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No Hurry to Get Home: The Memoir of the New Yorker Writer Whose Unconventional Life and Adventures Spanned the 20th Century
Emily Hahn was a woman ahead of her time, graced with a sense of adventure and a gift for living. Born in St. Louis in 1905, she crashed the all-male precincts of the University of Wisconsin geology department as an undergraduate, traveled alone to the Belgian Congo at age 25, was the concubine of a Chinese poet in Shanghai, bore the child of the head of the British Secret Service before World War II, and finally returned to New York to live and write in Greenwich Village. In this memoir, first published as essays in The New Yorker, Hahn writes vividly and amusingly about the people and places she came to know and love—with an eye for the curious and a heart for the exotic.
312 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 2000
About the author
Emily Hahn
75 books84 followersEmily "Mickey" Hahn was called "a forgotten American literary treasure" by The New Yorker magazine; she was the author of 52 books and more than 180 articles and stories. Her father was a hardware salesman and her mother a suffragette. She and her siblings were brought up to be independent and to think for themselves and she became the first woman to take a degree in mining engineering from the University of Wisconsin. She went on to study mineralogy at Columbia and anthropology at Oxford, working in between as an oil geologist, a teacher and a guide in New Mexico before she arrived in New York where she took up writing seriously. In 1935 she traveled to China for a short visit and ended up by staying nine years in the Far East. She loved living in Shanghai and met both Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai. She became the lover of Zau Sinmay, an intellectual, whom she particularly liked for his overwhelming curiosity about everything, she felt it rubbed off on her, and together they founded the English-language magazine Candid Comment. During her time in China she learned to smoke opium, persisting for two years until, inevitably, she became addicted; she was then cured by a hypnotist.
In Hong Kong Hahn met Major Charles R. Boxer, a married British intelligence officer; in 1940 she became pregnant and they had a daughter, Carola. Boxer was captured by the Japanese after being wounded in the attack on Hong Kong; Hahn visited him as much as possible in his prisoner-of-war camp, until she and Carola were repatriated to the United States in 1943. On his release they got married and in 1946 they arrived in Dorset where she called herself a "bad housewife". Although Boxer continued to live in England, where he became Professor of Portuguese at London University, Hahn lived mostly in America as a tax exile.
In Hong Kong Hahn met Major Charles R. Boxer, a married British intelligence officer; in 1940 she became pregnant and they had a daughter, Carola. Boxer was captured by the Japanese after being wounded in the attack on Hong Kong; Hahn visited him as much as possible in his prisoner-of-war camp, until she and Carola were repatriated to the United States in 1943. On his release they got married and in 1946 they arrived in Dorset where she called herself a "bad housewife". Although Boxer continued to live in England, where he became Professor of Portuguese at London University, Hahn lived mostly in America as a tax exile.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 54 reviews
March 22, 2021
“Though I always wanted to be an opium addict, I can’t claim that as the reason I went to China. The opium ambition dates back to that obscure period of childhood when I wanted to be a lot of other things, too – the greatest expert on ghosts, the world’s best ice skater, the champion lion tamer, you know the kind of thing. But by the time I went to China I was grown up, and all those dreams were forgotten.”
I have no idea how this book first landed on my radar, but I’m so very glad that it did. Emily Hahn was a fearless, unconventional sort of woman. Furthermore, she was an entertaining writer. Her often irreverent sense of humor never failed to delight me while reading these stories of her life and adventures. She first began writing for The New Yorker at the age of twenty-four, and she continued to contribute to the magazine until she was ninety-one years old. In the foreword to my edition, Sheila McGrath notes what I loved best about this work:
“What she did, she did for herself, never for the impression it might make on the rest of the world. She made the unconventional seem ordinary by her very attitude toward it, and therefore made it more acceptable to those of us less brave or less honest.”
This collection includes twenty-three of her essays in total. They range from her childhood up through her early years of motherhood. Not surprisingly, books were a large part of her younger and adolescent years. Her mother raised all of her daughters to be independent thinkers and encouraged each to attend college. This was a rather non-traditional sort of upbringing for someone born in 1905! As Emily, nicknamed Mickey, related to the reader, she was a bit of a dreamer all of her life. She was restless and wanted to see the world. She was the first woman to graduate from the University of Wisconsin with a degree in mining engineering – this mainly being the result of a professor telling her a woman was not capable of ever doing such a thing! You simply could not tell Mickey “no” or “never”! She would surely prove one wrong. She didn’t worry over her looks; rather she wanted to be valued for her mind.
“I didn’t repine over my shortcomings or refuse to believe they existed; I conceded them. If the world wanted graceful, blue-eyed princesses with curls, it would have to make out with Helen. I had Webster.” (the dictionary!)
Throughout this selection of essays, the reader joins Mickey on her travels to the west in a Model T with her friend Jane (an adventurous trip for two single women during that day and age!). We follow her to the Belgian Congo, where she treks by paddle steamer, train, truck, lake boat and on foot to the coast. She takes us along on a trip to Japan and on an extended stay in Shanghai and then Hong Kong. As noted in the opening quote, she truly did become an opium addict while in Shanghai. There is a fascinating essay devoted to that experience. Mickey stays in China right through the conflicts between that country and Japan, straight to the start of the Second World War. She is eventually sent home from Hong Kong as an exchanged prisoner of war.
I would rate nearly all of these essays between four and five stars. I enjoyed the stories of Mickey’s childhood and early womanhood the most. Those brought the most smiles to a face that finds a frown to be the norm rather than the exception these days! I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend No Hurry to Get Home to anyone that finds pleasure in extraordinary women and skillful, conversational writing. I have to check if I can easily get my hands on more of her work!
“On returning from a long absence, I am always surprised and even resentful to find friends and landmarks changed. I never seem to remember that I, too, must have changed, but lately I’ve been thinking a little about that side of it, and I’ve come to the conclusion that inveterate wanderers like me must be pretty hard for their families to take.”
I have no idea how this book first landed on my radar, but I’m so very glad that it did. Emily Hahn was a fearless, unconventional sort of woman. Furthermore, she was an entertaining writer. Her often irreverent sense of humor never failed to delight me while reading these stories of her life and adventures. She first began writing for The New Yorker at the age of twenty-four, and she continued to contribute to the magazine until she was ninety-one years old. In the foreword to my edition, Sheila McGrath notes what I loved best about this work:
“What she did, she did for herself, never for the impression it might make on the rest of the world. She made the unconventional seem ordinary by her very attitude toward it, and therefore made it more acceptable to those of us less brave or less honest.”
This collection includes twenty-three of her essays in total. They range from her childhood up through her early years of motherhood. Not surprisingly, books were a large part of her younger and adolescent years. Her mother raised all of her daughters to be independent thinkers and encouraged each to attend college. This was a rather non-traditional sort of upbringing for someone born in 1905! As Emily, nicknamed Mickey, related to the reader, she was a bit of a dreamer all of her life. She was restless and wanted to see the world. She was the first woman to graduate from the University of Wisconsin with a degree in mining engineering – this mainly being the result of a professor telling her a woman was not capable of ever doing such a thing! You simply could not tell Mickey “no” or “never”! She would surely prove one wrong. She didn’t worry over her looks; rather she wanted to be valued for her mind.
“I didn’t repine over my shortcomings or refuse to believe they existed; I conceded them. If the world wanted graceful, blue-eyed princesses with curls, it would have to make out with Helen. I had Webster.” (the dictionary!)
Throughout this selection of essays, the reader joins Mickey on her travels to the west in a Model T with her friend Jane (an adventurous trip for two single women during that day and age!). We follow her to the Belgian Congo, where she treks by paddle steamer, train, truck, lake boat and on foot to the coast. She takes us along on a trip to Japan and on an extended stay in Shanghai and then Hong Kong. As noted in the opening quote, she truly did become an opium addict while in Shanghai. There is a fascinating essay devoted to that experience. Mickey stays in China right through the conflicts between that country and Japan, straight to the start of the Second World War. She is eventually sent home from Hong Kong as an exchanged prisoner of war.
I would rate nearly all of these essays between four and five stars. I enjoyed the stories of Mickey’s childhood and early womanhood the most. Those brought the most smiles to a face that finds a frown to be the norm rather than the exception these days! I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend No Hurry to Get Home to anyone that finds pleasure in extraordinary women and skillful, conversational writing. I have to check if I can easily get my hands on more of her work!
“On returning from a long absence, I am always surprised and even resentful to find friends and landmarks changed. I never seem to remember that I, too, must have changed, but lately I’ve been thinking a little about that side of it, and I’ve come to the conclusion that inveterate wanderers like me must be pretty hard for their families to take.”
December 26, 2021
Emily Hahn is a highly sympathetic narrator and an excellent journalist. I have long been a fan of authors who publish in The New Yorker, and Hahn provides a great example of why. There are plenty of publications out there that feature the flashy, the experimental and the latest thing, but if you want rock-solid use of English to provide an in-depth look at interesting topics, you could do worse than this book. Here we find about a dozen of her essays published between 1947 and 1996 -- highlights of quite a remarkable career.
All the skill in the world won't help much if you have nothing interesting to say. The first three essays, which describe growing up in Chicago, sneaking out with boys and eventually going to college, are quite readable but weak in subject matter, and I wouldn't have stuck it out for an entire book. But once she gets to college, when her ambition to see the world far outweighs her ambition for family and prosperity, the book becomes not only highly readable but very interesting as well.
A couple of things prevented these essays from being truly stellar, however. As befits a New Yorker essayist, she is more concerned with facts than with dissection of what the facts might mean. Also, many of these appear to have been written as reminiscences of events long past. Together, these two factors lead to a lack of immediacy that sometimes seems puzzling. The general tone of the book is cheerful, and she describes a date with a boring man with the same breezy tone as being caught in an air raid in Shanghai in which over a thousand people were blown to pieces. Of course, with the perspective of time, the terror she likely felt has mellowed. Some would consider this lack of emotion a strength, but I actually appreciate more feeling in essays -- your mileage may vary. (Try to find a copy of Miah Arnold's essay You Owe Me, which I first read here here, for an example of my preferred essay style).
Minor quibble. Emily Hahn should be as well known as Amelia Earhart or Bill Bryson, because she's had a more interesting a life than both and is a far better writer than either. I'm really grateful to Candi for alerting me to this one.
(note added June 2021): Just one fun little tidbit in a book packed with them: When Hahn had a baby, her mother introduced her to a young pediatrician who lived in the neighborhood, a guy named Benjaman Spock.
All the skill in the world won't help much if you have nothing interesting to say. The first three essays, which describe growing up in Chicago, sneaking out with boys and eventually going to college, are quite readable but weak in subject matter, and I wouldn't have stuck it out for an entire book. But once she gets to college, when her ambition to see the world far outweighs her ambition for family and prosperity, the book becomes not only highly readable but very interesting as well.
A couple of things prevented these essays from being truly stellar, however. As befits a New Yorker essayist, she is more concerned with facts than with dissection of what the facts might mean. Also, many of these appear to have been written as reminiscences of events long past. Together, these two factors lead to a lack of immediacy that sometimes seems puzzling. The general tone of the book is cheerful, and she describes a date with a boring man with the same breezy tone as being caught in an air raid in Shanghai in which over a thousand people were blown to pieces. Of course, with the perspective of time, the terror she likely felt has mellowed. Some would consider this lack of emotion a strength, but I actually appreciate more feeling in essays -- your mileage may vary. (Try to find a copy of Miah Arnold's essay You Owe Me, which I first read here here, for an example of my preferred essay style).
Minor quibble. Emily Hahn should be as well known as Amelia Earhart or Bill Bryson, because she's had a more interesting a life than both and is a far better writer than either. I'm really grateful to Candi for alerting me to this one.
(note added June 2021): Just one fun little tidbit in a book packed with them: When Hahn had a baby, her mother introduced her to a young pediatrician who lived in the neighborhood, a guy named Benjaman Spock.
April 16, 2013
The fact that Emily Hahn doesn't have a star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame depresses me almost as much as the knowledge that hardly anyone knows who she is anymore. She was not only a superb writer, among the best of the New Yorker's golden era; she was a fascinating human being and an admirable person. In one of this collection's most amusing and fascinating essays, she describes her years in China as an opium addict and then the bizarre and mysterious cure that she underwent, which involved hypnosis and psychoanalysis, although she was under the influence of barbiturates during the analysis and was never told what it was she discussed with the doctor, despite having asked him more than once. Other essay topics include her experiences as the first female geological engineer (something she undertook only because she was told by a college administrator that women were not permitted to do it); her childhood and adolescence in St. Louis, which at the time she considered, like the family in _Meet Me in St. Louis_, to be the greatest city in the world; her almost unbelievable travels in the Belgian Congo--sometimes alone, sometimes in the company of a European polygamist and his contentious African wives--when she was in her early 20s; having a baby in China during World War II, where the father of her child (to whom, I believe, she was not yet married) was a British spy imprisoned in a brutal Japanese POW camp; and sundry hilarious experiences with pet gibbons and back-alley Eurasian dentists. She never identifies herself as a feminist, but it seems evident that her entire life was a demonstration of feminism in its purest form. She insisted on having the freedom to live the way bohemian men have always lived, and somehow she succeeded.
I loved this collection and plan to read more of her many, many books in the future. Some are out of print, but I found this one used online (in very good condition, at a bargain price), and I checked out another (a history of American bohemianism, which I didn't have time to finish, sadly, but plan to return to one day) from the St. Louis Public Library. Her style is so engaging, droll, and lucid that I'm pretty sure I would enjoy anything she wrote, no matter what the topic, although her life is the most fascinating subject imaginable.
I loved this collection and plan to read more of her many, many books in the future. Some are out of print, but I found this one used online (in very good condition, at a bargain price), and I checked out another (a history of American bohemianism, which I didn't have time to finish, sadly, but plan to return to one day) from the St. Louis Public Library. Her style is so engaging, droll, and lucid that I'm pretty sure I would enjoy anything she wrote, no matter what the topic, although her life is the most fascinating subject imaginable.
January 8, 2022
Walking into my local library a few days ago, I saw a librarian putting this work on the new books shelf. Remembering that my GR friend Candi had written a positive review about it, I picked it up. First published in 1970 and re-issued in 2000, this book is a collection of Hahn's pieces that had been printed in the New Yorker between 1930 and 1970. Hahn is a very versatile writer and she covers bits of her varied and unusual (especially for a woman born in 1905) life. Hahn's conversational style of writing and her ability to laugh at herself brings these stories to life.
This collection opens with Hahn's remembrance of moving from St. Louis to Chicago in 1920. Anyone who has been or lived with a 15 year-old girl will recognize this person:
"The misery was mine and mine alone. I was 15 and entitled to undisputed possession. Had I not been forced to leave St. Louis against my will? Wasn't I always being pushed around? No one but me had my sensitivity; no one but me knew how to suffer; the others were clods. It was clear that I had to run away."
Hahn wrote this vivid description of the landscape as she and her friend Jane set off on her first road trip in 1924:
"Nevertheless, I still think with love of rich, wet color--the green of summer trees and the dark, glistening red clay of the road winding between them, distant blue hills across valleys that were as simply verdant as if a child's crayon had drawn them. There were cracks of lightning in the lowering sky, too far off to be frightening."
Hahn was born with a desire to wander and a willingness to adapt to the conditions around her. She had a gift for making friends who turned out to live in the places she wanted to visit. She traveled through the Congo and Japan and then lived in China for 8 years.
Her tales of the last few years in China, from the 1937 fighting in Shanghai to the beginnings of WWII had more of a sense of immediacy than her other travel stories. Naively she didn't initially grasp the implications of war. She began her tale of a trip to Nanking right at the beginning of the bombing, "Nobody said not to go."
Having learned how to survive as a single parent in war-torn Hong Kong, Hahn struggled to reintegrate with her family and U.S. life when she returned home "There is no doubt that people away from home collect unfortunate habits and forget to slough them off after returning, but--characteristically--I didn't think of this when I stepped off the Gripsholm late in 1943, an exchanged prisoner of war from Hong Kong."
For me these articles varied in impact. Hahn's writing is always brilliant. The earlier articles felt less detached and therefore resonated more with me. I enjoyed reading the adventures of this spirited, unconventional, independent woman from an earlier era.
This collection opens with Hahn's remembrance of moving from St. Louis to Chicago in 1920. Anyone who has been or lived with a 15 year-old girl will recognize this person:
"The misery was mine and mine alone. I was 15 and entitled to undisputed possession. Had I not been forced to leave St. Louis against my will? Wasn't I always being pushed around? No one but me had my sensitivity; no one but me knew how to suffer; the others were clods. It was clear that I had to run away."
Hahn wrote this vivid description of the landscape as she and her friend Jane set off on her first road trip in 1924:
"Nevertheless, I still think with love of rich, wet color--the green of summer trees and the dark, glistening red clay of the road winding between them, distant blue hills across valleys that were as simply verdant as if a child's crayon had drawn them. There were cracks of lightning in the lowering sky, too far off to be frightening."
Hahn was born with a desire to wander and a willingness to adapt to the conditions around her. She had a gift for making friends who turned out to live in the places she wanted to visit. She traveled through the Congo and Japan and then lived in China for 8 years.
Her tales of the last few years in China, from the 1937 fighting in Shanghai to the beginnings of WWII had more of a sense of immediacy than her other travel stories. Naively she didn't initially grasp the implications of war. She began her tale of a trip to Nanking right at the beginning of the bombing, "Nobody said not to go."
Having learned how to survive as a single parent in war-torn Hong Kong, Hahn struggled to reintegrate with her family and U.S. life when she returned home "There is no doubt that people away from home collect unfortunate habits and forget to slough them off after returning, but--characteristically--I didn't think of this when I stepped off the Gripsholm late in 1943, an exchanged prisoner of war from Hong Kong."
For me these articles varied in impact. Hahn's writing is always brilliant. The earlier articles felt less detached and therefore resonated more with me. I enjoyed reading the adventures of this spirited, unconventional, independent woman from an earlier era.
September 5, 2015
Set aside Emily Hahn's addiction to opium smoking her biography tells of the life I would have liked to live. "Mickey" (Emily Hahn's nickname) lived her life the way she wanted to live it. She was the first woman to graduate in mining, from the University of Wisconsin, in 1928. She traveled alone to the Belgian Congo and crossed Central Africa on foot. She traveled Africa, England and China at a time when women were supposed to stay at home and raise their children. I was not surprised to find out that she married a British spy, Charles Boxer. Obviously, no regular man would do.
To me, most fascinating was how Emily Hahn made decisions for her life. After graduation she works as a geologist but does not enjoy the work. While she ponders whether she should stay or leave she hears about Charles Lindbergh's attempt to cross the Atlantic. At the time it is unclear if Lindbergh could even succeed; maybe he'd run out of fuel, maybe treacherous winds would blow him into the Atlantic, or the plane would blow up...
Even though Mickey did not know anything about Lindbergh a few days earlier she ties their fates together.
"... Suddenly I remembered what it day it was, and what news the day could bring - news with, I felt, a special message for me. During the night I had somehow made a decision: If Lindbergh had landed in France, it followed with logical progression - the same clear logic I knew existed in crystallography - that I was as free as he was, and therefore would quit my job. Of course, if he hadn't made it I would have to stay. Fair was fair.
... My heart bounded. Sure enough, Lindbergh had settled it. I could quit..."
Is it any wonder that a woman who applied this kind of logic, succeeded the way she did?
Loved the book. Recommended to all women ( and men too.).
Gisela Hausmann, author & blogger
To me, most fascinating was how Emily Hahn made decisions for her life. After graduation she works as a geologist but does not enjoy the work. While she ponders whether she should stay or leave she hears about Charles Lindbergh's attempt to cross the Atlantic. At the time it is unclear if Lindbergh could even succeed; maybe he'd run out of fuel, maybe treacherous winds would blow him into the Atlantic, or the plane would blow up...
Even though Mickey did not know anything about Lindbergh a few days earlier she ties their fates together.
"... Suddenly I remembered what it day it was, and what news the day could bring - news with, I felt, a special message for me. During the night I had somehow made a decision: If Lindbergh had landed in France, it followed with logical progression - the same clear logic I knew existed in crystallography - that I was as free as he was, and therefore would quit my job. Of course, if he hadn't made it I would have to stay. Fair was fair.
... My heart bounded. Sure enough, Lindbergh had settled it. I could quit..."
Is it any wonder that a woman who applied this kind of logic, succeeded the way she did?
Loved the book. Recommended to all women ( and men too.).
Gisela Hausmann, author & blogger
October 7, 2018
If you liked Martha Gellhorn's book Travels with Myself, you'll like this one. Emily Hahn is a good writer and had wild adventures across the globe in the 1930's and 1940's. She starts out with her early home life in the U.S. in the 1920's and that may seem boring compared to the rest of the book, but I thought the beginning was also an interesting portrait of ordinary life for young women in the Midwest, though Hahn wasn't an ordinary woman. Hahn deserves to be better known.
May 24, 2012
Autobiographical essays Ms. Hahn's earlier life up to late 1940s. What an adventurous and free-spirited woman. Although she grew up in a middle-class mid-western family, she definitely seemed to think the world was her oyster and she made the most of it. Without the aid of the silver spoon, she traveled the world second and third class, but always with style. This chick had pluck - the likes of Kate Hepburn or Beryl Markham. This is the first book of her's I have read, but it has made me want to read the lot, which I believe is considerable. Don't understand why she isn't more well-known. Found she is the mother of Amanda Boxer, the English actress.
January 10, 2022
An incredible essayist, story-teller, and human being that everyone should acquaint themselves with, and this bundle of personal essays-cum-memoir is the perfect introduction. Whether she was showing the boys at the Wisconsin mining school how to do their jobs, serving as an impromptu judge and red cross medic in the Belgian Congo, or visiting Nanjing during Japanese occupation, Emily Hahn shattered conventions her whole life, not just as a woman or a person of the 20th century, but frankly even as a person today. I'd be happy to live a life a fraction as interesting as hers.
Read
September 26, 2017A very well-written set of essays tacked together to form a memoir of some interesting times, mostly in the 1920s-30s.
August 30, 2007
I adore this book, it will always be one of my favoites. great to read aloud, the short stories that weave together here to make a kind of biography of personal essays is so incredible, the writing so ahead of its time it will blow your mind. mickey hahn is the best kind of real heroine I have encountered - sassy, smart and a thrill-seeking proto-feminist journalist at that.
June 13, 2023
I had never heard of Emily Hahn, but now desperately want to read more of her writing. She clearly lived a fascinating life with no limits to her sense of adventure. So many of these stories seem entirely modern and relatable, while actually showing a fascinating slice of history.
June 24, 2023
I stumbled upon Ms. Hahn while creating a slide for the "Author's Birthday of the Day" slideshow I share with my students at the start of every class. The more I read about her life, the more hooked I became. I snatched this book up and dove in.
It's no surprise that a woman who got a degree in mining science out of spite and carried a monkey everywhere she went had an interesting life; but her acumen with words and storytelling make this one of the most enjoyable memoirs I've ever read. We follow her through African villages, Chinese port towns, and steerage steamer compartments. We meet the back-alley dentist who treats her (after she bites her pet gibbon), the Belgians in Congo convinced that she is spying for US mineral concerns, and the friendly Chinese fellow who introduces her to opium (and convinces her that she has become addicted, when she refused to admit it).
Hahn does a fantastic job dropping little bits of information here and there to keep up moving through each vignette. She has an incredibly wry sense of humor, which she directs at herself as often as others. Some of the bits toward the end about Japanese incursions into China feel more like military dispatches, missing as they are the more human elements of the book's main substance. Still, her eye for detail makes even these few chapters ring with authenticity.
The biggest flaws are the racist insistence on the ugliness of African women and the laissez-faire detached attitude toward certain elements of European colonialism. While I cannot adhere to a moral absolutism or a moral relativism, Hahn's Eurocentric attitudes don't age well here, and they could use some metacommentary perhaps for the 21st century (especially from a publisher like Seal Press).
Still, it's a superb book that skims the surface of a truly remarkable life. I will be reading more of Hahn's 40+ books in the years to come.
It's no surprise that a woman who got a degree in mining science out of spite and carried a monkey everywhere she went had an interesting life; but her acumen with words and storytelling make this one of the most enjoyable memoirs I've ever read. We follow her through African villages, Chinese port towns, and steerage steamer compartments. We meet the back-alley dentist who treats her (after she bites her pet gibbon), the Belgians in Congo convinced that she is spying for US mineral concerns, and the friendly Chinese fellow who introduces her to opium (and convinces her that she has become addicted, when she refused to admit it).
Hahn does a fantastic job dropping little bits of information here and there to keep up moving through each vignette. She has an incredibly wry sense of humor, which she directs at herself as often as others. Some of the bits toward the end about Japanese incursions into China feel more like military dispatches, missing as they are the more human elements of the book's main substance. Still, her eye for detail makes even these few chapters ring with authenticity.
The biggest flaws are the racist insistence on the ugliness of African women and the laissez-faire detached attitude toward certain elements of European colonialism. While I cannot adhere to a moral absolutism or a moral relativism, Hahn's Eurocentric attitudes don't age well here, and they could use some metacommentary perhaps for the 21st century (especially from a publisher like Seal Press).
Still, it's a superb book that skims the surface of a truly remarkable life. I will be reading more of Hahn's 40+ books in the years to come.
August 25, 2019
What an amazing life Emily Hahn led. She was traipsing into dangerous areas of the world well before there were any other female explorers. Though "autobiographical", this book is true to the word "memoir". Her story-telling is engaging, as well as, at times, hilarious, as she inserts those little sarcastic asides that we all say to ourselves at times. I thoroughly enjoyed this book! THANK YOU, Suzanne, for lending it to me! I'm off to the Congo now :-)
March 11, 2024
New Yorker correspondent Emily Hahn’s peripatetic life spanned most of the twentieth century. Her memoir includes tales of coming of age in Chicago, an extended sojourn in the Congo in 1932 and 1933, and an account of life in Shanghai as war came to the foreign community. Her adventures would be memoir gold even if they hadn’t been written by a brilliant storyteller and prose stylist. Read more at bookmanreader.blogspot.com .
March 30, 2021
A fascinating insight into what life used to be like – parts of the world that are totally wild. A series of more and more extreme experiences reported in a very level-headed and down-to earth way. Manages to be dramatic because of circumstance but isn't overblown in description or feelings. Great book.
December 29, 2019
What an incredible, adventurous, fearless woman! What a big life! I really enjoyed her style of writing too - like she’s just there, telling you her colourful stories over a cup of tea (or an opium pipe...)
December 20, 2018
Best essays ever written.
March 12, 2019
Just delightful. Well written. Engaging. Sorry that it wasn’t 1000 pages. An observer of the world around her. I have already started buying copies to send to friends
November 30, 2019
Great collection of stories telling of a pioneering, adventure loving women in the early to mid 20th century.
March 3, 2021
Loved this book! Highly recommend if you love adventures from the mid 1900s
September 25, 2022
This is a collection of previously published New Yorker articles mashed together in a rough timeline and called a memoir, which it is not.
July 21, 2023
If you like Dorothy Parker, you’ll like Emily Hahn!
March 23, 2016
I had this one on my bookshelf in Palm Springs and randomly selected it. It's a group of collected stories that are actual 'segments of her life'. When I write 'her' I am referring to the author, Emily Hahn, who was one remarkable woman when one considers all she accomplished. She was born in St. Louis, MO in 1905 and lived until age 92 (died in 1996). I won't spoil it all but she knew how to live life.
These words in particular had me identify with her 'completely'. When I worked an 8-5pm job in both San Francisco/Los Angeles I used to think the same way:
The sight of the city made it worse than ever. It was awful to think of everybody in that big place getting up at the same time every morning, taking the same bus or streetcar to work, doing the same things every day at the office. Where in the world were people who did things simply because they wanted to—because they were interested?
Below are some other portions of the book that 'grabbed me' for some reason or another. One can only admire this woman. How did she do it all? Amazing...
Lines I underlined in the book:
We talked on the telephone---not long, chatty conversations…These brief colloquies might have seemed abrupt, even curt, but they were an integral part of our normal and affectionate discourse, rather like those of two people reading their morning papers over a breakfast table and looking up for an instant to make a comment or ask a question. –Sheila McGrath, friend of Emily (about Emily).
“I use everything I find in my brain—experiences, impressions, memories, reading matter by other writers---everything, including the people who surround me and impinge on my awareness,” Emily Hahn explained in CHINA TO ME (book).
…our leisure time had to be spent in the open air. This was the era of the sleeping porch, or, if you couldn’t have that, of the window gaping wide all the winter night.
I remember…in high-school and already halfway out of the existence I ha known best. Real life was no longer a mere transition from one story world to another. I looked at and saw flesh-and-blood people of whom I’d never before been aware.
I wanted to keep him to myself, and as I knew all too well, once a new friend was admitted to our jolly family group he entered the public domain and was no longer exclusive property.
“Friendships you make on board a cruise ship never last afterward.”
We slept to the roaring, surging sound of waves below, but next morning, under a sky colored like a pigeon’s neck, the sea was calm and reflected the sunrise.
Everyone knows what it is like to see a friend after a long absence. There is a moment of non-recognition, like that experienced when you catch sight of yourself in a triple mirror at an unaccustomed angle. Then It is gone and you are once again looking at a familiar face.
“People like us who have so much to do, are not the type to become addicted.”
Reading and music and painting were enough to keep us happy…
He was dull. Still, it didn’t matter much whether outsiders were dull or bright, and as he happened to call on me once afternoon when I had received a shattering letter, I confided in him.
“It would cast a shadow over our lives for a time, of course,” he admitted.
The next day was Sunday, and again the weather was lovely. Part of the satisfaction I find in our house is the way I can sit and be conscious of the children, somewhere nearby, growing and playing and leaning, within call but not cooped up.
It’s good to sit in one’s house with a child playing outside quite safely, quite happily. There aren’t many better sensations in life.
These words in particular had me identify with her 'completely'. When I worked an 8-5pm job in both San Francisco/Los Angeles I used to think the same way:
The sight of the city made it worse than ever. It was awful to think of everybody in that big place getting up at the same time every morning, taking the same bus or streetcar to work, doing the same things every day at the office. Where in the world were people who did things simply because they wanted to—because they were interested?
Below are some other portions of the book that 'grabbed me' for some reason or another. One can only admire this woman. How did she do it all? Amazing...
Lines I underlined in the book:
We talked on the telephone---not long, chatty conversations…These brief colloquies might have seemed abrupt, even curt, but they were an integral part of our normal and affectionate discourse, rather like those of two people reading their morning papers over a breakfast table and looking up for an instant to make a comment or ask a question. –Sheila McGrath, friend of Emily (about Emily).
“I use everything I find in my brain—experiences, impressions, memories, reading matter by other writers---everything, including the people who surround me and impinge on my awareness,” Emily Hahn explained in CHINA TO ME (book).
…our leisure time had to be spent in the open air. This was the era of the sleeping porch, or, if you couldn’t have that, of the window gaping wide all the winter night.
I remember…in high-school and already halfway out of the existence I ha known best. Real life was no longer a mere transition from one story world to another. I looked at and saw flesh-and-blood people of whom I’d never before been aware.
I wanted to keep him to myself, and as I knew all too well, once a new friend was admitted to our jolly family group he entered the public domain and was no longer exclusive property.
“Friendships you make on board a cruise ship never last afterward.”
We slept to the roaring, surging sound of waves below, but next morning, under a sky colored like a pigeon’s neck, the sea was calm and reflected the sunrise.
Everyone knows what it is like to see a friend after a long absence. There is a moment of non-recognition, like that experienced when you catch sight of yourself in a triple mirror at an unaccustomed angle. Then It is gone and you are once again looking at a familiar face.
“People like us who have so much to do, are not the type to become addicted.”
Reading and music and painting were enough to keep us happy…
He was dull. Still, it didn’t matter much whether outsiders were dull or bright, and as he happened to call on me once afternoon when I had received a shattering letter, I confided in him.
“It would cast a shadow over our lives for a time, of course,” he admitted.
The next day was Sunday, and again the weather was lovely. Part of the satisfaction I find in our house is the way I can sit and be conscious of the children, somewhere nearby, growing and playing and leaning, within call but not cooped up.
It’s good to sit in one’s house with a child playing outside quite safely, quite happily. There aren’t many better sensations in life.
July 31, 2012
I came across Emily (Mickey) Hahn's name in connection with some research I was doing on another woman traveler and writer of the same era. This lead me to seek out her books. I found this one an exceptional pleasure to read and I'm sorry to admit I had not recognized her name despite her long association with the New Yorker magazine.
The style is easy, flowing and personal; the tone conversational and open. She repeatedly expresses a sense of wonder at her own behavior, being neither overly critical nor fully excusing of it. Her disdain for the future was at odds with her need to make ends meet. Certainly many of her anecdotes contain moments of realization after the fact. From this brief glimpse into her life it is difficult to say for certain if that was a stylistic conceit or truthful observations.
Mickey is perplexed at times over the attitudes she encountered around the world, some times towards herself but more often between others. She remarks on her stubborness and how it did spur her to do the unconventional. To me she seemed very much a person of the 'here and now' with a mixture of naivete and boldness that must have made her a challenging and exciting person to know.
There are lots of gaps between the stories and the book was certainly not intended to be a full biography. Yet each vignette is alive with her personality and wonderful descriptions and accounts of the people she met and the places she lived and worked. Reading the final episode, she was clearly a different person after the war, more mature but no less adventurous.
April 10, 2023
A series of Hahn's New Yorker articles that form an autobiography of sorts. The essays cover her childhood, her experiences as the first woman to enter the engineering department in the University of Wisconsin, her drive across America in the early 30s in a Model T, her two year stay in the wilds of the Congo, her subsequent walk across most of that country, her multi-year residence as a single woman (and opium addict) in Shanghai, and then her problems readjusting to life back in the West. (Her stay in Japanese-occupied Hong Kong during World War II is omitted, but it is documented in her excellent Hong Kong Holiday.) Her tone in most of the essays is lightly comic, and in many ways she reminds me of an earlier version of David Sedaris. Two of the essays break the mold somewhat. "Peace Comes to Shanghai" isn't really about her. It is rather an example of her journalism, as she reports on what life in Shanghai was like as the Japanese waged war around it. The final piece, "The Scream," is more like a short story than an essay. In a mere six pages it deals with the fear that always lurks in the back of a parent's mind and how early the loss of innocence can occur in a child. The piece alone is deserving of five stars, and the rest of the book is almost as good.
July 21, 2007
While I enjoyed some of the early essays on Hahn's family life in Chicago and St. Louis and while the extent of her travel and her degree of societal defiance are impressive, I ended up tuning out during some of the stuff on the engineering degree and Shanghai. Sometimes I felt she was a little high on herself. And why on earth was she so surprised over and over again at the way men of the time responded to her solo travels? It seems to me that after the first ten times of being treated with suspicion, you usually kind of come to expect it. She reminds me of those unconventional people who insist on being all wide eyed and innocent, like "what? you can't believe i actually just did that? oh, don't be ridiculous, it's perfectly normal to go traipsing through the African jungle with just a bag of dried rice and no tent- everybody does it! i'm not special at all!" (all the while being keenly aware of how very special she actually considers herself to be...).
April 20, 2012
An amazing woman whose essays (basically New Yorker articles tweaked to work together in a memoir format) are a great read. Hahn did things women just didn't back in the 20's and 30's. She majored in mining engineering, basically to prove that a woman could. She traveled cross country by car, pre-interstate, pre-Motel 6, and pre-7-11. She walked across Africa. She lived alone in the Belgian Congo. She was an independent traveler at a time when independent travel was usually called "exploration" and done by men. By the 30s she ended up in Shanghai, eventually riding out WWII in Hong Kong, under Japanese control (with her British spy husband in a POW camp nearby and a 1-yr-old daughter to feed from meager rations and black market goods.) Her dry sense of humor pervades these pieces, as a well as a general feeling of calm, good sense and, often, a blasé attitude about possible perils, which is, I think, what makes these fun to read.
July 22, 2013
An artist friend recommended this author to me and I'm embarrassed to say I'd never heard of her even though Emily Hahn wrote 52 books and contributed to The New Yorker for more than seventy years. An unconventional woman way ahead of her time, Ms. Hahn drove cross-country to Santa Fe before there were roads, hacked her way through Africa alone in the 1930s--adventures most women wouldn't undertake even years later. No Hurry to Get Home turned out to be a good book to begin with as it covered the authors life from childhood. Now I'm ready for one of her books written about her years in China, supposedly equally enthralling. This book made me realize that indeed, some people are born travelers. It's only the way they travel that differs--mainly due to the level of technology at the time. It would be interesting to have a book club devoted to only reading the books of Ms. Hahn. They're mostly out-of-print, but still available if you look. And the search is more than worth it.
July 2, 2015
The life of Emily Hahn reminds of the Bitter Sweet Symphony video from The Verve: to the front and straight, never look back, just one word: yes. What else can you ask to life that your biography turns out to be an inspiring book, one of those that are constantly asking you why are you reading at all, and not travelling, running, living the adventure. You get that feeling of being in the middle of one of infinite worlds that fantasy or science fiction struggles so hard to find sometimes. It is so much more potent in this case as you know that you are reading the actual life of someone, who could be your great grandmother, and who's only superpower seems to be eternal wanderlust. At some points I even felt jealous of the 20's, where the world wasn't yet adapted to fit in a screen. An ode to culture, to the increasingly rare human extraordinaire. A real life adventure told with class, ironically pretentious.
June 22, 2009
When I started this book, I thought it was going to progress in the style of other memoirs of American women born in the early 20th century. And for a while it did replete with standard scenes like, "the time a boy saw my ankles." Scandal!
But sentences like the following which starts of one of the chapters caused me to do a literary double take: "Though I had always wanted to be an opium addict, I can't claim that as the reason I went to China".
Despite a tendency to make jokes out of situations that aren't really that funny - opium addictions and harrowing journeys by train through war-torn China hardly seem like laugh riots - the memoir is well-written and enjoyable.
But sentences like the following which starts of one of the chapters caused me to do a literary double take: "Though I had always wanted to be an opium addict, I can't claim that as the reason I went to China".
Despite a tendency to make jokes out of situations that aren't really that funny - opium addictions and harrowing journeys by train through war-torn China hardly seem like laugh riots - the memoir is well-written and enjoyable.
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