A Life of My Own

Starred review from May 28, 2018
Biographer (Thomas Hardy, Samuel Pepys, etc.) and former Sunday Times literary editor Tomalin turns to her own life in this captivating and thorough memoir. Tomalin sets out to describe her “experience of the world,” beginning with what it was like to grow up in mid-20th-century England. Born in London in 1933, Tomalin had a sheltered childhood and was enthralled with books by Beatrix Potter. She was the daughter of composer Muriel Herbert and biographer Emile Delavenay, who once confided in Tomalin that he hated his wife at the time of Tomalin’s conception (they eventually divorced). This inauspicious beginning, however, thwarts neither her happiness nor her success, and Tomalin grows into a bright and charming young woman. In 1955 she married a well-known journalist, Nicholas Tomalin, who became the father of their five children (including a boy who died in infancy, a daughter who committed suicide, and a son born with spina bifida). In 1973 her husband was killed on assignment in Israel, and Tomalin buried “the ashes in the village graveyard, next to the grave of our baby son Daniel.” In London in the 1970s, Tomalin thrived amid a whirlwind of famous authors (among them, the young Martin Amis, with whom she has an affair). In her 50s, she concentrated on writing biographies, and she describes this period as the “happiest time” of her career. Tomalin’s memoir is a gracious, inspiring look at her family, colleagues, and friends.

June 1, 2018
The acclaimed literary editor and biographer offers an extraordinarily candid autobiography.Readers hoping for background on how Tomalin (Charles Dickens: A Life, 2011, etc.) chose the subjects of her acclaimed biographies--Mary Wollstonecraft, Samuel Pepys, Thomas Hardy, among other major figures--may be somewhat disappointed, but this is an elegant, significant book nonetheless. The author does not mention launching biography writing as her vocation until more than halfway through the book. Readers seeking a detailed account of Tomalin's influential life within British letters will certainly celebrate her honest perceptions of herself, her parents and in-laws, husbands, children, other authors and editors, publishers, tycoons, and other important historical figures. After she married journalist Nick Tomalin, the author's life felt adventurous almost every day. Nick was a talented writer, a handsome charmer, and a philanderer whose romantic exploits Claire usually tolerated. She undertook extramarital romances, as well, though far fewer than her husband. Still, she and Nick had four children before he died in 1973 during a battle in Israel, where he had been sent on assignment by a British publication. About the period, she writes, "suddenly I found myself living through the most banal of stories, as the neglected wife of a faithless husband....My role now was as the boring suburban wife with too many children who held him back." As a widow, Tomalin found love with a much younger Martin Amis, among other suitors. She provided for her family with full-time editing jobs (New Statesman, Sunday Times, etc.), part-time freelancing as a literary critic, and her biographies. Her life has also seen tragedy: Her son ("an inspiration to me") suffers from a lifelong severe physical birth defect as well as learning disabilities, and one of her three daughters committed suicide. At age 60, the author married again, this time to accomplished playwright Michael Frayn. Gossipy at times, mostly serious about literary life, and always smoothly written.

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July 1, 2018

In 1973, when noted biographer Tomalin (Charles Dickens, Samuel Pepys, Thomas Hardy, Mary Wollstonecraft, etc.) learned that her first husband, Nick, had been killed while reporting in Israel, she found herself on her own with four children, one of them severely handicapped. Herself a child of a painful divorce, Tomalin had ignored her reservations and married Nick, despite his being a charming philander, unsuited for the commitments of marriage. Although the author was able to support her family by editing and reviewing for the New Statesman and Sunday Times and later through writing biographies, her personal life continued to bring challenges, especially caring for Tom who had spina bifida and coping with her middle daughter's severe depression and suicide. Throughout, Tomalin remains objective and never lapses into sentimentality, finding escape through reading and writing. VERDICT Now in her eighties, Tomalin offers an elegant, inspiring, and informative look at the literary life. Recommended for memoir fans and lovers of excellent writing. [See Prepub Alert, 2/26/18.]--Nancy R. Ives, SUNY at Geneseo

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2018

Exemplary biographer Tomalin (e.g., the recent Costa Book Award-winning Charles Dickens) is here her own subject, tracing a life in letters from the books as shelter from her parents' nasty divorce, the commission to write her first biography, becoming literary editor of the New Statesman after the death of her journalist husband, and again letting biography light up her life in later years. Grand UK reviews.Reconsidering the devastating Spanish flu a century later; are we ready for the next pandemic?

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.