When Pamela Churchill Harriman died in 1997, the obituaries that followed were predictably scathing--and many were downright sexist. Written off as a mere courtesan and social climber, her true legacy was overshadowed by a glamorous social life and her infamous erotic adventures. Much of what she did behind the scenes—on both sides of the Atlantic—remained invisible and secret. That is, until now: with a wealth of fresh research, interviews, and newly discovered sources, Sonia Purnell unveils for the first time the story of how she left an indelible mark on the world today.
Rigorous but rollicking ... Purnell seeks nobly to highlight Harriman’s involvement in public as well as private affairs ... The majority of biographies lose steam as the subject ages; Kingmaker gets a strong second wind with Harriman’s early talent spotting of Bill Clinton ... If Purnell’s prose sometimes lapses into breathlessness, who can blame her? Like her beloved horses, Harriman went through her days at full gallop, and it would be hard for even the most devoted stable mistress to keep up.
A feminist reclamation project, bent on producing a more respectful portrait than those found in two earlier books ... A thorough account of Harriman’s rise which also manages to be a brisk, twisty read ...Purnell has found plenty of people to talk to about their memories of Harriman, along with archival sources ... The section of Kingmaker devoted to its subject’s war years was, I found, the most riveting and revelatory ... Though Purnell contends here and there that Harriman was a woman of ideas, there’s not a whole lot to support that...and what glimpses we get of her policy commitments mark her as a fairly conventional centrist.
Churchill was no doubt delighted by reports from her pillow talk, but Purnell wildly overestimates Pamela’s centrality to the war effort...The author insists that all of Pamela’s love affairs were conducted with 'strategic purpose' and 'patriotic' intent, but this whole interpretation is oversold and underproved and sometimes ludicrously phrased ... Purnell’s grasp of recent American history is shaky, but her case for Harriman’s impact on Democratic politics is much stronger than the one she makes for her subject’s World War II significance ... Purnell tells a brisk tale, but her book lacks the authority and judgment of Sally Bedell Smith’s Reflected Glory, the Pamela biography that appeared in 1996. For all the surface sparkle and erotic commotion to Pamela Harriman’s life, any of her biographers has to cope with the peculiar deadness inside such an apparently vital subject, one whose remorseless, mechanical nature still renders her, even at this long remove, more repellent than fascinating.
