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Bringing the House Down: A Family Memoir
 
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Bringing the House Down: A Family Memoir (Paperback)

by David Profumo (Author)
3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
RRP: £8.99
Price: £6.99 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
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Customers buy this book with The Truth at Last: My Story by Christine Keeler

Bringing the House Down: A Family Memoir + The Truth at Last: My Story
Price For Both: £12.58

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  • This item: Bringing the House Down: A Family Memoir by David Profumo

    In stock.
    Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk.
    This item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions

  • The Truth at Last: My Story by Christine Keeler

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Product details

  • Paperback: 304 pages
  • Publisher: John Murray (12 Jul 2007)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0719566096
  • ISBN-13: 978-0719566097
  • Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.8 x 2.6 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 71,864 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Product Description

Review

'[Profumo] has written an elegantly sorrowful account of his family’s great shame'

(Peter McKay, Evening Standard )

‘Painful to write, moving to read, this beautifully crafted account will not be the final word on the Profumo affair, but shows that, behind its continuing fascination as the arch political scandal lies a long trail of human misery’

 

(Independent on Sunday )

‘Elegiac and evocative volume’ Sunday Telegraph / Seven

(Sunday Telegraph / Seven )

‘It certainly has all the excitement, neurosis and edginess of a book that needed to be written… gritty, heartfelt and honest…it is a real book, by a real writer, about real people’

(Mail on Sunday (Book of the Week review by Craig Brown, 5 out of 5 stars) )

‘An intimate, perky, donnishly literate memoir... It is a rather infectious read, elegantly written, often funny, sometimes caustic’

(Times )

‘Gentle, touching, wry’

(Guardian )

‘Profumo’s book… restores a context to a story that has so long had a life of its own. And it offers a measured and affecting insight into what it was like to be a seven-year-old in the eye of the original tabloid storm’ 

(Observer )

‘A fascinating, gripping tale’

(Daily Express )

‘David Profumo is an outstandingly witty, stylish and original writer. In this bracingly honest and frequently sparkling family memoir, he has really excelled himself. Indeed, I would not hesitate to describe Bringing the House Down as a masterpiece’

(Hugh Massingberd, Country Life )

‘Brilliant, intimate radio’

(New Statesman, on Radio 4 Book of the Week )

‘His family memoir is clear-eyed, beautifully written, often painful to read, and sometimes very funny indeed’

(Stephen Robinson, Daily Telegraph )

‘Intensely observant and acutely perceptive ... hugely literate and sophisticated’

(Peregrine Worsthorne, Spectator )

‘Searingly honest… David Profumo has written a revelatory book, and all others that purport to deal with the scandal are at a stroke rendered redundant in their narrowness. This one excels, above all, as a study of human nature in some of its most intriguing and arresting forms’

 

(Simon Heffer, Literary Review )

‘[An] honest and compelling book … Bringing the House Down is notably well written, vivid and easy to read.’

(Ian Gilmour, London Review of Books )

 ‘An intimate, unsentimental account of the 20th century’s greatest sex scandal’

 

(Sebastian Shakespeare, Tatler )

Product Description

David Profumo was just seven when his father, who had been Secretary of State for War, resigned from the Macmillan government. Despite the furore and humiliation that followed, his parents famously stayed together – and now, forty years on, their son has written this long-awaited account of their family life before, during and after the sensational events of 1963.

Drawing on diaries, letters and other memorabilia never before made public, Bringing The House Down describes their background and careers before they met. After an apprenticeship in Hollywood during her teenage years, the beautiful Valerie Hobson went on to star in numerous British films before her stage triumph in ‘The King and I’; John Profumo had been the youngest MP during the Second World War, became a Brigadier at the age of thirty, and was rapidly rising through the ranks of the Conservative party. This is the story of their complicated courtship and volatile marriage, the destruction of their glamorous lifestyle and their endurance of the aftermath.

By turns intimate, caustic and poignant, their only child’s personal memoir of their three lives together not only puts flesh on the bones of the old family skeleton but also offers a remarkable portrait of a love affair that somehow survived in a world turned upside down.



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Customer Reviews

2 Reviews
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 (1)
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Average Customer Review
3.0 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Bought on a whim, glad I did!, 4 Aug 2007
By A. Rogers "tabbyfella" (Nottingham / GB) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
When it's raining in Aberystwyth and you're stuck in your caravan, desperate for something meaty to read, and all the other in vogue autobiographies have proven too frothy, then reach for this. It has bite, it has depth, it is incredibly well-written. This is the story of the Profumo family , and it's more than just THAT scandal. It's the story of a marriage, a family, politics, the world of showbiz, upper class mores and so much more. I bought it on a whim, and was glad I did. It has been my read of the summer.
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4 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars Bringing the house down - I don't think so, 15 Jan 2007
I struggled with this book from chapter one but tried to persevere until at least two thirds of the book - I have never read such a badly written and confusing book - from the onset the the author's mother was identified by so many names and initials that I lost track of who she was, by this time I was totally bored. This book is totally self-indulgent and exceedingly badly written, just another case of the publishers putting out yet another book for the christmas market and the author using the political scandal and name from the early 1960's to try to sell this. In my opinion don't buy it or get it from the library, let alone read it. A very disappointing book.
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