Instinct for the jugular

Press, 29 March 1980, Page 17

Instinct for the jugular

The Making of a Muckraker. By Jessica Mitford. Michael Joseph, 1979. 263 pp. $2l.

(Reviewed by Jenny Phillips)

Next time I commit a crime I won't select trial by Jessica Mitford. No. Anything but that. To be pursued by this elderly, and (I am told) slightly dotty-looking, Englishwoman must be a terrifying experience. She has an instinct for the jugular. Carl Bernstein in his “Afterword” to this book admires her for discarding objectivity in favour of selectivity in her use of quotations. (Because she selects the ones that prove her point and discards the rest. Needless to say, this vendetta-style reporting makes marvellous reading. Ms Mitford polishes off her victims one by one. Her impeccable Engoish and craftsmanship (she her articles rather than dash them off) are bonuses.

Victims crucified (or allowed to hang themselves slowly with their own words) include American funeral directors (.“The American Way of Death” first made a name for this “late blooming English rose”), the “Famous Writers School,” Southern Americans, and a; restaurant silly enough to overcharge Jessica Mitford for her dinner. These are some of the articles from a selection made .from 20 years as an investigative journalist. Aside from being jolly good reading, this collection of articles has as an introduction a primer for a would-be journalist. Quoting Nicholas Tomalin on qualities needed for success in

journalism Mitford lists: "ratlike cunning, 'a plausible manner and a little literary ability." To these she adds: plodding determination and an appetite for tracking and destroying the enemy. . Certainly Mitford hit American funeral directors where'it hurt, alb but wiped out the Famous Writers School, and ended the careers of several people associated with the qbovementioned restaurant. She can destroy. Some of the most fascinating moments in this book come in the" "comment” sections where she relates what happened after her article appeared in print Her despair when Famous Writers School stock, having plunged to an all-time low, after her article appeared, went up i a point. Never mind, the school filed for bankruptcy soon after. ■ » ' Of particular interest to women Mitford “Tells All about the Elizabeth Arden Health and Beauty Resort” It is slimming (they do not feed- you), violently expensive, occasionally painful, and the results are only temporary. But on the other hand, guests are cossetted and bossed “rather like half-witted children aged seven,” and if one is prepared to pay . Students and those, ■ those days will love Short and Happy Life ~as ’ a Dstinguished Professor” where Mitford relates how she managed to create more havoc and tread on more toes in three months than anyone else had done in the history of San Jose University; how she turned her lectures into a circus and took the university td court. It is worth reading all about it.-