Enter Helen: The Invention of Helen Gurley Brown and the Rise of the Modern Single Woman

Summary (from the publisher): 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.

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, man-loving 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—yes—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: I received an uncorrected proof copy of this book from HarperCollins.

 

This work of non-fiction details the life of Helen Gurley Brown, author of Sex and the Single Girl and editor of Cosmopolitan beginning in the mid-sixties. Helen was groundbreaking in that she championed the cause of the independent, single but man-loving woman during a time when most magazines still detailed recipes for housewives to fix for their husbands. She knew this woman because, until her marriage to Hollywood producer David Brown at the age of 37, she was this woman. Born to a relatively low-income family, Helen's father died when she was young and she later dropped out of college after one semester to help her mother care for her sister was who paralyzed by polio. She rose from being an assistant to a copy editor before becoming a bestselling author. Throughout her career she displayed fierce ambition and work ethic that, along with her connections, eventually made her a very wealthy and well known woman.

 

Helen based her bestselling (and controversial) book off of her own life, which shaped her firm conviction that "a woman who had taken the time to date around and develop herself as a full person would be more interesting and prepared for marriage when she did find the One" (32). Helen also firmly believed that having a career would also benefit married women and urged women to "Explain to your husband, if he doesn't already understand, that you will be a better companion, a more adoring wife and loving mother if you are allowed to take a job," adding "Don't you see that by working you could have it all?" (97).

 

After a second successful book, several promotional tours, and a advice column, Helen's husband used his connections to negotiate a deal for Helen to serve as editor of Cosmopolitan for two years. Her entry was rocky because she had no experience and many of the magazine's employees resented reporting to someone with far less experience. Many people on staff viewed her as "an imposter and a hack, just an ad woman who had written a sex book" (140). Yet under her bold new vision, targeting young women like herself, the magazine quickly soared in popularity. The first issue published with Helen as editor sold 954,000 newsstand copies, nearly 260,000 more than the previous month.

 

Helen's insistence on large-breasted women and sex-filled articles did garner critics, as did many of her other bold choices - such as the first nude male centerfold, articles on abortions and sleeping with married men, and polling her female staff to find out how they liked their breasts caressed as research for an article. She was criticized by the women's rights movement for arguing that women could achieve their goals through sex and for numerous articles zeroing in on how women could please their man. Yet Helen always used her position to "educate her readers on issues that directly affected their lives. She was a fierce and lifelong supporter of birth control and a woman's right to choose. Most of all, she was a fierce and lifelong supporter of women" (363).

 

I enjoyed reading about this plucky and driven woman, although I certainly recognize why she was considered controversial by many and did not agree with all of her choices. My main complaint with this biography was a very stilted beginning. The book leaps in with Helen meeting David Brown for the first time, with little background information. The chapters in the first 75 or so chapters have little flow and the book seemed to stagger along. Strangely, Helen's childhood and early career isn't covered until about halfway through the book. The first half of the book reads as if it needs a much firmer editorial hand. Yet after this faltering beginning, the flow of the chapters and description of Helen's life finally hit its stride and I was able to finally piece together who Helen was as a person and why she was significant in the history of gender equality and in the shaping of magazine industry as we know it.

 

Stars: 3.5