SOURCE: “What a Set!,” in New Statesman, Vol. 103, No. 2668, May 7, 1982, pp. 21-22.

In the following review, Grosskurth finds in Mrs. Harris what he considers an unnecessarily disdainful attitude toward the principal characters in the murder case.

Just about everyone knows most of the details of the murder of the ‘inventor’ of the Scarsdale Diet by his discarded mistress. In a culture obsessed with bodies, the case provided a gamut of titillation. Additional interest was given to the trial by the knowledge that Diana Trilling, widow of Lionel Trilling, was writing a book about it [Mrs. Harris], thus giving it an intellectual imprimatur.

I found myself as interested in Mrs Trilling's reactions as I was in Jean Harris's story. A general tone of de haut en bas pervades her account, a self-conscious awareness that she is slumming. She is careful to establish social distinctions. Dr Tarnower was of Eastern...