Lives of the Wives by Carmela Ciuraru outlines the tempestuous relationships and careers of five literary couples: Radclyffe Hall and Una Troubridge, Elsa Morante and Alberto Moravia, Kenneth Tynan and Elaine Dundy, Kingsley Amis and Elizabeth Jane Howard, and Roald Dahl and Patricia Neal. I knew a bit about Kingsley Amis and Roald Dahl already, but very little about the others, and the brief portraits in ‘Lives of the Wives’ provide a solid overview of their careers. As a group biography though, I think there needed to be a more central hook that linked the couples more coherently together, or at least some analysis that’s a little more groundbreaking than the revelation that creativity and ego usually put strain on marriages.
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Tag Archives: Peter Ross
Books I Read in October 2024
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Books I Read in March 2024
A Tomb With a View by Peter Ross is a fascinating book about graveyards in Britain and Ireland and the stories of some well-known and forgotten residents as well as the work of those who care for them. The famous Victorian cemeteries in London such as Highgate and Kensal Rise face issues with limited space and expensive upkeep. Ross writes sensitively about a variety of subjects such as Muslim funerals in east London, the infant burial grounds known as cillini in Ireland, graveyards in Northern Ireland in the context of the Troubles and the work of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission who recover the remains of soldiers found in northern France and trace the living relatives. Ross is a true taphophile – a lover of cemeteries – and a compassionate guide rather than an overly nostalgic one. ‘A Tomb With a View’ is an excellent book about reckoning with death in a life-affirming rather than morbid way.
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