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Nobody Said Not to Go: The Life, Loves, and Adventures of Emily Hahn
Known as "Mickey" to her friends, Emily Hahn traveled across the country dressed as a boy in the 1920s; ran away to the Belgian Congo as a Red Cross worker during the Great Depression; was the concubine of a Chinese poet in Shanghai in the 1930s; had an illegitimate child with the head of the British Secret Service in Hong Kong just before the outbreak of World War II; was involved in underground relief work in occupied Hong Kong; and moved back to the United States and became a pioneer in the fields of wildlife preservation and environmentalism before her death in 1997 at the age of ninety-two. A feminist trailblazer before the word existed, Hahn also wrote hundreds of articles and short stories for The New Yorker from 1925 to 1995, as well as fifty books in many genres. As Roger Angell wrote in her obituary in The New Yorker: "She was, in truth, something rare: a woman deeply, almost domestically, at home in the world. Driven by curiosity and energy, she went there and did that, and then wrote about it without fuss."
Ken Cuthbertson is a journalist and historian. He is the author of Inside: The Biography of John Gunther, which was nominated for Canada's Governor-General Award.
Ken Cuthbertson is a journalist and historian. He is the author of Inside: The Biography of John Gunther, which was nominated for Canada's Governor-General Award.
400 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 1998
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January 13, 2025
I first heard of Emily Hahn in an anecdote about Zau Sinmay, a Chinese poet and Emily Hahn’s one time lover. When I read The Last Kings of Shanghai: The Rival Jewish Dynasties That Helped Create Modern China two years ago, Emily Hahn’s name appeared again. It was a nice surprise that I found Nobody Said Not to Go: The Life, Loves, and Adventures of Emily Hahn in our local library book sale.
This biography is a surprising account of a trailblazer and an early American feminist (despite Hahn’s refusal to accept the label). In many ways she was an individualist before individualism became mainstream in American culture.
The book started slow. Born in St. Louis in 1905 to Jewish parents, Emily Hahn became the first female student studying mining engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She was met with great resistance from all male teachers and classmates, yet she persisted. In 1926, Emily Hahn received the mining engineering degree, the first of such degree awarded to a woman. After graduation, Hahn got a job at a mining company, but soon realized it was not her calling, so she quit the job to pursue a career as an author. Although outdated by today’s standard, her early writings in the 1920s published in The New Yorker were provocative.
The book picked up pace once Hahn traveled solo to Congo in December 1929. Part 3 provided a glimpse into the colonial past of Africa. It reminds me that not all anthropologists at the time were as modern and revolutionary as Franz Boas (Gods of the Upper Air: How a Circle of Renegade Anthropologists Reinvented Race, Sex, and Gender in the Twentieth Century). On the contrary, men like Patrick Putman were the norm. Quotes: “Mickey had seen Patrick in a rage throw a paddle at one of his workers. On other occasions, he had drilled Penge’s inhabitants and made them stand at military-like attention in the hot sun. Patrick justified his behavior by arguing it was natural that “the strong should dominate the weak.” That was the law of the jungle.”(P107)
After the African trip, Hahn published travelog Cono Solo. It caused quite a stir. It’s hard to imagine the following review at the time was intended as criticism: “The uniqueness of Miss Hahn’s book is in Miss Hahn herself. She went to Africa and saw Africans neither as funny or different people ...Instead she saw them as human beings, completely identified herself with them, entered into their lives and joys and sorrows and tribulations with the same understanding objectivity with which she might have written of her own friends in the United States.”(P122)
Part 4 China and Part 5 Hong Kong are the center of the book. Emily Hahn scandalized the circle of westerners in Shanghai by taking a Chinese lover, Zau Sinmay. The love affair was a scandal not because Zau was married, but because Zau was Chinese. From Hahn’s point of view, having an affair with a western educated Chinese poet was an adventure. The fact he was married with children was irrelevant, even advantageous, for it removed the danger of long term commitment. This attitude was truly ahead of its time. We don't know how Zau’s wife might have felt. Hahn and Zau started the affair in 1935, but didn’t “marry” until after Japanese occupation in 1937. According to the author, it was more or less a convenient arrangement agreed upon by Hahn, Zau and Zau’s wife, whether it was true we can not know. The “marriage” allowed Hahn to recover some of Zau’s family treasure from Zau’s home in the Japanese occupied part of the city. Later in Hong Kong, the “marriage” also helped Hahn and her newborn daughter to escape from being committed to a war detention camp.
The affair ended when Hahn quit opium and traveled to Hong Kong in order to write The Soong Sisters. Zau’s aunt arranged the first meeting with Madam Kung (宋霭龄, the eldest Soong sister). It’s interesting that it was Madam Kung who stopped Hahn from returning to Shanghai, because she feared not only that Hahn would be punished by the Japanese for being involved with the Soong sisters, but also that Zau might “take advantage” of her. Perhaps Madam Kung, a western educated woman and a Methodist, disapproved polygamy.
The Hong Kong chapter makes me want to read more about wartime Hong Kong. The fall of Hong Kong was partially attributed to the arrogance of the British governor and army officers. War is ugly. Charles Boxer (a British intelligence officer who loved Japanese culture and spoke fluent Japanese)’s perspective about Japan, before, during and after the war is very different from mine.
Part 6 “Happily Ever After?” is about Emily Hahn’s life after the war. The 1950s to 1970s were Hahn’s most productive years. What strikes me most is the trajectory of gender roles in mainstream American culture in the 20th century revealed by Hahn writings and the public reaction triggered by them.
Quotes: “The reception for Miss Jill, a novel that Mickey wrote about an Australian prostitute in Shanghai in the 1930s was no less ambivalent. As had been the case with her 1935 novel Affair (which dealt with young love and abortion), many critics were uneasy with Mickey’s casual approach to sex. ….and when the Sultan of Jahore threatened to sue over what he considered “offensive passages,” British publisher Joanthan Cape suspended sales until the text of the novel could be changed. …Such incidents fueled Mickey’s growing indignation over the gender inequalities of life in the postwar world. During the Second World War, thousands of women had volunteered for the armed forces. On the home front, millions more American, British, and Canadian women had relieved the man-power shortage by joining the workforce–albeit at less pay than men received for doing the same jobs. These women had proved themselves to be as hard-working, self-reliant, and capable as any man. But when the war ended, their husbands, fathers, and brothers returned, these same women were expected to go back to raising children and keeping house, no questions asked. Although most of her sisters meekly complied, Mickey and some like-minded women–“radicals”, they were branded–demanded the option of being able to pursue a career if they desired.”(P311)
By the time Hahn published Times and Places in 1970, an autobiographical essay collection, the world had changed. It received surprisingly good reviews. One reviewer said: “While some of the anecdotes are merely amusing, most contribute to an extraordinary self-portrait of a determined woman who refused to let her sex or society’s conventions block her aspirations.”
In 1974, Emily Hahn published Once Upon a Pedestal, an informal survey of the history of the women’s movement in the United States. Hahn argued that American women had climbed down from the pedestal upon which men had put them, thus became a flesh-and-blood human being with real hopes, fears, loves, hates, dreams, and passions, instead of an object to be admired and enjoyed. She finally said what she had been wanting to say all her life. Yet, the feminist movement had moved on. Her view was not radical nor unique anymore. A whole new generation of feminist authors had arrived. Unfortunately to Emily Hahn, feminists belonged to clubs and she refused to identify as one. I agree with the author that she could have made a bigger impact on the women's rights movement, had she chosen to do so. Hahn, as an individualist, had her limits.
It seems to me that early feminists often had no good relationship with their children when the children were young. For a mother and a daughter, the relationship usually mellowed when the daughter grew up. But not so for a mother and son relationship. This is often the consequence when women venture out of the assigned gender roles.
This biography is a surprising account of a trailblazer and an early American feminist (despite Hahn’s refusal to accept the label). In many ways she was an individualist before individualism became mainstream in American culture.
The book started slow. Born in St. Louis in 1905 to Jewish parents, Emily Hahn became the first female student studying mining engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She was met with great resistance from all male teachers and classmates, yet she persisted. In 1926, Emily Hahn received the mining engineering degree, the first of such degree awarded to a woman. After graduation, Hahn got a job at a mining company, but soon realized it was not her calling, so she quit the job to pursue a career as an author. Although outdated by today’s standard, her early writings in the 1920s published in The New Yorker were provocative.
The book picked up pace once Hahn traveled solo to Congo in December 1929. Part 3 provided a glimpse into the colonial past of Africa. It reminds me that not all anthropologists at the time were as modern and revolutionary as Franz Boas (Gods of the Upper Air: How a Circle of Renegade Anthropologists Reinvented Race, Sex, and Gender in the Twentieth Century). On the contrary, men like Patrick Putman were the norm. Quotes: “Mickey had seen Patrick in a rage throw a paddle at one of his workers. On other occasions, he had drilled Penge’s inhabitants and made them stand at military-like attention in the hot sun. Patrick justified his behavior by arguing it was natural that “the strong should dominate the weak.” That was the law of the jungle.”(P107)
After the African trip, Hahn published travelog Cono Solo. It caused quite a stir. It’s hard to imagine the following review at the time was intended as criticism: “The uniqueness of Miss Hahn’s book is in Miss Hahn herself. She went to Africa and saw Africans neither as funny or different people ...Instead she saw them as human beings, completely identified herself with them, entered into their lives and joys and sorrows and tribulations with the same understanding objectivity with which she might have written of her own friends in the United States.”(P122)
Part 4 China and Part 5 Hong Kong are the center of the book. Emily Hahn scandalized the circle of westerners in Shanghai by taking a Chinese lover, Zau Sinmay. The love affair was a scandal not because Zau was married, but because Zau was Chinese. From Hahn’s point of view, having an affair with a western educated Chinese poet was an adventure. The fact he was married with children was irrelevant, even advantageous, for it removed the danger of long term commitment. This attitude was truly ahead of its time. We don't know how Zau’s wife might have felt. Hahn and Zau started the affair in 1935, but didn’t “marry” until after Japanese occupation in 1937. According to the author, it was more or less a convenient arrangement agreed upon by Hahn, Zau and Zau’s wife, whether it was true we can not know. The “marriage” allowed Hahn to recover some of Zau’s family treasure from Zau’s home in the Japanese occupied part of the city. Later in Hong Kong, the “marriage” also helped Hahn and her newborn daughter to escape from being committed to a war detention camp.
The affair ended when Hahn quit opium and traveled to Hong Kong in order to write The Soong Sisters. Zau’s aunt arranged the first meeting with Madam Kung (宋霭龄, the eldest Soong sister). It’s interesting that it was Madam Kung who stopped Hahn from returning to Shanghai, because she feared not only that Hahn would be punished by the Japanese for being involved with the Soong sisters, but also that Zau might “take advantage” of her. Perhaps Madam Kung, a western educated woman and a Methodist, disapproved polygamy.
The Hong Kong chapter makes me want to read more about wartime Hong Kong. The fall of Hong Kong was partially attributed to the arrogance of the British governor and army officers. War is ugly. Charles Boxer (a British intelligence officer who loved Japanese culture and spoke fluent Japanese)’s perspective about Japan, before, during and after the war is very different from mine.
Part 6 “Happily Ever After?” is about Emily Hahn’s life after the war. The 1950s to 1970s were Hahn’s most productive years. What strikes me most is the trajectory of gender roles in mainstream American culture in the 20th century revealed by Hahn writings and the public reaction triggered by them.
Quotes: “The reception for Miss Jill, a novel that Mickey wrote about an Australian prostitute in Shanghai in the 1930s was no less ambivalent. As had been the case with her 1935 novel Affair (which dealt with young love and abortion), many critics were uneasy with Mickey’s casual approach to sex. ….and when the Sultan of Jahore threatened to sue over what he considered “offensive passages,” British publisher Joanthan Cape suspended sales until the text of the novel could be changed. …Such incidents fueled Mickey’s growing indignation over the gender inequalities of life in the postwar world. During the Second World War, thousands of women had volunteered for the armed forces. On the home front, millions more American, British, and Canadian women had relieved the man-power shortage by joining the workforce–albeit at less pay than men received for doing the same jobs. These women had proved themselves to be as hard-working, self-reliant, and capable as any man. But when the war ended, their husbands, fathers, and brothers returned, these same women were expected to go back to raising children and keeping house, no questions asked. Although most of her sisters meekly complied, Mickey and some like-minded women–“radicals”, they were branded–demanded the option of being able to pursue a career if they desired.”(P311)
By the time Hahn published Times and Places in 1970, an autobiographical essay collection, the world had changed. It received surprisingly good reviews. One reviewer said: “While some of the anecdotes are merely amusing, most contribute to an extraordinary self-portrait of a determined woman who refused to let her sex or society’s conventions block her aspirations.”
In 1974, Emily Hahn published Once Upon a Pedestal, an informal survey of the history of the women’s movement in the United States. Hahn argued that American women had climbed down from the pedestal upon which men had put them, thus became a flesh-and-blood human being with real hopes, fears, loves, hates, dreams, and passions, instead of an object to be admired and enjoyed. She finally said what she had been wanting to say all her life. Yet, the feminist movement had moved on. Her view was not radical nor unique anymore. A whole new generation of feminist authors had arrived. Unfortunately to Emily Hahn, feminists belonged to clubs and she refused to identify as one. I agree with the author that she could have made a bigger impact on the women's rights movement, had she chosen to do so. Hahn, as an individualist, had her limits.
It seems to me that early feminists often had no good relationship with their children when the children were young. For a mother and a daughter, the relationship usually mellowed when the daughter grew up. But not so for a mother and son relationship. This is often the consequence when women venture out of the assigned gender roles.
January 21, 2009
I wish that I knew where I first heard of Emily "Mickey" Hahn. I had this book on my wishlist for so long, I'd forgotten what made me want it in the first place. That said, I'm very glad I went ahead and got it. Emily Hahn (1905 - 1997) was an amazing woman who live a large an varied life. She lived to be 92 years old! The more I read the more I wanted to know about her. I pull up old New Yorker articles (via their DVD archive) to read about some of the events in the book from her perspective. When Ken Cuthbertson mentioned her short stories, I went back to the New Yorker and read several of those too. Emily Hahn has become an obsession. I went to my public library and checked out everything they had by her -- about 4 of her fifty-two books. Nobody Said Not to Go is a fabulous book and worth seeking out. I believe it is currently out-of-print and that is a shame. Cuthbertson paces this story well and keeps you interested. He also paints a real woman triumphs and faults. I laughed out loud when she had to get someone to swear to her morels before traveling to the Belgian Congo, I nearly cried at the descriptions of all the mixed messages she was getting in the year she waited to find out if Charles was alright, I loved the thought of her bravery in feeding the POW in China, and so much more. This is a life not to be missed.
February 19, 2021
I had no earthly idea who Emily Hahn was or why she even deserved a book written about her. I was sold on the title and the cover, which promised adventure. Then I realized it was a biography and I had already started reading it only to find out that Emily had written numerous books herself, fiction and nonfiction, 52 to be exact.
She has written a few memoirs I'm especially interested in reading: "Congo Solo: Misadventures Two Degrees North" (1933)...about her 2 years in Africa; "China to Me" (1944)...about her 8 years in China during the war; and "Times and Places" (1970)…which this author, Ken Cuthbertson, uses many quotes from. I'm sure reading her own memoirs would have been much more personal, capturing her real personality. But, this author did a great job in putting all the little snippets of her life together in one place. It almost reads like a novel. He used letters Emily had written back home to family, and he was even able to begin interviewing her in 1992, the last five years of her life, before her death in 1997, at age 92. But, Emily would not live to see this biography published. She died on February 18, 1997. This book was published the following year, in 1998.
Emily a.k.a "Mickey" Hahn (1905 - 1997) was an unconventional woman who, by today's standard, would be considered a feminist. But, she despised the term feminist because feminists belonged to clubs and they collected money for their causes. She “preferred to lead by example rather than by organized political involvement” (loc 7095).
She was just a free-spirit who grew up in a house with four sisters and one brother. They all attended college and were encouraged to defy the social norm by their mother, Hannah. She came of age in the 1920's just as a new breed of free-thinking women called "flappers" began flaunting their demands...smoking in public, drinking alcohol, wearing heavy lipstick and rouge, and displaying their sexuality. Emily fell into this women-of-power movement.
When she was told she could not major in Mining Geology because women aren't capable of learning such complicated material. She proved them wrong and became the first woman to graduate in mining engineering from the University of Wisconsin. They told her she would never get a job as Mining Geologist because she was a woman. She proved them wrong, but she ended up hating it. They put her behind a desk working 9-5, at a much lower pay than for men, and not out in the field where she wanted to be. So, she quit.
Her and a friend, financially supported by their parents, took off on an adventure in a brand-new Model-T Ford across America from Chicago to California and back. This sparked an unrest in Emily that would simmer for the rest of her life.
Her friend, who headed back to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she worked as a horseback trail guide, pleaded for her to come. Emily, not knowing what to do with her educated life, headed west and farted around with work as one of the Harvey Girls...much like today's Hooter girls, and also worked the trails as a guide. She floated, and moved to Taos, a smaller quieter town that was beginning to attract artists and writers. There she piddled and wasted some more time away writing small poems on cards until her mom showed up unexpectedly at her front door to bring her home.
She returned home and attended more college. Still lost. She decided to sail overseas with her male "friend" and roommate, and to write. She focused more and more on her writing, but was so insecure of her abilities in her life. She rubbed elbows with so many people, other writers and soon to be high-ranking political figures, who were doing great things with their lives, eventually becoming at least well-known, some very famous. She was feeling stagnant, tired and drained, even though The New Yorker, a popular magazine of the time, had published a few of her stories, and her first book, "Seductio Ad Absurdum (1930), was accepted for publication.
At age 25, she was essentially a struggling writer. Her housekeeper offered her some sleeping pills to help her sleep, which she took. Depression was hitting hard, and she decided to commit suicide. When that failed, and she woke at one of her sister's homes, is when a fog seemed to suddenly lift from her. And as the Great Depression was going on, she quit her job, climbed aboard another ship and headed overseas to London to focus on research and writing. But, as luck would have it, she met up with another male friend who was leaving for The Congo in Africa, her dream destination. She asked to visit him once he got there, and that was all she could think about from then on.
She did make it to The Congo, but was so disappointed in how her friend began treating the natives after a couple of years living there. He took on three wives and became quite abusive to them. When she returned to camp one day, she saw that he had chained one of his wives up to a tree and was told she would stay there for a whole week in the sun as punishment for giving her daughter a short haircut, instead of shaving it completely off. When he started barking at her and trying to rule over her about making her cut her hair off, she immediately packed her bags and left early the next morning. She ended up hiking 800 miles over Africa, boarded a ship back to the states, and never looked back. Her memoir, “Congo Solo” (1933), would provide more details on this adventure.
Later, Emily would take a trip to China with her sister, in which her sister returned home after just a couple of weeks, but she ended up staying for five years and living in Shanghai during the cusp of the oncoming war between China and Japan, as a concubine to a Chinese poet and writer and hooked on opium, once again, wasting her life away. She was smoking up to 12 pipes a day and experiencing severe stomach cramps. After seeing a doctor and coming clean off the drugs, and at yet another stand-still in her life, she was talked into more serious writing of the Soong sisters. And since war was headed to Shanghai, in 1939 and 1940, she evacuated to Chungking with the Soong sisters, and began writing their story for China as the Japanese were bombing the crap out of the city. "The Soong Sisters" was published in 1941 and was her first huge success.
With war now closing in at Chungking, she flew to Hong Kong, then considered British territory and a much safer zone, where she would fall in love and have an affair with a married man, an officer in the British Army, also a writer of 24 scholarly books, Charles Boxer. Emily became pregnant and had his child, Carola Boxer, out of wedlock, in 1941. Nearly all the women and children had been evacuated from Hong Kong. She stayed and was there in Hong Kong when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, and began bombing Hong Kong. As anticipated, Charles told her, "It's come. War." The author gives a great personal, first-hand account of this war through Charles and Emily’s lives. Emily and Carola were trapped in Hong Kong and in the last place of refuge at War Memorial Hospital. Charles served his time as a POW.
After eight years in China, she was finally evacuated with her daughter in 1943 and returned to the states where she would work as an employee at The New Yorker over the next 40 years and continue to write books. Charles was released two years later and after making an honest woman of Emily and marrying her, they moved to his family home, “Conygar”, in London. Emily, still free spirited, would travel back and forth, a few months in the states working for The New Yorker, then a few months in London to see her two girls and Charles, and to concentrate on a new book. She typed and typed and typed until nearly the end. When she fell and broke her arm, and could no longer type, is when it all seemed to slowly end for her.
Emily, apparently, had a wonderful and unique style of writing. I’m anxious now to read further into her adventures in Africa and China, and her biography, which is supposedly a collection of her writings published over the years in The New Yorker Magazine.
She has written a few memoirs I'm especially interested in reading: "Congo Solo: Misadventures Two Degrees North" (1933)...about her 2 years in Africa; "China to Me" (1944)...about her 8 years in China during the war; and "Times and Places" (1970)…which this author, Ken Cuthbertson, uses many quotes from. I'm sure reading her own memoirs would have been much more personal, capturing her real personality. But, this author did a great job in putting all the little snippets of her life together in one place. It almost reads like a novel. He used letters Emily had written back home to family, and he was even able to begin interviewing her in 1992, the last five years of her life, before her death in 1997, at age 92. But, Emily would not live to see this biography published. She died on February 18, 1997. This book was published the following year, in 1998.
Emily a.k.a "Mickey" Hahn (1905 - 1997) was an unconventional woman who, by today's standard, would be considered a feminist. But, she despised the term feminist because feminists belonged to clubs and they collected money for their causes. She “preferred to lead by example rather than by organized political involvement” (loc 7095).
She was just a free-spirit who grew up in a house with four sisters and one brother. They all attended college and were encouraged to defy the social norm by their mother, Hannah. She came of age in the 1920's just as a new breed of free-thinking women called "flappers" began flaunting their demands...smoking in public, drinking alcohol, wearing heavy lipstick and rouge, and displaying their sexuality. Emily fell into this women-of-power movement.
When she was told she could not major in Mining Geology because women aren't capable of learning such complicated material. She proved them wrong and became the first woman to graduate in mining engineering from the University of Wisconsin. They told her she would never get a job as Mining Geologist because she was a woman. She proved them wrong, but she ended up hating it. They put her behind a desk working 9-5, at a much lower pay than for men, and not out in the field where she wanted to be. So, she quit.
Her and a friend, financially supported by their parents, took off on an adventure in a brand-new Model-T Ford across America from Chicago to California and back. This sparked an unrest in Emily that would simmer for the rest of her life.
Her friend, who headed back to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she worked as a horseback trail guide, pleaded for her to come. Emily, not knowing what to do with her educated life, headed west and farted around with work as one of the Harvey Girls...much like today's Hooter girls, and also worked the trails as a guide. She floated, and moved to Taos, a smaller quieter town that was beginning to attract artists and writers. There she piddled and wasted some more time away writing small poems on cards until her mom showed up unexpectedly at her front door to bring her home.
She returned home and attended more college. Still lost. She decided to sail overseas with her male "friend" and roommate, and to write. She focused more and more on her writing, but was so insecure of her abilities in her life. She rubbed elbows with so many people, other writers and soon to be high-ranking political figures, who were doing great things with their lives, eventually becoming at least well-known, some very famous. She was feeling stagnant, tired and drained, even though The New Yorker, a popular magazine of the time, had published a few of her stories, and her first book, "Seductio Ad Absurdum (1930), was accepted for publication.
At age 25, she was essentially a struggling writer. Her housekeeper offered her some sleeping pills to help her sleep, which she took. Depression was hitting hard, and she decided to commit suicide. When that failed, and she woke at one of her sister's homes, is when a fog seemed to suddenly lift from her. And as the Great Depression was going on, she quit her job, climbed aboard another ship and headed overseas to London to focus on research and writing. But, as luck would have it, she met up with another male friend who was leaving for The Congo in Africa, her dream destination. She asked to visit him once he got there, and that was all she could think about from then on.
She did make it to The Congo, but was so disappointed in how her friend began treating the natives after a couple of years living there. He took on three wives and became quite abusive to them. When she returned to camp one day, she saw that he had chained one of his wives up to a tree and was told she would stay there for a whole week in the sun as punishment for giving her daughter a short haircut, instead of shaving it completely off. When he started barking at her and trying to rule over her about making her cut her hair off, she immediately packed her bags and left early the next morning. She ended up hiking 800 miles over Africa, boarded a ship back to the states, and never looked back. Her memoir, “Congo Solo” (1933), would provide more details on this adventure.
Later, Emily would take a trip to China with her sister, in which her sister returned home after just a couple of weeks, but she ended up staying for five years and living in Shanghai during the cusp of the oncoming war between China and Japan, as a concubine to a Chinese poet and writer and hooked on opium, once again, wasting her life away. She was smoking up to 12 pipes a day and experiencing severe stomach cramps. After seeing a doctor and coming clean off the drugs, and at yet another stand-still in her life, she was talked into more serious writing of the Soong sisters. And since war was headed to Shanghai, in 1939 and 1940, she evacuated to Chungking with the Soong sisters, and began writing their story for China as the Japanese were bombing the crap out of the city. "The Soong Sisters" was published in 1941 and was her first huge success.
With war now closing in at Chungking, she flew to Hong Kong, then considered British territory and a much safer zone, where she would fall in love and have an affair with a married man, an officer in the British Army, also a writer of 24 scholarly books, Charles Boxer. Emily became pregnant and had his child, Carola Boxer, out of wedlock, in 1941. Nearly all the women and children had been evacuated from Hong Kong. She stayed and was there in Hong Kong when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, and began bombing Hong Kong. As anticipated, Charles told her, "It's come. War." The author gives a great personal, first-hand account of this war through Charles and Emily’s lives. Emily and Carola were trapped in Hong Kong and in the last place of refuge at War Memorial Hospital. Charles served his time as a POW.
After eight years in China, she was finally evacuated with her daughter in 1943 and returned to the states where she would work as an employee at The New Yorker over the next 40 years and continue to write books. Charles was released two years later and after making an honest woman of Emily and marrying her, they moved to his family home, “Conygar”, in London. Emily, still free spirited, would travel back and forth, a few months in the states working for The New Yorker, then a few months in London to see her two girls and Charles, and to concentrate on a new book. She typed and typed and typed until nearly the end. When she fell and broke her arm, and could no longer type, is when it all seemed to slowly end for her.
Emily, apparently, had a wonderful and unique style of writing. I’m anxious now to read further into her adventures in Africa and China, and her biography, which is supposedly a collection of her writings published over the years in The New Yorker Magazine.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 23, 2013
First read this book over a decade ago and have referred back to it since. I love books about fearless unconventional women and Emily Hahn was certainly one of those. An enterprising journalist and a colourful character, Emily lived a long life so the period of history her life spanned made for a wonderful tale. Well and lovingly written, effervescent, and inspiring.
Read
June 13, 2009A biography of an amazing woman, Emily Hahn. I had just finished her book "No hurry to get home" and this is the Clif Notes of her writing. Literally her words cut up and jumbled together removing the beauty and tension from every tale to make a timeline. Why read this when her own words are there waiting for you?!
September 22, 2009
While not a particularly well-written biography, I was so intrigued and smitten with its subject that it has become one of my favorite books. Emily Hahn is someone I would have loved to know. My admiration for her is huge.
April 5, 2018
What an amazing woman! Well written book!
December 15, 2021
It is ironic that at a time when I am struggling with whether or not to renew my subscription to THE NEW YORKER I read the biography of a woman who contributed 181 articles to that magazine, spanning more than four decades. Emily "Mickey" Hahn was a unique woman. In writing that sentence my mind flashed back to a character in a Perry Mason episode from Hahn's early years at The New Yorker. I wonder if the writers of the program had the cigar-smoking, assertive, free-speaking Hahn in mind. I wonder if Emily Hahn comes to the minds of anyone when recalling the great writers of the 20th Century. She did not fit neatly into one genre; her works covered many interests. Her life was a series of adventures that affirm the cliche that truth is stranger than fiction.
Four stars waning
Four stars waning
July 13, 2019
Solid bio of one of the most extraordinary women of the 20th century
This is a comprehensive well-documented biography of a feminist before people knew the word as well as one of the most extraordinary women of our time. Emily 'Mickey' Hahn, back in the Roaring Twenties was a beautiful mining engineer, flapper pursued by men, traveller to Europe , African explorer, celebrity in the Shanghai of the 1930's, Chinese concubine, captive of the Japanese during WW2, and legendary New Yorker writer for over half a century. Fascinating.
This is a comprehensive well-documented biography of a feminist before people knew the word as well as one of the most extraordinary women of our time. Emily 'Mickey' Hahn, back in the Roaring Twenties was a beautiful mining engineer, flapper pursued by men, traveller to Europe , African explorer, celebrity in the Shanghai of the 1930's, Chinese concubine, captive of the Japanese during WW2, and legendary New Yorker writer for over half a century. Fascinating.
April 1, 2023
An engaging biography of a woman who was an extremely enjoyable writer and who lived a more adventurous life than any of us ever will. Fans of her writing will enjoy this book, but I do have one caveat. Anyone who has read her book China To Me (which I did just before reading this one) will probably be frustrated by the fact that almost half of this book is a rehash of Hahn's, with little added to it. However the book does provide updates on the fate of many of the people Hahn discusses in her memoir, which is just one of many reasons to read this volume.
June 22, 2024
Very interesting book about the life of Emily Hahn. I had never heard of her before reading this book. Emily was one of the first women to write for The New Yorker magazine, sending in articles from many different locations. She spent 2 years in Africa. She traveled alone, which was most unusual for a woman in the early 1900's. She spoke several languages, some of them self taught. I only gave it 4 stars at I felt like it got quite long and certain things repeated. She has written many books, non of which really took off. But she was a talented writer.
April 27, 2021
I'm caught between calling her a lazy, spoiled brat or an intellectual rebel. Either way, I wish I would have known her.
This book has a laid back tone and keeps momentum without getting bogged down in too much detail.
This book has a laid back tone and keeps momentum without getting bogged down in too much detail.
September 30, 2021
Amazing Story About An Amazing Woman/Writer
Wow. Emily “Mickey” Hahn led an amazing life and was a truly remarkable - and liberated - woman, writer and reporter. Her life story matches that of anyone else I’ve read about. Don’t miss this opportunity to learn about her.
Wow. Emily “Mickey” Hahn led an amazing life and was a truly remarkable - and liberated - woman, writer and reporter. Her life story matches that of anyone else I’ve read about. Don’t miss this opportunity to learn about her.
October 31, 2023
This didn't make me like Emily Hahn any better than I already did, but it did make me understand the arc of her life better by filling in gaps between various essays I'd read. An amazing woman who made some questionable choices but appears never to have been afraid of new adventures.
October 4, 2017
Extraordinarily an amazing woman!
July 26, 2018
An interesting presentation of a life well lived.
An interesting life it was.
An interesting life it was.
April 3, 2022
Illuminating account and welcome addition to the growing Emily Hahn bookshelf.
April 2, 2023
A delightful real-life tale of an amazing woman.
November 15, 2023
Extraordinary life of an extraordinary woman who LIVED - bucked convention
And was a talented writer!!
And was a talented writer!!
August 17, 2025
Extremely well researched and written book about a very impressive woman. Highly recommended.
April 11, 2016
Emily "Mickey" Hahn is a woman that has lived life years ahead her times. Emily Hahn is a writer and a traveler, a daughter, a sister and a mother. Emily Hahn is a person that has not followed the rules, but created her own. Emily Hahn is above and beyond all, a woman.
Mickey was raised in a half Jewish family in St. Louis. Her parents were very progressive and as her mother, she has challenged a lot the gender roles, as they were in the 1930s and onwards. She drank alcohol when it was illegal in the US, she smoke cigars and she got a mining engineering degree, when no women were present in the Engineering department of the University of Wisconsin.
Emily Hahn had one thing on her mind, live life as she wanted. If anyone opposed to that, it was not her problem. Therefore, before she even decided to become a writer, she enrolled in all men College of Engineering and got a degree in mining engineering. Though a conventional office job was not her thing, she moved to new York, when Chicago did not fit her along with her sister Helen. She became a member of the literary society there and started her long writing career when one of her stories appeared in "The New Yorker" magazine. She traveled the world. Europe, Africa and Asia were her biggest longest trips. In Asia, first in Shanghai she made her presence known to the local community. She started an unconventional relationship with a Chinese scholar based on the Chinese way of doing things. When war hit Shanghai's door, Mickey moved out in order to write a biography of the most influential women in China at the time, the Soong sisters. Later on she settled in Hong Kong, where she met the life of her life and father of her two daughters, Charles Boxer.
In her writing accomplishments one may find more than fifty books, either fictional or not, and hundreds of articles, short stories and poems. Her unique way of writing can be found in all those books but not in this one. Yet again, it is one very well written book, making a considerable effort on describing the adventures of Emily Hahn in the US and the world.
The reviewed copy was a kind offer of NetGalley.
Review can also be found in Chill and read
Mickey was raised in a half Jewish family in St. Louis. Her parents were very progressive and as her mother, she has challenged a lot the gender roles, as they were in the 1930s and onwards. She drank alcohol when it was illegal in the US, she smoke cigars and she got a mining engineering degree, when no women were present in the Engineering department of the University of Wisconsin.
Emily Hahn had one thing on her mind, live life as she wanted. If anyone opposed to that, it was not her problem. Therefore, before she even decided to become a writer, she enrolled in all men College of Engineering and got a degree in mining engineering. Though a conventional office job was not her thing, she moved to new York, when Chicago did not fit her along with her sister Helen. She became a member of the literary society there and started her long writing career when one of her stories appeared in "The New Yorker" magazine. She traveled the world. Europe, Africa and Asia were her biggest longest trips. In Asia, first in Shanghai she made her presence known to the local community. She started an unconventional relationship with a Chinese scholar based on the Chinese way of doing things. When war hit Shanghai's door, Mickey moved out in order to write a biography of the most influential women in China at the time, the Soong sisters. Later on she settled in Hong Kong, where she met the life of her life and father of her two daughters, Charles Boxer.
In her writing accomplishments one may find more than fifty books, either fictional or not, and hundreds of articles, short stories and poems. Her unique way of writing can be found in all those books but not in this one. Yet again, it is one very well written book, making a considerable effort on describing the adventures of Emily Hahn in the US and the world.
The reviewed copy was a kind offer of NetGalley.
Review can also be found in Chill and read
June 12, 2025
What an incredible woman. Mikey Hahn is an inspiration. Parts of the book were a bit drawn out but I’m so glad I trudged through the middle. What a fascinating human.
Emily Hahn’s actual books are better reads.
Emily Hahn’s actual books are better reads.
March 31, 2013
Emily Hahn was a fascinating woman whose life is worthy of a television multi-episode series, though probably nobody would believe the drama - her life was simply amazing. Ken Cuthbertson, however, tends to be a tedious biographer. Here, for example, is the start of her life:
Do we really need all that?
It’s a dilemma for a biographer: do you tell every detail of a person’s life (for the scholar or the compulsive fan), or do you select what’s interesting (for the general reader)? Speaking as a general reader, here’s my advice to other noncompulsive readers: skim lightly or skip entirely over parts one and two about her early life, then dive into part three about the Belgian Congo and continue through part four about China and part five about Hong Kong. Skim lightly over the remainder about her life in Manhattan and England. Just my opinion, of course. A biography is only as interesting as the life it describes. Emily Hahn’s life in Africa and Asia was simply stunning. The rest, less so.
Mickey Hahn's life began at 4858 Fountain Avenue, a quiet downtown residential street in the north-central St. Louis neighborhood known as Grande Prairie. A suburb sprouted there in the years just after the Civil War on the old common fields farmed by the first French settlers in the region. By 1876, when the Grand Prairie was annexed by the city, it was a bustling community of Irish and German immigrants. Bounded on the north by St. Louis Street, on the west by Kingshighway Boulevard, on the south by Delmar Street, and on the east by Grande Boulevard — all busy commercial thoroughfares — the neighborhood was no different from countless others that grew up in cities across the American Midwest in the late nineteenth century.
Do we really need all that?
It’s a dilemma for a biographer: do you tell every detail of a person’s life (for the scholar or the compulsive fan), or do you select what’s interesting (for the general reader)? Speaking as a general reader, here’s my advice to other noncompulsive readers: skim lightly or skip entirely over parts one and two about her early life, then dive into part three about the Belgian Congo and continue through part four about China and part five about Hong Kong. Skim lightly over the remainder about her life in Manhattan and England. Just my opinion, of course. A biography is only as interesting as the life it describes. Emily Hahn’s life in Africa and Asia was simply stunning. The rest, less so.
June 7, 2013
A fabulous look at the long, illustrious life of writer Emily Hahn. Born and raised in St. Louis, Emily lived for a while in Chicago before attending the University of Wisconsin in Madison. She chose to study mining engineering just because no other women did. For a while she worked as an engineer, but the 9 to 5 lifestyle didn't suit her. So she traveled to the Belgian Congo and spent a couple years there. In 1935, she and her sister traveled to Shanghai. Emily planned to continue on to the Belgian Congo, but Shanghai drew her in like no other place had. She ended up spending 8 years in Shanghai and Hong Kong. In Shanghai she wrote for The New Yorker magazine, had an affair with a married Chinese poet, and smoked opium. When she left Hong Kong in 1943, she was the single mother of a two-year-old daughter (from the head of British intelligence in Hong Kong) and all but homeless. She and Charles Boxer (the father of her daughter, as well as one who would be born years later) reunited and married as soon as his divorce came through. Emily lived on to write more than 50 books and hundreds of articles. She also held a full-time job at the New Yorker almost until her death in 1997 at the age of 92. She and Charles Boxer lived apart for much of their 50+ year marriage, yet remained devoted to each other all that time. This book is as much a love story between Emily and Charles as it is a biography of her amazing life.
May 28, 2024
Emily Hahn was such a fascinating woman! Although this book was a biography, not a carefully crafted fictional drama full of plot twists, suspense and drama meant to capture the readers attention at every moment, it felt as engaging if not more- than something purposefully crafted to trigger the feeling of not putting down a book. I really could not put it down. I was very busy when reading it, and since I had to read it for a book club, I wanted to skim through it, but I found I physically could not, as every sentence mattered. Every sentence described another fascinating moment in her global and eventful life story. It really brought to life Colonial Shanghai, incredibly international, cosmopolitan , an escape for every superstar, a lifeline for fleeing Jews and Russian immigrants, the opium addiction that permeated society, and the rich merchants that came with it- the extravagance and parties, the casinos and the mafia running the city, the salons where the creme de la creme met up and conversed, the Sino-Japanese war and how it made the city kneel, ending its glamorous era. Apart from Shanghai we are then taken to Hong Kong, where society and glamour moved. Before all this we travel to the Belgian Congo, and all around the world with Emily. We begin in America where she was born, and end there. Emily is the definition of a main character!
October 29, 2016
As I finished this book, what came to my mind was Dos Equis's Beer ad campaign,"The Most Interesting Man in the World". If they had to pick a female for that role it would have had to have been Emily Hahn as the world's most interesting woman.
Hahn was born in St. Louis, Missouri into a large Jewish family in 1905. The family eventually moved to Chicago, Illinois. She ended up as the only female mining engineering student at college. She and a girlfriend traveled in a Model T-Ford across the US. She also traveled alone to Africa and lived there for a few years before moving home and writing a book about her experiences. She then traveled to Hong Kong and was stuck there during the Japanese invasion during WWII and where she met her future husband and had a child. She was a writer most of her life and wrote novels and short stories. She also wrote for The New Yorker till a few months before her death at the age of 92. Cuthbertson weaves a wonderful tale of her adventures and her accomplishments. I had a hard time putting this down. Highly recommended!
Hahn was born in St. Louis, Missouri into a large Jewish family in 1905. The family eventually moved to Chicago, Illinois. She ended up as the only female mining engineering student at college. She and a girlfriend traveled in a Model T-Ford across the US. She also traveled alone to Africa and lived there for a few years before moving home and writing a book about her experiences. She then traveled to Hong Kong and was stuck there during the Japanese invasion during WWII and where she met her future husband and had a child. She was a writer most of her life and wrote novels and short stories. She also wrote for The New Yorker till a few months before her death at the age of 92. Cuthbertson weaves a wonderful tale of her adventures and her accomplishments. I had a hard time putting this down. Highly recommended!
April 23, 2013
Emily Hahn was an independent thinker with an unlimited, curious mind. This is a detailed, all-inclusive biography of a woman who ignored the conventional norms to seek-out a lifetime of exploration and adventure.
From traveling solo in Africa, to her years spent living in China, Emily Hahn is a role model for non-conformist women everywhere! Even the multitude of subjects she chose to write about were as varied as her brilliant & witty mind. It fascinates me, that just like Julia Morgan, she started out as the first woman in a male curriculum to earn a degree in engineering. Both had a strong connection to the Bohemian lifestyle of art, literature, and world view, and both lived their lives as a feminist without ever calling themselves one.
I look forward to reading her own words about life in No Hurry to Get Home.
From traveling solo in Africa, to her years spent living in China, Emily Hahn is a role model for non-conformist women everywhere! Even the multitude of subjects she chose to write about were as varied as her brilliant & witty mind. It fascinates me, that just like Julia Morgan, she started out as the first woman in a male curriculum to earn a degree in engineering. Both had a strong connection to the Bohemian lifestyle of art, literature, and world view, and both lived their lives as a feminist without ever calling themselves one.
I look forward to reading her own words about life in No Hurry to Get Home.
August 15, 2016
My fascination with the details of Emily (Mickey) Hahn's amazing life overrides any negative observations of the author's writing. The biography fills in many of the gaps in the book I previously read (No Hurry to Get Home). Clearly a fan, Culbertson does not refrain from making honest observations and offering criticisms of Mickey's behavior while touching on her recurring bouts of depression. A woman at the leading edge of feminism she nevertheless stood apart from groups and organizations pushing political agendas and maintained her independence of thought and action throughout her life. Mickey's memoirs supply significant portions of the biography supplemented by correspondence and interviews which are likely fascinating in themselves. I regret that I was unaware of Emily Hahn while she was alive and have only recently come to enjoy and value her writing.
March 19, 2016
Emily Hahn was such an amazing woman, and I really enjoyed this thorough biography of her. She seems like she would have been the best dinner party guest imaginable.
She was famous, and a bit notorious, especially during the 30s and 40s – although her lifespan covered most of the 20th century. She was an amazingly prolific writer, mostly for the New Yorker. She traveled widely, independently, and often impulsively, and she spent years living in Africa and China. She smoked cigars, kicked an opium habit, had a child out of wedlock, got involved in a polygamous marriage with a Chinese man, and was very candid about all her experiences in her writing.
She was famous, and a bit notorious, especially during the 30s and 40s – although her lifespan covered most of the 20th century. She was an amazingly prolific writer, mostly for the New Yorker. She traveled widely, independently, and often impulsively, and she spent years living in Africa and China. She smoked cigars, kicked an opium habit, had a child out of wedlock, got involved in a polygamous marriage with a Chinese man, and was very candid about all her experiences in her writing.
August 30, 2007
Ok, so this isn't the greatest biography, but it was still intersting and worth reading. (though I hope someone does a better job someday)
After reading the collection of essays Micky Hahn wrote called NO HURRY TO GET HOME, I was desperate to know how much she wrote about really happened, what she left out, and what happened where the book left off - how the story ended. I got some of that, but not in the best form. However, if you read mickey hahn, i dont see how you can resist wanting to know the rest of the story in whatever form you can get.
After reading the collection of essays Micky Hahn wrote called NO HURRY TO GET HOME, I was desperate to know how much she wrote about really happened, what she left out, and what happened where the book left off - how the story ended. I got some of that, but not in the best form. However, if you read mickey hahn, i dont see how you can resist wanting to know the rest of the story in whatever form you can get.
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