In all fairness, I should also note that I met KL once before many years ago too, and exchanged a few emails with her a couple years or so before she died, and I found that she was quite friendly and gracious in all those encounters too. Like you though, as I mentioned in an earlier post, I had real problems with her books (specifically about the Lewis business -- I'm not referring to her books on other subjects), which made it all the more awkward to merge all those bits together.
So I suppose since I had similar (though not identical of course) reactions to both of them in person (limited as that contact was), I might be expect to have the same reservations about Hooper's work. But as you say, it is better to think a person better than they might be than to think them worse than they might be. In KL's situation, there were things unconnected with any personality impressions that I had problems with, whereas I don't (yet) have similar literary reservations about Hooper.
--Stanley
