Evelyn Waugh

July 25, 2016
Noted British biographer Eade (Sylvia, Queen of the Headhunters) draws a well-crafted, slightly frothy portrait of the complex, difficult literary icon Evelyn Waugh (1903–1966). Undeterred by several previous accounts, Eade focuses on Waugh’s colorful personal life and exploits with the “smart set” of his time. The cameo appearance of dozens of glamorous figures throughout the book approaches literary name-dropping. Eade includes Harold Acton, Rebecca West, and many other English characters who range from the louche to the distinguished and are sometimes both at once. Enthusiastic tales of house parties and high-end adventures crowd out Waugh’s prolific work, some of which goes almost unmentioned. However, Eade does show how Waugh’s Oxford years inspired his most highly regarded novel, Brideshead Revisited, and how his trip to 1940s Hollywood led to his acid satire The Loved One. Despite the book’s crowded canvas, its narrative trajectory is straightforward. A bad first marriage preceded a long second union with seven children, fame, physical decline, and early death at 62. Waugh’s cruel streak, evident all his life, made him many enemies. With appreciation and empathy, Eade also points out Waugh’s many kindnesses, and his intense loyalty to the Catholic Church after converting. Eade’s treatment reveals a man of astonishing awareness of his gifts and failings, great sincerity, and wit.

A softer, kinder, gentler Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966).Since there are already numerous biographies of Waugh, is there need for another? Englishman Eade (Sylvia, Queen of the Headhunters, 2014, etc.) thinks so. For one thing, it's the 50th anniversary of Waugh's death; for another, Eade accessed some previously unavailable key primary resources. One is an unpublished memoir by Eade's first wife, Evelyn (friends called her "Shevelyn"). After knowing her for a few months, Waugh proposed with the line: "Let's get married and see how it goes." The other was a large cache of letters from a young woman, Teresa, with whom Waugh had an affair in the 1930s. Waugh was a prolific writer of stories, novels, and travel books. Though he is better known in England than in the United States, two of his novels--Brideshead Revisited, which he called his "magnum opus," and The Loved One, which he described as a "study of the Anglo-American cultural impasse with the mortuary as a jolly setting"--have earned him a readership in America. Early on, writes Eade, Waugh developed a "cruel streak." His father was bad-tempered, and Waugh hated his older brother--though he said his early years were "happy enough." When his novel Vile Bodies (1930) established him "as one of the country's most celebrated young novelists," his father complained about his son's "vulgar self-publicising"--even though he ran the press that published it. Eade eschews discussing Waugh's writings in any depth, preferring to focus on how they relate to the people in his life. The book is brimming with society-page stuff: tales of dalliances and social dinners; quotes commenting on who's smitten with whom; who is/isn't a homosexual; etc.--all of which grows tedious eventually. The author admits Waugh was probably something of a snob, but charges of his being a bully may be a stretch. Eade offers up a softer portrait of Waugh that might help bring him some new readers, which he deserves. COPYRIGHT(1) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from September 15, 2016
When Evelyn Waugh published his autobiography, A Little Learning, in 1964, one perceptive critic characterized it as thoughtful rather than intimate because its author keeps the lid on personal topics. In a biography both thoughtful and intimate, Eade takes the lid off. Drawing on previously unavailable letters, manuscripts, and diaries, Eade illuminates connections between Waugh's much-lauded fiction and the author's concealed emotional life. Readers learn, for instance, how Waugh channeled animosity toward his father into a wickedly satiric portrait in Vile Bodies, transformed his pain when betrayed by his first wife into the pathos of A Handful of Dust, and converted his own difficult conversion from atheism to Catholicism into the thematic focus for Brideshead Revisited. To be sure, no novel could fully capture the spontaneousoften acerbicwit that Waugh's friends loved and enemies feared. Nor do the novels open onto some of their author's more sordid adventureswith prostitutes in Morocco, other men's wives in Britain. However, when Eade investigates the real-life backstory for Waugh's celebrated WWII trilogy, Sword of Honour, he finds evidence of Waugh's battlefield bravery, not of his alleged complicity in covering up the cowardice of a commander. A convincing portrait of a flawed but gifted artist.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)

May 1, 2016

Eade's first book, Sylvia, Queen of the Headhunters, was runner-up for the Biographers' Club Prize, while his second, Prince Philip, became a Sunday Times best seller. Here he tells the life story of Evelyn Waugh, whom Graham Greene notably called "the greatest novelist of my generation." New information and new insight are promised on Waugh's complicated life, arcing through his homosexual affairs at Oxford to conversion to Roman Catholicism to a nervous breakdown.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 1, 2016

The best parts in former barrister Eade's (Sylvia, Queen of the Headhunters; Prince Philip) biography of English satirist and writer Evelyn Waugh (1903-66) are when he allows his subject to speak via correspondence. The least successful segments are third-, possibly fourth-person accounts of the author's early life. Waugh is shown to be complex: a cad and a creep, but also a man of strong Catholic beliefs and acts of bravery during World War II. But Eade's extensive research doesn't quite bring his subject to life. Much is made of Waugh's schoolboy affairs with other schoolboys, his Oxford escapades, and his disdain for his father and coldness toward his children. All but the most devoted British literary scholars will lose their way through the thicket of name- and title-dropping and mentions of friends and acquaintances whom Waugh lampooned in his novels. Additionally, Eade lauds nearly every Waugh endeavor as a masterpiece, making it difficult to separate the good from the very good. VERDICT Prurient and arid at the same time, this portrait of a difficult but talented literary figure will perhaps increase interest in the author on the 50th anniversary of his death. Suggested mainly for Waugh completists, but a dip into the author's oeuvre would be more fruitful and enjoyable. [See Prepub Alert, 4/3/16.]--Liz French, Library Journal

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.