Carole Angier
Mourning For His Mother
Most people’s childhoods shade imperceptibly into their adult lives, writes Andrew Motion. Not his. That ended abruptly at the age of seventeen, on the day his mother had a riding accident from which she never recovered, and of which she slowly died. In the Blood is Motion’s elegy for his lost childhood and his lost mother. It is also the portrait of a whole English world that thought it was finished (but, judging from my Cotswold village, isn’t). And last but far from least, it’s the story of the growth of a writer.
Motion’s home was not a natural one for a writer. His father sounds like Nancy Mitford’s Uncle Matthew, who, if he catches a child reading, bellows ‘If you have nothing to do, go and muck out the stables.’ Richard Motion’s passions are hunting and the army. He cannot talk to
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
‘He has become a kind of global guru, public intellectual and consultant to the great. He is the ultimate geopolitical gerontocrat.’
From July 2022: Piers Brendon on Henry Kissinger.
Piers Brendon - Margaret Thatcher As I Knew Her
Piers Brendon: Margaret Thatcher As I Knew Her - Leadership: Six Studies in World Strategy by Henry Kissinger
literaryreview.co.uk
‘Even setting to one side the historically neuralgic relationship with ... Ireland, Britain’s insular periphery has from at least the time of the Romans presented difficulties for authorities wishing to centralise.’
Peter Marshall on Britain's islands.
Peter Marshall - Notes from the Atlantic Archipelago
Peter Marshall: Notes from the Atlantic Archipelago - The Britannias: An Island Quest by Alice Albinia
literaryreview.co.uk
Offer ends soon! Take advantage of our best ever Black Friday offer and get a year's subscription for £29.99.
https://www.mymagazinesub.co.uk/literary-review/promo/blackfriday/