Volume 20, Number 14 · September 20, 1973
Flipping for a Diamond
By Lillian Hellman
The failure of a second work is, I think, more damaging to a writer than failure ever will be again. The success of the first work—in my case, The Children's Hour, which went into the sensational because I was young and unheard of—then seems an accident. Maybe the wrong people liked it, maybe you played good tricks, just maybe you are no good. The praise is usually out of bounds: the photographs, interviews, 'appearances,' party invitations are so swift and dazzling that you go into the second work with confidence you will never have again if you have any sense. And failure in the theater is more public, more brilliant, more unreal than in any other field.
Feature, 2540 words
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