Brendan King

This is a detailed biography of Beryl Bainbridge from her childhood, early acting career and complicated relationship with her boyfriend, then husband, Austin Davies. The author, Brendan King, became a kind of personal assistant for a few years at the end of her life.

Brendan King tries to tease out the relationship between her writings and her actual life. Many of her contemporary novels draw on her experiences and include portrayals which may be based on real people but they are not memoir, and they are developed into fiction. Also, Bainbridge's diaries, letters and the stories she told about herself often included substantial changes in details. For example, she claimed some of her experiences had happened at a significantly younger age than was really the case.

This is quite a long book, nearly 500 pages of the main text with 60 pages of carefully referenced endnotes. There are 16 pages of black and white photographs of Beryl Bainbridge, various men in her life and friends.

I found it an interesting read and it makes me want to pick up her novels at some point, but I also found the subject of this book quite frustrating - some of the men in her life sound quite unpleasant and some of her choices in her life appear to have been quite self-destructive. It is quite a "gossipy" warts and all memoir though in a carefully researched literary style.… (mais)