Lindy Burleigh
Dark Young Things
Safe Houses
By David Pryce-Jones
Sinclair-Stevenson 186pp £12.99
Safe Houses is a novel but it is written so convincingly as a memoir, an unusually unsettling and poignant one, that it reads like thinly disguised autobiography. David Pryce-Jones, an eminent historian, novelist and commentator, keeps the reader guessing how closely the narrator's unconventional childhood, spent before and during the Second World War, resembles his own. The intermingling of imaginary and real characters, as well as the acutely observed period detail, brings a particular authenticity to the author's vivid evocation of an era.
The steely and furious contempt with which the subject of the story, Adrian Maingard, is introduced sets the tone of the novel, and when it emerges that the incriminatory narrative voice belongs to Charles Maingard, Adrian's only child, it seems, intriguingly, that this book is going to be an elegantly
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
Twitter Feed
London's East End was long synonymous with poverty and sweatshops, while its West End was associated with glamour and high society. But when it came to the fashion industry, were the differences really so profound?
Sharman Kadish - Winkle-pickers & Bum Freezers
Sharman Kadish: Winkle-pickers & Bum Freezers - Fashion City: How Jewish Londoners Shaped Global Style; Fashion City: ...
literaryreview.co.uk
In 1982, Donald Rumsfeld presented Saddam Hussein with a pair of golden spurs. Two decades later he was dropping bunker-busting bombs on his palaces.
Where did the US-Iraqi relationship go wrong?
Rory Mccarthy - The Case of the Vanishing Missiles
Rory Mccarthy: The Case of the Vanishing Missiles - The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the United States and the ...
literaryreview.co.uk
Barbara Comyns was a dog breeder, a house painter, a piano restorer, a landlady... And a novelist.
@nclarke14 on the lengths 20th-century women writers had to go to make ends meet:
Norma Clarke - Her Family & Other Animals
Norma Clarke: Her Family & Other Animals - Barbara Comyns: A Savage Innocence by Avril Horner
literaryreview.co.uk