Unity and Diana) one became a conservative best-selling author (Nancy), one set out to marry a duke and became the Duchess of Devonshire (Deborah) and their brother, Tom, fought and died in World Wat Two, fighting Japanese forces in Burma with the "Forgotten Army".

Jessica made her mark in her own unique way. She was sympathetic to the plight of the poor around her family estate and adopted Communism as her creed. While still a teenager, she was off to help the Republicans (with her lover and first husband, Esmond Romilly), in the Spanish Civil War. Later she joined the American Communist Party and stayed a member until 1958. (I often wonder how so many stayed with that doctinaire and rigid party for so long after the Nazi-Soviet Pact and the crimes of Stalin's mass murders during "the Terror" were revealed. I'm still not sure why Jessica did either, but she had a fierce desire to see people treated fairly, especially the working class and people of color, and the American Communist Party was certainly an outlet for that.

She was caught up in the blacklisting hysteria the United States suffered was a factor. She could have turned against other party members, some did and others went to jail for non-violent offenses like not cooperating with Congress. Whatever appalled feelings one might have for Soviet-style state socialism, it is a tribute to her that she never sold out her friends.

Her activism turned her into a muckracking journalist, specializing in civil rights cases and uncovering profit-gouging in enterprises like the funeral industry. When her book, THE AMERICAN WAY OF DEATH, came out in 1963, it became a huge-best seller. She went She continued to work in activism and journalism right up to the end of her life.

Mitford's spent most of her adult life in the Berkeley and Oakland area of San Francisco's Bay Area. Growing up there, I read about her in newspapers but it took my reading of her memoir, HONS AND REBELS, from 1960, to fully appreciate her courage and unflagging energy. I hope anyone who comes to this biography will read HONS AND REBELS or some other major work before this biography just to get a foreteaste of her wry humor and captivating style as a writer.

Ms. Kaplan's book, by the way, is a teriffic read into an amazing woman's life.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent biography, highly recommended! A very impressive work, and a great read. For me, this book is a kind of dream come true: A really thorough investigation of the life and work of this amazing woman, written by a sympathetic biographer. There was a previous biography that I recall as very good (and sympathetic), but this book feels more definitive. Or maybe I was just so taken with the author when I saw her interviewed at the Mechanics Institute Library last week, it was only to be expected that the book would make a powerful impression. But personal impressions aside, this book is the real deal. If you know about Jessica Mitford, you will absolutely want to read it, and if you don't know about Jessica Mitford, here's your chance to learn.

After finishing this long book, I am only sad that it had to end, that we finally came to the end of this remarkable life. Not that it's all fun and games, mind you, but I can't help admiring Decca's combination of determination to fight for justice and zest for living that carried through a lot of very tough times.

Too much of the Mitford family story has been produced by the Fascist wing of the family, or those sympathetic to them, depicting Jessica in all sorts of nasty ways while simply skipping over the fascism of much of the rest of the family as if it were no big deal. Nobody is perfect, and that goes for Jessica (usually referred to by her nickname, Decca), too. But a big part of the value of this biography is putting Decca's life in a perspective that is not dictated by the values of the most unenlightened members of the British aristocracy.

On the sadder side, this book talks about Decca's desires to avoid "mucking about" in processing personal trauma, and notes in passing what sounds like oceans of alcohol required to drown her feelings. For those close to her, this must have been excruciating, but with the detachment of a reader who didn't know her I feel sorrow for how much pain she lived with in the only way she felt she could live with it. Having known my own share of alcoholics I can't claim to understand what they go through, but I feel confident in saying it's not fun for them, whatever they may tell you. But don't think that makes this a sad book: There's plenty of sorrow in it, but the fierce and also the joyful side of her life comes across as the bigger part of the story, and is certainly more powerful in terms of the legacy Decca left us. And that's the reason to read this wonderful book.

[Maine Colonial · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve read and watched a ton about the Mitfords, but I was interested to see what a new bio of Jessica Mitford might reveal. Nothing about her personal life was new to me, but I liked the predominance author Kaplan placed on Mitford’s career as a social activist and muckraker. A good deal of that was new to me and is a welcome addition to the usual treatment of her as almost a frivolous figure.

There is still a good proportion of content about Mitford’s personal life and her difficult relationship with her family, especially those of her sisters who chose the conventional and even far-right path. They were all inveterate letter-writers, and it’s painful to read letters between her sisters Diana and Deborah making cruel fun of Jessica’s left-wing activism, marriage to a Jewish man, and daughter’s marriage to a Black man. If you want to read more about just how horrible Diana was, in particular, you’ll get a couple of glimpses here (e.g., how her husband, fascist Oswald Mosley, hated only those Jews who didn’t support Hitler), but there are other books out there that can give you a fuller picture.

“Hollywood waxed cold, then hot, then cold again.” “pistol-whipped with a gun” [as contrasted to pistol-whipped with what?] “fealty and fidelity” [there is a difference, but fealty isn’t an apt adjective in the context used.]

Narrator Christina Delaine’s delivery is clear and well-modulated. Unfortunately, she can’t capture Jessica’s unique speaking style—though that’s an impossible task.

The book could have used a bit more editing to fix some awkward writing; e.g., “Hollywood waxed cold, then hot, then cold again” and “pistol-whipped with a gun.” But overall, this is a highly readable, entertaining, and informative biography.

[elena j. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Troublemaker by Carla Kaplan is a vivid, funny, and deeply admiring portrait of Jessica “Decca” Mitford, a woman who refused every role her class and era assigned her. Born into British aristocracy and raised to marry well and behave quietly, Decca instead ran toward revolution, journalism, and lifelong dissent.

What makes this biography exceptional is its balance of political history and intimate character study. Kaplan captures Decca not only as an activist and investigative journalist, but as a restless, witty, and emotionally complex woman whose defiance was driven as much by curiosity and humor as by ideology. Her break from her glamorous, infamous sisters becomes more than family drama it becomes a moral choice.

The book’s greatest strength lies in showing how rebellion can be joyful. Decca’s friendships, her letters, her irreverence, and her refusal to be intimidated by power give the narrative warmth and momentum, even as it traces some of the twentieth century’s darkest conflicts. Her life reads as a reminder that courage can be playful, principled, and stubbornly hopeful all at once.

For readers drawn to literary biography, feminist history, political activism, and unconventional lives, Troublemaker offers a richly textured and inspiring account of a woman who chose justice over privilege and never looked back.

[Kay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jessica Mitford, the British aristocrat turned American muckraking journalist, lived an incredible life, and Carla Kaplan has written a riveting account of that life. I’d read a couple of Mitford’s books, but had little knowledge of Mitford’s personal life or the many tragedies she weathered. I was blown away by the amount and quality of Kaplan's research, which taught me so much about the historical periods Mitford lived through – the Spanish Revolution, World War II, the McCarthy Era, the Civil Rights Movement. And talk about a family split: Mitford became a firebrand communist, while several members of her family were devout fascists, one sister even being Hitler’s girlfriend! Mitford seemed to know everyone, from Winston Churchill (her first husband’s uncle) to her good friend Maya Angelou to Washington Post publisher Kay Graham to Black Panther leader Huey Newton to John F. Kennedy, with whom another of her sisters was close. The biography was long, but fascinating.

[Stephen King · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very good book, detailing the life of Jessica (Decca) Mitford, the second youngest of the Mitford sisters. An eccentric aristocratic upbringing with family members infamous for their embrace of facsimile, Decca, was by contrast, a committed Communist and activist. Following her marriage to Esmond Romilly (Churchill’s cousin) they moved to the US and both embraced radical causes and monetized their aristocratic backgrounds for an American audience. Following Esmond’s death in WWII, Decca remarried Bob Trefhaut, a radical Jewish lawyer and settled permanently in the US. She wrote, organised, played on her aristocratic background and became prominent as a ‘muckraking’ investigative journalist. A detailed, affectionate and honest biography of a quite remarkable character who embodied English upper class confidence and interwar culture and chutzpah. A little too detailed in parts and some of the accounts of 1960s and 70s political machinations could do with some editing.

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jessica Mitford was so much more than just one of the Mitford Sisters and is often portrayed as playing at Communism, a convenient foil to her two older sisters (and her mother) who were Fascist supporters. But Decca, as she was known, was a serious person who lived a fascinating and fulfilling life away from her family and achieved acclaim as a writer, journalist, and investigator. Her sisters’ denigration and denial of her accomplishments (which colors other Mitfordiana and biographies without presenting any context or counterpoint) is now a thing of the past thanks to Carla Kaplan’s thoroughly researched and well-documented biography, which reveals her to be a serious, flawed, fascinating and ultimately important and inspiring 20th century figure.

[Kidlitter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely essential reading for those of us who can't ever get enough Mitford and this doorstopper provides tons of details on the most admirable and outlier of them all, Jessica or Decca as she was known. Why are some people born with such a strong sense of personal ideals and why were the Milfords so strong in that category, loathsome as some of them were because of their convictions. It's hard to argue with Jessica Mitford's obsession with economic, political and social fairness and no surprise she would up in the States to work for civil rights. The English class system is a very tough nut to crack; even she had to give up and go West.

[Denise]

I became intrigued by the Mitfords after reading Mimi Pond’s Do Admit last year, and was keen to check out this expansive biography of Decca. Kaplan’s a good writer and extremely meticulous in her research, so this may just be a case of timing, but after getting roughly a quarter of the way through (and despite knowing that much of her life is still to be covered!), I’m simply not motivated to pick this up and continue on. I suspect I might give this another try when I’m in the right headspace, but for now, this is a DNF at 25%.

[Barrote · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fascinating life, not sure the writing style is up to the mark. I feel that there is only a handful of great biographers out there anyway, so most biographies are just okay. Still, it is good to bring a counternarrative to all those awful Diana-the-fascist-leaning Mitford biographies that seem to have dominated the market for the last 20 years. This book did teach me that the Mitfords -the whole lot - were even more racist and antisemitic than I ever thought, and that's to say something.

[Gayla Bassham · Rating 5 out of 5]

No matter what goes wrong in the world or in my life I can always count on the Mitford sisters to distract me. What an incredible life this woman led. (Don't get me wrong, Decca seems like a lot and I don't know that I would want to be friends with her but you can't deny her talent or her passion for her causes.)

[Heidi Lackey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating life, fascinating family. Loved "The American Way of Death" when I first read it 20+ years ago and I look forward to a deeper dive into many more things Mitford - Decca's (Jessica's) memoirs, Nancy's fiction, Unity's and Diana's biographies.

[Pat Bradley · Rating 5 out of 5]

A thorough look at a life well lived, if riddled with contradictions.

[Naomi · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

[Clare McHugh · Rating 5 out of 5]

A splendid portrait of the most appealing of the Mitford sisters.

[Renee T. · Rating 4 out of 5]

My favorite Mitford.

[Relena_reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a book to start the year with! How was I so unfamiliar with Jessica Mitford when I was familiar with the British Mitfords? Maybe there are just too many people right at the edges of the central timeline of history?

I hope that my life can be nearly as close to that centerline as Decca's.

Like all biographies, there were struggles here with repetition, but not enough to be seriously annoying.

I'll be recommending this book to other radical women for sure!

Thank you to NetGalley for this audioARC.

[Sharlene · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been fascinated with the Mitford sisters for a long time. This is a well-written biography of the one who came to America and is most well-known for her American Way of Death.
she and her second husband knew everyone in their time, and we're involved in American Civil Rights Movement and the McCarthy era.

[Mike Cobb · Rating 4 out of 5]

A rich, deeply researched portrait of Jessica “Decca” Mitford that captures both her mischief and her moral seriousness. Kaplan does a good job tracing Decca’s journey from eccentric aristocrat to sharp-tongued muckraker and committed activist. At times the level of detail can feel a bit dense, but overall this is an absorbing, illuminating biography that left me even more fascinated by Mitford’s unruly life.