Interview with Los Angeles Times
December 06, 2025
Carla Kaplan discussed her new book, Troublemaker, with LA Times’s Mark Weingarten.
Jessica “Decca” Mitford was one of the 20th century’s indomitable mavericks. Born and bred into British aristocracy, Mitford rejected her bloodline and spirited herself to America in 1939 to pursue a life dedicated to social justice. By that time, her antisemitic parents had declared their public support for Hitler, as had two of her five sisters, while Mitford gravitated toward the Communist party. Working as a dedicated New Dealer and party advocate in Oakland, Mitford fought tirelessly for civil rights and against institutional corruption. Approaching middle age, she swerved into writing; her best-selling book “The American Way of Death” was a savage takedown of the funeral industry.
Carla Kaplan explores all of this and much more in a gripping new biography, “Troublemaker: The Fierce, Unruly Life of Jessica Mitford,” which places Mitford’s achievements within the context of America’s roiling political climate in the mid-20th century.
I chatted with Kaplan, who is the Davis Distinguished Professor of American Literature at Northeastern University, about Mitford and her legacy.