William Palmer

Why Are You Telling Me This?

  • Maggie Gee, 
  • Rupert Thomson, 
  • Craig Sherborne, 
  • Jackie Kay

In the distant past, autobiographies concerned themselves largely with the public life of their protagonists. In the last century a looser form came into fashion, detailing the travails of the writer’s childhood and his or her emotional entanglements. In our generation, memoirs have progressed to baring family secrets and intimate acts. We’ve gone from evening dress to knickers off in a hundred years.

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