{"product_id":"2026100011030-secondhand-pentimento-a-book-of-portraits","title":"Pentimento: A Book Of Portraits","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eCondition remarks:\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBook: Good\u003cbr\u003eJacket: Wear and tear with damage\u003cbr\u003ePages: Good\u003cbr\u003eMarkings: Previous owner\u003cbr\u003eCondition remarks: minor nick\/tear on the front of the dj; internally sound. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFrom one of the twentieth century's most formidable literary voices comes Pentimento: A Book of Portraits, a stunning memoir-in-vignettes that resurrects the vivid ghosts of a life extraordinarily lived. Lillian Hellman — celebrated playwright, political firebrand, and unflinching witness to her times — presents a series of intimate portraits of the people who shaped her: a bold and reckless cousin, a lifelong friend named Julia whose anti-fascist courage echoes through history, and a cast of characters as compelling and contradictory as Hellman herself. Named after the painterly phenomenon in which older images bleed through a canvas as its surface ages, the book argues that memory is never fixed — it is layered, revised, and haunted by what lies beneath.\n\nHellman's prose is razor-sharp yet deeply lyrical, blending the authority of a dramatist's eye with the vulnerability of genuine self-examination. Pentimento stands as a landmark of American autobiographical writing, inviting readers to question not only the reliability of memory but the very nature of truth in storytelling. It is a work that rewards close reading, leaving one to wonder: how much of any portrait — of others, or of ourselves — is invention, and how much is revelation?\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Secondhand Stock","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50572678955227,"sku":"2026100011030-SECONDHAND","price":80.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0523\/7646\/9701\/files\/5736aa1e-1632-4fb4-bb66-6c21f63bcdcc.png?v=1791167280","url":"https:\/\/bookgrocer.com\/products\/2026100011030-secondhand-pentimento-a-book-of-portraits","provider":"Book Grocer","version":"1.0","type":"link"}