Basil Street Blues [Paperback]

Michael Holroyd is celebrated as one of the foremost biographers of our age. His massive and bestselling accounts of the lives of Lytton Strachey, Augustus John and Bernard Shaw have been acclaimed around the world as the definitive versions for decades to come. Now he has taken time out to examine his own life, which he does with modesty, penetration and a good deal of anecdote and humour. The result is a delightful portrait of himself, his family and the years he grew up in. He was conceived in Basil Street Hotel, Knightsbridge, to a Swedish mother by an Anglo-Irish father. He went to Eton but not to university, though he has since been awarded no less than five honorary degrees. Holroyd has a talent for bringing minor characters vividly to life in the most extraordinary deadpan asides. For instance, his grandfather, whose favourite author was "an American homosexual nutritionist called Gayelord Hauser who, at an advanced age and on a diet of cider vinegar and black molasses, hazelnuts and soy bean oil, was said to have enjoyed an affair with Greta Garbo." It is a tremendous shame that neither author nor publisher thought it necessary to add an index. But that aside, this is an entertaining volume of memoirs. --Christopher Hart --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

'A subtle, courageous book' - S. Tel. '[Holroyd] has written an original, unforgettable book' - D. Tel. 'Tense, fraught, uneasy, but mining that unease to poignant effect...an extraordinary piece of work' TLS 'I have no hesitation in awarding Basil Street Blues the full 5 stars. In the genre of autobiography, it is right up there in my personal pantheon...[a] haunting & beautifully understated tragi- comedy' M. on Sunday

'[a] haunting and beautifully understated tragicomedy.'

Michael Holroyd - the most famous biographer in Britain - turns his attention upon himself and his own family in BASIL STREET BLUES (the title comes from the Basil Street Hotel where the author was conceived in the 1930s.) Born into a family rich in eccentricity, Holroyd was largely brought up by his grandparents in Maidenhead because his exotic Swedish mother and reserved English father couldn't stand living together. (His grandparents' marriage provided no better model - his grandfather having had a four year affair with a woman he met at a bus stop before coming back to his grandmother). Towards the end of Holroyd's parents lives he persuaded them to write their own stories and using the results, plus his own memories and researches he has written this moving and self-revealing book.

Michael Holroyd is the author of numerous biographies including Lytton Strachey, August John and George Bernard Shaw.