Nobody Said Not to Go: The Life, Loves, and Adventures of Emily Hahn

by Ken Cuthbertson

Book Overview

Traces the life of the author and her travels around the world. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0571199658
• ISBN13: 9780571199655
• Release Date: January 1999
• Publisher: Faber & Faber
• Length: 383 Pages
• Weight: 1.24 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.1" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

A Life of Adventure

I knew nothing about Emily Hahn and I picked this book up being intrigued by a synopsis. It is a very well written book about an extraordinary life. Emily (Mickey) Hahn broke every convention of her time: a woman who studied mining engineering in collage, a lone white woman in Africa in the early 1930's, a single woman in China, an American "married" to a Chinese as his concubine and a journalist caught in the Japanese invasion of that country. Hopefully, I have said enough to tickle the interest of would-be readers since I don't want to give away any more. This is a life story that reads like a novel. Why the Chinese portion of this book has not been made into a movie is a surprise to me. There is a cinematic quality of Ms. Hahn's life in China (which she wrote about herself) that cries out for filming. Ken Cuthbertson tells the story of this life without judgement calls does not clutter his book with useless facts. The book is illustrated with photographs spread throughout the chapters where they are needed. I could not recommend this book more highly.

The title "Lust for Life" should have been Emily Hahn's.

What a demand Emily Hahn had for authentic experiences and stimulating people! Her parents must have had sleepless nights wondering how their daughteer could survive her current situation and what she would what do or say next. Thanks to author Ken Cuthbertson, who tempted me away from hiking in New Mexico to hang around the hotel finishing his book. He was able to describe a person with whom I would love to have dinner and hate to work. Now I'm ready to read anything he writes: John Gunther's biography, grocery lists, whatever.

A really good read

I picked up a copy of this book because the cover looked so interesting. The cover matched the contents of the book. Emily Hahn was a writer for the New Yorker magazine, but she also wrote more than 50 books. When she was not writing, she was an adventurer, a traveler, an opium addict, and a whole lot of other things. Wow, what a life she led! Emily Hahn did the kind of wild things that most women of her day (she was born in 1905 and died in 1997) only dreamed of and that very few dared to write about. The author has done an excellent job of telling Hahn's story. I enjoyed Nobody Said Not to Go. It's a well written, quick paced story about an amazing woman.

Tales from a life lived hither and yon

[Hahn's] fiction, travel,history, and other writings are not much read these days, alas. Mr. Cuthbertson suggests this may be partly due to refusing to be pigeon-holed. Perhaps [this] book will prompt a new generation of readers to give her a try. Either way, her life is still fun to read about."--From On Books by Colin Walters, Washington Times, May 31, 1998, p. B-6

A rip-roaring bio with surprise turns

"A forgotten American literary treasure." That's what one of Emily Hahn's young admirers called her. Hahn's friend and one-time mentor once told her, "If you and I had been born male and had written what we've written, we'd be a lot better known." Hahn, who wrote for the New Yorker magazine for an astounding 68 years, died in February 1997 at age 92. She left a rich literary legacy that includes 52 books and hundreds of articles, short stories, and poems. In the course of her lifetime, she was many things: a mining geologist, a horseback trail guide, a greeting card writer, a receptionist, a medical aide worker, a reporter, and a teacher, to name just a few of her many occupations. Hahn lived with African pygmies. She was the concubine of a Chinese poet. She and a girlfriend disguisged themselves as men when they drove solo across the U.S. in 1924, before it was safe--or prudent--for any young woman to do so. Hahn had an affair with, and a child by, the married head of British intelligence in Hong Kong just prior to the 1941 Japanese attack on that British colony. She was an opium addict. She once tried to kill herself. She smoked cigars, enjoyed strong drink, and she knew everyone who was anyone in the glittery New York literary world during the period 1940-1990. Emily Hahn fervently believed a woman could do anything a man could do. And she did it long before the word "feminism" was even coined. Emily Hahn led an amazing, uninhibited, and totally fascinating life. In this, the first biography of Emily Hahn, Canadian journalist Ken Cuthbertson explores the life, loves, and adventures of the woman known to her friends simply as "Mickey." In the words of an Entertainment Weekly reviewer (June 19, 1998), this is "a rip-roaring bio with surprise turns."