Darling Monster

July 14, 2014
“She was an inveterate letter-writer,” Norwich (Absolute Monarchs: The History of Papacy) declares in the introduction to his intriguing but uneven collection of letters from his mother, Lady Diana Cooper. She was born to a duke, and became a socialite, a great beauty, a movie actress, ambassador’s wife, and doting mother. Cooper led an extraordinary life by any standard, and her letters give readers entrée to a rarified world. This sampling of correspondence covers crucial years during which Cooper’s husband served as minister of information during WWII, as well as Cooper’s life in Paris as an ambassador’s wife, and her eventual retirement to the French countryside. Her letters are open and honest, even when writing to her son when he was still a child, and peppered with references to her famed acquaintances, including Winston Churchill, Laurence Olivier and Janet Leigh, and Nancy Mitford. The book is most engaging in the first half, as Cooper describes London during the Blitz and her adventures running a small farm. With plenty of room devoted to mundane details like the weather or illness, the volume is admirably annotated, though readers may struggle to keep track of all the names cited, and yearn for more context. Nevertheless, Cooper is always quick with a turn of phrase, and the collection reminds us of a time, not so long ago, when letters were a natural part of life. 45 b&w photos in 16-page insert.

June 15, 2014
A mother's letters to her son illuminate British history.The beautiful socialite Diana Cooper (1892-1986), wife of statesman Duff Cooper, was separated from her only son, John Julius Norwich (b. 1929), for many years from 1939 to 1952. As war approached, the couple sent him to America for his safety. When he returned, he enrolled at Eton; at 18, he joined the Royal Navy. Missing him deeply, Lady Diana wrote hundreds of letters from which Norwich (Absolute Monarchs: A History of the Papacy, 2011, etc.) has selected those he considers "the best" in revealing his witty mother and her elite circle. A "Directory of Names" identifies informal, even chummy references to such notables as Duckling (Winston Churchill), Bill (William S. Paley, president of CBS, with whose family Norwich lived in New York during the war), Bloggs (Wyndham Baldwin, the son of the prime minister, with whom, Norwich writes, "my mother had a gentle love affair") and Mr. Wu (Evelyn Waugh). Norwich introduces each of the sections with a sample letter to his parents and a lively biographical precis, setting his mother's correspondence in context. Her own letters are charming, anecdotal and sharply observant, meant both to share her experiences and draw her son close: "I enclose my broadcast," she wrote when he was 11, "not that I'm in any way proud of it but... so that we may not lose touch with one another. It's so easy with the waste of seas between us." Lady Diana, having no pretense of self-importance, was not easily impressed. Queen Elizabeth seemed to her a "plump little siren," and Churchill, amusing but self-indulgent. She makes palpable the assault of the Blitz, England's desperate need for American support and the dire conditions of postwar Europe, as well as her husband's frustrating tenure as minister of information.Warm, shrewd and glowing with love for her son, these letters offer an indelible portrait of an extraordinary woman and her vanished world.

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September 1, 2014
Lady Diana Cooper (18921986) was gorgeous, smart, witty, and observant. She was also bound to accompany her husband, politician Duff Cooper, on his work travels, leaving son John behind in schools and other locations while she boated and flew, partied, and met luminaries of all stripes. This book comprises her chatty, elegant, irreverent letters to the young boy as he became a young man (with the occasional chapter-opening return letter by John as well). Lady Cooper's letters detail a tumultuous world and her place in it. Though she loved well and forever her darling monster son, she also captured for posterity a personal, detailed view of a hugely changing, frightening, yet always interesting era (e.g., in October 1949, the horrible restless mess of our new life in France ). Many readers will thrill to details of lunch with the king and queen of England, encounters and adventures with dukes and duchesses, lunch with Truman Capote ( a sturdy little pink girl with lovely little white hands ), and more. A chatty, finely detailed remembrance.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)