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Triumph and tragedy, happiness and despair, joy and sorrow - through love and death and life lived to the full with a man who loved both alcohol and other women - for food-writer Elisabeth Luard, marriage to writer and sometime king of satire Nicholas Luard was never going to be easy. 'If a man can be judged by the company he keeps, so can a wife. It includes: Private Eye; Beyond the Fringe; Peter Cook; Lenny Bruce; Ken Tynan; Christine Keeler; Jack Profumo; The Rolling Stones; The Clermont Club; Johnny Lucan; and Jimmy Goldsmith...Nicholas, the man to whom I was married for forty years, was always ahead of the game. I started real life as a wife - but that's not how it ends.'In 1962 and just turned twenty-one, Elizabeth married Nicholas Luard, novelist, travel-writer and co-founder of Private Eye. Within six years, she had had four children and had moved to a remote valley in southern Spain - an adventure featured in her first autobiography, "Family Life". "My Life"...continues the story, telling of a forty-year marriage and the people and places which brought both sunshine and shadow.From her childhood in South America to the private gaming tables of Monte Carlo to a rebellious year as a debutante to bringing up a family in the wilds of Andalusia to a prizewinning career as a cookery-writer to the death of a beloved daughter from Aids to the grim days of her husband's liver-transplant through to the final reckoning - when a man who attracted success as easily as disaster refused to accept the consequences of what couldn't be changed.Yet this is a story of laughter and hope as well sadness - the healing power of children, the comfort of the kitchen table, the simple joy of making life work. "Family Life - Birth, Death and the Whole Damn Thing" was only the start of the story - this is the rest.
From the Inside Flap
They met in the back offices of Private Eye. He was the proprietor, the man the press called the Emperor of Satire, who every girl in London wanted to date. She was the reluctant debutante, an art student, and the office typist. Their affair was secret, and passionate, and days at the office were followed by nights in her Pimlico flat. When things got tricky, she swapped London for Mexico. He followed and proposed. She was just twenty-one when they married.
Luard's fascinating, witty and often brave memoir charts forty years of marriage to a man who was as cavalier and unreliable as he was charismatic and charming. Good-looking and athletic, with a keen intelligence and a deep understanding of and love for women, Nicholas Luard was also an absentee father, a philanderer, a wheeler-dealer whose numerous harebrained business schemes usually lost rather than made money, and ultimately a man whose love of the bottle was all-consuming. But while life with Nicholas was never going to be easy, it was also never going to be dull.
In My Life as a Wife, award-winning writer Elisabeth Luard tells the story of her life with this hugely glamorous and extraordinary maverick of a man. She traces their years spent together in London, Spain, France, the Hebrides and Wales, with four children, one of whom died tragically from AIDS. It is a journey littered with numerous eccentric friends and innumerable escapades, often staying just ahead of the bank, through to the grim days of her husband's terrifying descent into alcoholism and insanity, his liver transplant and ultimately his death.
Yet this is a story of laughter and hope as well as sadness - the healing power of children, the comfort of the kitchen table, the delight of good food and the simple joy of making life work - written by a woman of spirit.
Luard's fascinating, witty and often brave memoir charts forty years of marriage to a man who was as cavalier and unreliable as he was charismatic and charming. Good-looking and athletic, with a keen intelligence and a deep understanding of and love for women, Nicholas Luard was also an absentee father, a philanderer, a wheeler-dealer whose numerous harebrained business schemes usually lost rather than made money, and ultimately a man whose love of the bottle was all-consuming. But while life with Nicholas was never going to be easy, it was also never going to be dull.
In My Life as a Wife, award-winning writer Elisabeth Luard tells the story of her life with this hugely glamorous and extraordinary maverick of a man. She traces their years spent together in London, Spain, France, the Hebrides and Wales, with four children, one of whom died tragically from AIDS. It is a journey littered with numerous eccentric friends and innumerable escapades, often staying just ahead of the bank, through to the grim days of her husband's terrifying descent into alcoholism and insanity, his liver transplant and ultimately his death.
Yet this is a story of laughter and hope as well as sadness - the healing power of children, the comfort of the kitchen table, the delight of good food and the simple joy of making life work - written by a woman of spirit.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
18 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I really looked forward to the publication of this, but have waited some time after reading it to enter a review, in an attempt to give a balanced picture.
The writing is a bit breathy and disjointed, as though it was dictated - not what I had expected, as I normally enjoy her columns. No one can deny that she has led a very eventful life, firstly as the step-child of a diplomat, then as the wife of Nicholas Luard. Lots of juicy name-dropping too. In writing about other countries, and often the food, she is excellent, but for the first half of the book she is so naive I WANTED TO SHAKE HER!!!!!
Of an earlier generation, she took her marriage vows seriously, but appears to have worn blinkers as well, not even guessing what her husband was up to. Maybe that attitude was common then - certainly not now. I would have awarded 3 stars for the book .....
BUT.... I was moved to tears by the passages in which she describes his long, slow death after years of alcohol abuse. Every alcoholic should read these passages while they still have time for recovery, or pray that they have such supportive spouses. This part is worthy of 5 stars.
She loved her husband, enjoyed him for who he was, and stood by him without counting either the women or the empties (the latter is her admission). Overall, a fascinating picture of a marriage.
The writing is a bit breathy and disjointed, as though it was dictated - not what I had expected, as I normally enjoy her columns. No one can deny that she has led a very eventful life, firstly as the step-child of a diplomat, then as the wife of Nicholas Luard. Lots of juicy name-dropping too. In writing about other countries, and often the food, she is excellent, but for the first half of the book she is so naive I WANTED TO SHAKE HER!!!!!
Of an earlier generation, she took her marriage vows seriously, but appears to have worn blinkers as well, not even guessing what her husband was up to. Maybe that attitude was common then - certainly not now. I would have awarded 3 stars for the book .....
BUT.... I was moved to tears by the passages in which she describes his long, slow death after years of alcohol abuse. Every alcoholic should read these passages while they still have time for recovery, or pray that they have such supportive spouses. This part is worthy of 5 stars.
She loved her husband, enjoyed him for who he was, and stood by him without counting either the women or the empties (the latter is her admission). Overall, a fascinating picture of a marriage.
Format:Hardcover
I have read both books about Elisabeth Luard's family life and cookery travels. This book makes up the very readable trio. It's also, to those born in the 40's and early 50's, an interesting social history.
It tells of her marriage to a man with a drink problem, whom she described as more a demolisher than a builder! He seemed to do as he pleased, she loved him throughout. She may have been born upper class but she did not have the upper hand. I applauded her tolerance and her ability to write with honesty, warts and all.
It tells of her marriage to a man with a drink problem, whom she described as more a demolisher than a builder! He seemed to do as he pleased, she loved him throughout. She may have been born upper class but she did not have the upper hand. I applauded her tolerance and her ability to write with honesty, warts and all.
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