Susan Hertog

This book asks the question - Can one have everything? Everything being a satisfying career, fame, and a loving well-adjusted family? Well, the short answer for Rebecca West and Dorothy Thompson, two towering figures of the literary/political scene of the first half of the twentieth century was no.

This parallel biography of West and Thompson will be fascinating to readers interested in the lives of these two particular women. Both women had long-term associations with other literary titans, in West's case as the mistress of HG Wells, and in Thompson's case, as the wife of Sinclair Lewis. Both women had sons from these relationships. Both women had lost one parent at a very young age.

West and Thompson struggled to fit into 'traditional' roles for women for most of their lives, while refusing to give up their quest for successful and important careers. They were definitely pioneers in women's ongoing pursuit of balancing both career and home life. Only Thompson ultimately found a partner in her third husband who was supportive of both her career and her troubled son, but by then Thompson's career was in definite decline. Also telling was the fact that both West's and Thompson's sons blamed their problems much more on their mothers than on their famous and even more distant fathers.

The book is full of personalities and historical details especially from the period from WWI to WWII. If you have an interest in the literary/political scene from this time period, or women's issues, Dangerous Ambition is a worthwhile read.… (mer)

While the subjects of this dual biography of Rebecca West and Dorothy Thompson were of great interest to me, the book itself was
oddly organized (not exactly chronological but alternating chapters on each woman) and could have used a good editor. Perhaps the structure defeated me, but the cost to their lives for each of these ambitious, historically-significant writers and their ill-chosen alliances should have left a more memorable mark on my reading horizon. It was more of a plod than a sweep.… (mer)

I requested Dangerous Ambition: Rebecca West and Dorothy Thompson: New Women in Search of Love and Power from LT Early Reviewers because I’d recently been watching a host of Science Channel programming about the legacy of H.G. Wells. Like many of us, I knew mainly about this prolific visionary though the reading of his classic sci-fi tales like War of the Worlds and The Time Machine. But I knew so little about the man and his private life (though I did know he’d been linked to Rebecca West) that when I happened on this interesting new book by Susan Hertog, I thought this seems just the thing to help fill in the gaps. Well, did I get an eye-opening education into Mr. Wells and so much more!

The book covers the complete lives of two very unconventional women for their time—authors and friends Rebecca West (1892-1983) and Dorothy Thompson (1893-1961). Dangerous Ambition comprehensively lays out how each woman’s insatiable need to fulfill her individual ambitions brought each of them fame and respect in their chosen fields but also how their choices levied a heavy personal price on both their families and friends as well as themselves.

When I began the book, I didn’t know much about either woman, except for the fact they were both successful writers: Thompson an influential journalist and radio broadcaster and West a novelist, journalist, critic and travel writer— Time magazine calling her "indisputably the world's number one woman writer" in 1947. Thus it was compelling to learn how these talented women met and became lasting friends; they apparently bonded for over a mutual love of politics and social activism. But their lives were also similar in that both Thompson and West succeeded against all odds and became major influences in their chosen fields.

And, this is not to mention they each had tumultuous relationships with husbands/lovers who disappointed them on a major scale. Thompson was married to American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright Sinclair Lewis. They had one child and divorced after 14 years of marriage. West, on the other hand, ended up in a clandestine relationship with the oft-married Wells, learning first-hand how utterly selfish and misogynistic the famed author truly was. I may admire Wells for his literary craftsmanship but as a human being, he seems to have been totally devoid of love and compassion as well as a host of other human emotions as well. As I said earlier, eye-opening. Especially in that West—so clearly a woman of superior intelligence and accomplishment who had a child by Wells—would even bother to put up with him once his true nature was revealed. A mystery indeed.

Other life parallels include the fact that both Thompson and West’s relationships with each of their sons were so damaged (primarily by their ambitious, globe-trotting mums not being there for most of their childhood) that both children ultimately rejected their mothers entirely. A sad, sad result for these women’s outsized ambitions—the price shouldn’t have had to been that high.

It is important to note that both women, initially, both tried to make “normal lives” for themselves in an era where the party line dictated that a woman’s sense of achievement and self-worth should come primarily from excelling in the roles of wife, mother and housekeeper. However, both Thompson and West quickly realized (and not without pangs of despair) that their individual ambitions could not be denied no matter how hard each of them worked at making their lives and relationships work in the conventional sense.

Though this book was painful to read at times, I would highly recommend it because it shows how difficult the lives of intelligent, motivated women could be back in the not-too-distant past. Interestingly, after reading this book, you learn that each woman truly believed that she should be satisfied with the roles society dictated for women at the time, but when she was not and went after her heart’s desires in an effort to gain fulfillment, both Thompson and West each ended up being mystified by their own overall lack of happiness in the end. Perhaps both women were much too idealistic for their own good—intellectually believing they could “have it all” and a world that, even today, makes life fulfillment an often elusive dream for many women.… (mer)

I was mid-way through Peter Collier's [The Roosevelts: An American Saga] when Dangerous Ambition was listed on the LT Early Reviewers list. I was really looking forward to more good non-fiction but it took months of repeated attempts to get through dangerous Ambition. I slogged through and found it well researched but depressing. Though I've always found Rebecca West and Dorothy Thompson fascinating women, but after reading this book not so much. Though I appreciate Hertog's attempt at a dual biography and it's inheritant difficulties, the out come left me numb and longing for trite fiction.… (mer)