This is a book about surprises - at any rate, it has surprised me.' In 1999, Michael Holroyd published Basil Street Blues, in which one of our finest biographers turned his attentions to something more personal - his own family. But rather than the story being over, in fact it was just beginning. For as the letters from readers started to arrive, the author discovered an extraordinary narrative that his own memoir had only touched upon. Mosaic, then, is Michael Holroyd's piecing together of these remarkable stories: some of which are pleasant surprises, other more startling. There is the death of the fearsome headmaster at his school, who was murdered by one of the boys after he left: the discovery that his Swedish grandmother was the mistress of the French anarchist writer Jacques Prevert; and a letter from Margaret Forster about the beauty of his mother, that leads to his remarkable account of a decade-long affair. A love story, a detective story, a book of secrets, Mosaic is both a beautifully written journey into a forest of family trees, and a fascinating insight into the workings of genealogy.
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. Special Offer until June 30, 2013: Receive an additional £5 promotional Gift Certificate, when you trade-in at least £10 worth of books. Learn more. |
Book Description
Product details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, and more.
Product Description
Review
" A lovely blend of mirth and melancholy …
this memoir ranks with the finest records of the period" -- Waterstones Books Quarterly – Boyd Tonkin
"An absolute tour de force of brilliant writing." -- Lynn Barber, Telegraph
"Holroyd is a marvellously sour wit and an observer who never misses a good detail, even in extremis." -- Lucy Hughes-Hallett, Sunday Times
"Mosaic is restless, interrogative, hungry for knowledge and resolution." -- Andrew Motion, Guardian
this memoir ranks with the finest records of the period" -- Waterstones Books Quarterly – Boyd Tonkin
"An absolute tour de force of brilliant writing." -- Lynn Barber, Telegraph
"Holroyd is a marvellously sour wit and an observer who never misses a good detail, even in extremis." -- Lucy Hughes-Hallett, Sunday Times
"Mosaic is restless, interrogative, hungry for knowledge and resolution." -- Andrew Motion, Guardian
About the Author
Michael Holroyd was born in 1935, and educated at Eton College and the Maidenhead Public Library. His family autobiography, BASIL STREET BLUES (1999) was given the greatest number of non-fiction end-of-year critics' choices. He was awarded the CBE in 1989.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
By Ralph Blumenau
TOP 500 REVIEWER
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Michael Holroyd had done much research in `Basil Street Blues' into the history of his family (see my Amazon review). But after he had published it in 1999, he discovered, in one way or another, a lot more about their lives and about those who were never, strictly speaking, formally members of the family - enough to make this book, published five years after the first. He says in his preface that he has composed it "so that anyone can follow the narrative without having read, or remembered, the earlier book." That does mean that anyone who had recently read the first book (or indeed anyone who reads the edition in which the two books are printed in one volume) will find some repetition - not only of events and characterizations, but also of the author's own attitudes. So, for instance, near the beginning of the present volume he rages again against the bureaucracy that follows a death of his aunt Yolande (who had still been alive - just - when he wrote "Basil Street Blues"); the previous volume had had a similar tirade after the earlier death of his father.
However, there is certainly a lot of new material. He tells us what readers of `Basil Street Blues' have written to him, some of which gives him information he had not had before. One of his readers, the novelist Margaret Forster, had said that in the previous volume he had revealed relatively little about himself. This leads first to his ruminations about how, as a biographer, he probably hid his own personality behind those of his subjects. He first seems to evade describing himself by setting a class of students he had at one time in the United States an assignment to describe how he appeared to them.... Read more ›
However, there is certainly a lot of new material. He tells us what readers of `Basil Street Blues' have written to him, some of which gives him information he had not had before. One of his readers, the novelist Margaret Forster, had said that in the previous volume he had revealed relatively little about himself. This leads first to his ruminations about how, as a biographer, he probably hid his own personality behind those of his subjects. He first seems to evade describing himself by setting a class of students he had at one time in the United States an assignment to describe how he appeared to them.... Read more ›
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
