Ian Sansom
A Life in Letters
The Shadow in the Garden: A Biographer’s Tale
By James Atlas
Corsair 388pp £30 order from our bookshop
For the biographer, writes James Atlas in this curious and intriguing memoir of a life spent accounting for other people’s lives, ‘everything matters’. The author of Bellow: A Biography and Delmore Schwartz: The Life of an American Poet, Atlas has expended countless hours getting his hands dirty in white cotton gloves, sifting through archives, boxes of letters and dull discarded notes and drafts, as well as tracking down and interviewing friends, family members and vague acquaintances of the literary great and good. ‘For every anecdote,’ he grumbles, ‘I had to listen to the story of someone’s life.’ The Shadow in the Garden is the story of a career spent listening to the stories of other people’s lives. All of that time and effort might matter to the biographer’s tale, but does the biographer’s tale matter to the reader?
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'Only in Britain, perhaps, could spy chiefs – conventionally viewed as masters of subterfuge – be so highly regarded as ethical guides.'
https://literaryreview.co.uk/the-spy-who-taught-me
In this month's Bookends, @AdamCSDouglas looks at the curious life of Henry Labouchere: a friend of Bram Stoker, 'loose cannon', and architect of the law that outlawed homosexual activity in Britain.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/a-gross-indecency
'We have all twenty-nine of her Barsetshire novels, and whenever a certain longing reaches critical mass we read all twenty-nine again, straight through.'
Patricia T O'Conner on her love for Angela Thirkell. (£)
https://literaryreview.co.uk/good-gad