From indignities to inner dignity

THE EVENING of October 18, 1979, novelist and critic Mary McCarthy appeared on Dick Cavett's television show. The host asked his guest if she could think of any overrated American writers. Well, there were several: Pearl S. Buck, John Steinbeck, Lillian Hellman. McCarthy coiled and then struck at

Hellman, who was watching, furiously sued for libel. She demanded $2.5 million as compensation for damages to her reputation. A long-simmering feud thus broke out into the open. On the face of it, the fight was unbalanced. Hellman was wealthy; McCarthy was not. Hellman had written a string of commercially successful plays and films, as well as three best-selling memoirs, An Unfinished Woman, Pentimento and Scoundrel Time. McCarthy was a respected literary figure, but with the exception of one novel, The Group, her work earned meager royalties. Hellman had friends in high places; McCarthy never bothered to cultivate the powerful.