Red Sapphire Now Available in Paperback

Yesterday marked the paperback release of Julia Bricklin’s Red Sapphire: The Woman Who Beat the Blacklist.

I read this book when it first came out in hardcover, and it floored me. Hannah Weinstein’s story is the kind that sneaks up on you; you think you’re cracking open a mid-century Hollywood tale, but before long you’re waist-deep in Cold War paranoia, political backroom deals, and one woman’s sheer refusal to back down.

Weinstein wasn’t supposed to be the hero of this story. She was a single mother and a political organizer, a woman trying to break into television at a time when doing so wasn’t just difficult but closer to impossible. Against all odds and an array of nigh-insurmountable obstacles, she built Sapphire Films in England, hired blacklisted American writers when no one else would, and turned out shows like The Adventures of Robin Hood that slipped socio-political commentary past censors with a wink and a swordfight.

Julia Bricklin tells it with the pacing of a thriller and the depth of a historian who has done the hard digging. She draws from declassified files and interviews, weaving them into a narrative that makes Weinstein feel alive on the page, at once fierce, funny, strategic, and unwilling to play by rules written to keep her small.

If you missed it the first time around, don’t sleep on this paperback release. It is one of those rare biographies that manages to be about much more than the details of a single life, since it speaks to the whole messy intersection of art, politics, and conscience.

Red Sapphire proves that even in the darkest stretches of the McCarthy era there were people willing to bet their careers and sometimes even their safety on doing the right thing.

Get the book. Meet Hannah Weinstein. You’ll be glad you did.