Enter Helen : The Invention of Helen Gurley Brown and the Rise of the Modern Single Woman
Author(s): Brooke Hauser
This female Mad Men-like story chronicles the legendary Cosmopolitan magazine editor’s rise to power as both a cultural icon and trailblazer who redefined what it means to be an American woman.
“Engaging…. Nimble-footed…. Amusing….Throughout, Hauser weaves in passages connecting Brown to her contemporaries and the cultural landscape of the 1960s…[to] situate her life in the context of its times.” — New York Times Book Review
In the mid-Sixties, Helen Gurley Brown, author of the groundbreaking Sex and the Single Girl, took over the ailing Cosmopolitan magazine and revamped it into one of the most successful brands in the world. At a time when magazines taught housewives how to make the perfect casserole, Helen reimagined Cosmo and womanhood itself, championing the independent, ambitious single woman. Though she was married, to Hollywood producer David Brown, no one embodied the idea of the Cosmo Girl more than the Ozarks-born Helen, who willed, worked, and—maybe—occasionally slept her way to the top, eventually becoming one of the most influential media players in the world.
Drawing on new interviews with Helen’s friends and former colleagues as well as her personal letters, Enter Helen brings New York City vibrantly to life during the Sexual Revolution and the Women’s Movement and features a cast of characters including Hugh Hefner, Nora Ephron, and Gloria Steinem. It is the cinematic story of an icon who bucked convention, defined her own destiny, and became a controversial model for modern feminism, laying the groundwork for television shows like Sex and the City and Girls.
“Bad feminist” or not, Helen Gurley Brown got people talking—about sex, work, reproductive choices, and having it all—forever changing the conversation.
Review(s):
“Engaging…. Nimble-footed…. Amusing….Throughout, Hauser weaves in passages connecting Brown to her contemporaries and the cultural landscape of the 1960s…[to] situate her life in the context of its times.”
“Brown deserves the biography that Brooke Hauser has written, Enter Helen. It is entertaining, thoughtfully researched and — the ultimate encomium where HGB was concerned — fun.”
“Legendary, inimitable Cosmopolitan editor and Sex and the Single Girl author Helen Gurley Brown comes alive in Hauser’s hands.”
“Encapsulates the colorful life of a woman who rocked minis well into her eighties.”
“Excellent.”
“A must-read piece of proto-feminist history.”
“Hauser deftly pulls out fascinating details…. Some truly juicy moments…. Hauser dives into her youth and her early career in advertising far more than these years have been explored previously, setting the stage much more firmly for understanding how Brown accomplished all that she did.”
“Enter Helen is a Wizard of Oz story about a feisty girl from the Ozarks, the original Sex and the City gal Helen Gurley Brown. Brooke Hauser enters her life like slipping into a pair of Helen’s infamous fishnets, weaving a compelling drama about a determined woman and Cosmopolitan editor, and revealing how powerful (and threatening) a female in command of her pocketbook, sexuality, and career can really be.”
“Hauser dives deep into the life of our former HBIC and uncovers what drove her to revolutionize the way we live and date today. HGB, we TY.”
“As Brooke Hauser’s lively biography…reveals, [Helen Gurley Brown] was as comfortable championing single ‘career girls’ as she was giving them tips on how to catch a man—and her own contradictory, have-it-all life proved to be as compelling as the era she helped define.”
ISBN: 9780062342676