"When Mary McCarthy said on the Dick Cavett Show that every word Lillian Hellman wrote was a lie, including 'and' and 'the,' was she making a literal statement subject to verification? Producing a hyperbolic remark not meant to be taken#xA0;seriously? Standing up for truth in a world corrupted by political fabrication? Or insisting on a standard of libel the Supreme Court had moved away from? These are just a few of the questions that Alan Ackerman teases out of this fabled incident in a book that demonstrates how an initially narrow focus can flower into a meditation on the deepest things."Stanley Fish.