Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #61518 in Books
• Published on: 2009-05-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

Review
`Beautifully crafted and brave, this book is surprisingly full of forgiveness and humour'.
--The Economist

Review
`a rich account...brilliant vignettes'

Sunday Times Culture
`As a literary memoir of a lost childhood , it is remarkable as much for its candour as its craftsmanship'

Customer Reviews

A Literary Misery Memoir
It's not really how I headed it, a misery memoir, for it is in places bitterly hilarious. Thomas Blackburn was a distinguished poet, well worth reading, and his daughter Julia, the author of this present memoir, an accomplished and rather classy novelist. After reading her father's slightly outrageous autobiography 'A Clip of Steel' - named after an anti-excitement-in-the-night device that his father commanded him to wear - I devoured this book. Witty, riveting, with lots of charged and frank sexuality and unrivalled in its scope and poetry.

The Three of Us
Absolutely fabulous read! Was sorry when I finished it. Well-written and attention-holding throughout. Strongly recommended.

Dreary?

I heard this book being discussed on Radio 4 and the favourable reviews prompted me to rush onto Amazon to order - I wish I had saved my money.

'Bohemian' or 'Arty' doesn't necessarily make for interesting,certainly in this case. Dull people with an over inflated regard for their talents. I really cannot see why anyone should find their sad, disfunctional lives remotely interesting especially as the author seems to have forgotten chunks of it along the way - I don't blame her.

It has certainly put me off reading anything else written by her.