Shut Up He Explained: the Memoir of a Blacklisted Kid.(Brief Article)(Book Review)

SHUT UP HE EXPLAINED: The Memoir of a Blacklisted Kid KATE LARDNER. Ballantine, $23.95 (288p) ISBN 0-345-45514-2

When Lardner was two, her father, David, a New Yorker writer, was killed on assignment in wartime Germany. Her mother, Frances, then married David's brother, the screenwriter Ring Lardner Jr. When he refused to define his relationship to the Communist Party before Congress, Ring was sentenced to a year in prison, leaving Kate, her two younger brothers and Frances to their own devices. Released in April 1951, Ring tried to dodge the shadow of the blacklist, but the family ultimately fled Hollywood for Mexico, then Connecticut, then New York City. By the late …