Gentleman’s Agreement

Laura Z. Hobson was born Laura Kean Zametkin in New York to Russian immigrant parents with socialist affiliations. She attended Cornell University before marrying publisher Thayer Hobson in 1930. Later divorced, Zametkin kept Hobson’s name, working in advertising and as a New York Post reporter before turning to writing full time in 1940. Her novel Gentleman’s Agreement, which exposed the hidden antisemitism of 1940s America, made her a household name. Hobson’s other lesser-known works are considered to be of equally fine literary value, among them First Papers (1964) and The Tenth Month (1970), both of which are in part autobiographical, as, Hobson acknowledged, much of her work was.