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I'd Hate Myself in the Morning

A Memoir

Ring Lardner, Jr.
October 2000     ISBN: 156025338X


In lively pages, a cast including Carole Lombard, Louis B. Mayer, Dalton Trumbo, Marlene Dietrich, Otto Preminger, Darryl F. Zanuck, Bertolt Brecht, Bert Lahr, Robert Altman and Muhammad Ali, accompanies Ring Lardner, Jr as he recalls the strange existence of a contract screenwriter in the vanished age of the studio system--an existence made stranger by membership in the Hollywood branch of the American Communist Party.

What readers are saying

"A scrupulous, compassionate cultural history of a surreal time."
--Patricia Bosworth, The New York Times Book Review

"If [the President-elect] can lay his hands on just one book besides the Bible before taking the oath of office, he could learn a lot about America from screenwriter and blacklistee Ring Lardner Jr.'s elegant new memoir, "I'd Hate Myself in the Morning.'"
--The San Francisco Chronicle

"...Lardner died in the arms of his daughter, Kate. 'He was OK,' she said. Lardner outlasted fanaticism and fear as a member of the Hollywood 10. He did not harbor hate nor seek recriminatioin. For him, the way to endure was to overcome."
--New York Newsday

"The only thing wrong with this book is that it's a memoir and not a full-blown autobiography. Lardner was a two-time Academy Award winner--he won the best original screenplay award for Woman of the Year and best adapted screenplay award for M*A*S*H--and a member of the "Hollywood Ten," the group of writers and directors who went to jail rather than name names to the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). In this book, he easily blends sketches of his famous father, which almost belie the popular notion of the man, with those of his student days in Moscow and anecdotes of his Hollywood and blacklist years. In fact, the book's title comes from his response to the infamous HUAC question: Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party? Lardner assesses his Communism and that of some of the others who also went to jail; he also places the testimony of still others in context (though by no means exonerating them). Lardner who died on 31 October (2000) at age 85, remained as opinionated as ever, offering his views on aging, the auteur theory of filmmaking, his colleagues' work, his own unproduced screenplays, and the revival of the religious right in America. In the best tradition of entertainment, this book leaves you wanting more, but sadly, it's the final fade-out for Ring.
--Frank Caso, American Library Association
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