[2] She wrote four books, in addition to articles for Esquire, Harper's, Vogue, Playboy, Saturday Review and Rolling Stone.
In 1956 Emerson began writing for newspapers, mostly freelancing for The New York Times, while living in Saigon, Republic of Vietnam.
A year later The New York Times employed her to work on the paper's women's page, although she hated writing only about fashion.
In 1960 Emerson quit to marry Charles A. Brofferio, the couple moved to Brussels, Belgium but divorced the following year.
[1] In December 1969, Emerson conducted a contentious and heated interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono at the headquarters of Apple Records in London.
Among her first reports for The New York Times, Emerson exposed false "body counts" and "unearned commendations" to field-grade officers and the use of hard drugs by American soldiers.
At a 1981 conference on the Vietnam War, Emerson declared U.S. spokesman and host of the Five O'Clock Follies Saigon briefings Barry Zorthian "a determined and brilliant liar.
Americans cannot perceive — even the most decent among us — the suffering caused by the United States air war in Indochina and how huge are the graveyards we have created there.
To a reporter recently returned from Vietnam, it often seems that much of our fury and fear is reserved for busing, abortion, mugging, and liberation of some kind.
Her Vietnam War experiences attached to Marine assault units prompted her investigation into human psychology - especially male - in Some American Men (Simon & Schuster, 1985).
It was described by William Boyd in The New York Times Book Review as "beguiling and memorable... a funny, moving and strangely profound novel."