Frances Wilson
Bin There, Done That
A Life Discarded: 148 Diaries Found in a Skip
By Alexander Masters
Fourth Estate 234pp £12.99 order from our bookshop
‘I took my life and threw it on the skip’ begins one of James Fenton’s best poems. After which, in the manner of skip economy, ‘some bugger’ nicked it and threw his own on the skip in exchange. Finding this other discarded life, Fenton’s narrator brings it in, dries it by the stove and tries it on. It fits ‘like a glove’. ‘You’d not believe’, Fenton concludes, ‘the things you find on skips.’
Alexander Masters does not mention Fenton’s allegory, but A Life Discarded tells a similar story. In 2001, a friend called Richard Grove found 148 diaries in a skip, dried them by the stove and handed them on to Masters, who started to piece together (and, in the manner of biographers, inhabit) the life they contain. The fit was perfect: Masters, author of the award-winning Stuart: A Life Backwards, is drawn to the people we throw away.
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