Lively, well-researched ... Convincing ... Gefter relies on interviews, newspaper and magazine articles from the era and Lehman’s extensive archives at the Harry Ransom Center in Austin to explore in depth the challenges they faced.
Gefter’s account is good, harrowing fun. His summing up is less persuasive ... His epilogue, which situates the film in the historical context of other movies about marriage, also feels out of sync with the narrative that has just preceded it.
Dynamic ... The interweaving drama in these pages between two couples—one fictional, the other all too real and deeply flawed, and who enjoyed cavorting shamelessly in the press—is simply too delicious.
Skillful ... Multilayered and eminently revisitable (like the play and the film), Gefter’s wonderful book helps readers reevaluate vis-à-vis values prevalent half a century later.
...dishy-yet-earnest ... Gefter shows why Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? hit the '60s like a torpedo. His book got me thinking about how the film looks in 2024 ... What feels most contemporary about Virginia Woolf is the way it piggybacked on celebrity ... Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is a great play and Gefter's a good writer. But if the movie had cast its original Broadway stars, Uta Hagen and Arthur Hill, I wouldn't be here talking about it.
