Product Description

Alternative politics, libertarian socialism, experimental living, feminist communes, street theatre, radical magazine, love affairs - gay and straight ...sex 'n' drugs 'n' rock 'n' roll. Paper Houses is the memoir of a young woman who comes down from Oxford to London in 1970, determined to break free from a conventional middle-class, close-knit family. In the streets and houses of a dynamic, shifting London she finds alternative homes, alternative families and friendships that challenge, inform and shape her. As she wanders around the city she loves passionately, outer journeys inspire and merge with inner journeys. Her all-consuming longing to write causes conflict in her relationships and financial issues that lead her to something of an urban nomadic existence. Creating her own space - and learning to share it - in the houses of Holloway, Camberwell, Regent's Park, Notting Hill Gate and Peckham creates intellectual and ethical challenges, and leads to escape adventures in Bangkok, Bali and Italy.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #394237 in Books
• Published on: 2007-06-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 352 pages

Review
** 'She is the eternal female vagabond, somewhere between the gypsy and the lunatic, with the freedom, pain and visionary nature of both' AMANDA CRAIG, DAILY TELEGRAPH ** 'Told from the perspective of an intelligent woman with acute powers of observation. Her writing is vivid and sardonic by turns, the period brought to life with accounts of clothes and meals, whose importance Roberts (unlike many other writers) has always understood.' JOAN SMITH, INDEPENDENT ** 'Roberts's sensuous, uninhibited, often beautiful writing is filled with lush and lavish descriptions of food and places and people and love affairs.' JESSICA MANN, LITERARY REVIEW ** 'The 12 novels she has produced... are remarkable imaginings of houses and landscapes and the desire for aquisition. This beguiling memoir travels the rootlessness that inspired them.' PENNY PERRICK, SUNDAY TIMES ** 'Radical politics, feminist theatre troupes, demos, communes, all while smoking and drinking her head off. Paper Houses is an honest, moving account of a talented woman fighting to prioritise her life-goals and roles.' METRO

Literary Review
'Roberts's sensuous, uninhibited, often beautiful writing is filled with lush and lavish descriptions of food and places and people and love affairs'

Sunday Times
'The 12 novels she has produced . . . are remarkable imaginings of houses and landscapes and the desire for aquisition. This beguiling memoir travels the rootlessness that inspired them'