A Life of My Own

by Claire Tomalin

Overview

Esteemed biographer and legendary literary editor Claire Tomalin's stunning memoir of a life in literature

“[An] intelligent and humane book…There is genuine appeal in watching this indomitable woman continue to chase the next draft of herself." —Dwight Garner, The New York Times

In A Life of My Own, the renowned biographer of Charles Dickens, Samuel Pepys, and Thomas Hardy, and former literary editor for the Sunday Times reflects on a remarkable life surrounded by writers and books. From discovering books as a form of escapism during her parents' difficult divorce, to pursuing poetry at Cambridge, where she meets and marries Nicholas Tomalin, the ambitious and striving journalist, Tomalin always steered herself towards a passionate involvement with art. She relives the glittering London literary scene of the 1960s, during which Tomalin endured her husband's constant philandering and numerous affairs, and revisits the satisfaction of being commissioned to write her first book, a biography of the early feminist Mary Wollstonecraft. In biography, she found her vocation. However, when Nick is killed in 1973 while reporting in Israel, the mother of four put aside her writing to assume the position of literary editor of the New Statesman. Her career soared when she later moved to the Sunday Times, and she tells with dazzling candor of this time in her life spent working alongside the literary lights of 1970s London. But, the pain of her young daughter's suicide and the challenges of caring for her disabled son as a single mother test Claire's strength and persistence. It is not until later in life that she is able to return to what gave her such purpose decades ago, writing biographies, and finds enduring love with her now-husband, playwright Michael Frayn.

Marked by honesty, humility, and grace, rendered in the most elegant of prose, A Life of My Own is a portrait of a life, replete with joy and heartbreak. With quiet insight and unsparing clarity, Tomalin writes autobiography at its most luminous, delivering an astonishing and emotionally-taut masterpiece.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780399562938
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	08/20/2019
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	352
Sales rank:	354,766
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.60(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Claire Tomalin is the author of eight highly acclaimed biographies, including Thomas Hardy and Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self, which won the 2002 Whitbread Book of the Year Award. She has previously won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Biography, the Whitbread First Novel Award, the Hawthornden Prize, the NCR Book Award for Non-Fiction, and the Whitbread Biography Award. Educated at Cambridge University, she served as literary editor of the New Statesman and the Sunday Times (London). Claire Tomalin lives in London and is married to the playwright Michael Frayn.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations ix

Introductory Note xi

1 A London Romance 1

2 States of Grace 28

3 Life Lessons 47

4 My Last School: Dartington Hall 71

5 Higher Education 82

6 Becoming a Tomalin 119

7 The Sixties 133

8 A Birth and Two Books 175

9 1973 196

10 Working Mother 214

11 1980 243

12 Sunday Times 254

13 Other Lives 284

14 Surprises and Discoveries 317

Acknowledgments 333

Editorial Reviews

[An] intelligent and humane book…There is genuine appeal in watching this indomitable woman continue to chase the next draft of herself. After a while, the pages turn themselves. Tomalin has a biographer’s gift for carefully husbanding her resources, of consistently playing out just enough string. When she needs to, she pulls that string tight.” —Dwight Garner, The New York Times

“Tomalin brings to her memoir a pro’s practiced ability at threading the personal, the professional and the contextual with details that sing… [She offers] a wonderful evocation of London’s vibrant literary culture of the 1960s and ’70s…An elegant profile in courage and fortitude.” —Washington Post
 
“[A LIFE OF MY OWN] navigates artfully between tantalizing revelations and unobtrusive elisions. I read the memoir twice in an effort to deconstruct how Ms. Tomalin does it, leading us into her nooks and crannies and then firmly closing the curtain at some point, but literary ingenuity of this caliber is always hard to pin down…The pleasures of reading this book are many…I hesitate to call this book enchanting because Ms. Tomalin’s life is strewn with tragedy…but it is certainly an exceptional account, daunting and inspiring at the same time, written with no end of poignancy, humor and perspective.” —Wall Street Journal

“In this memoir as in her acclaimed biographies, Tomalin lets the telling of a story reveal its own truth, unmarked by the moralizing of the soapbox. And what a story it is.” —Christian Science Monitor
 
“[Tomalin] is a master craftswoman, and it’s a thrill to see her prose and capacity for moving storytelling turned on her own life… If it leads you to read some of her biographies (Jane Austen is a favorite), you’ll be better off.”—Vogue.com

“An arresting look at a professional life inextricably entwined with the lifelong personal concerns of a woman who is also a wife, daughter, and mother…A quiet book, beautifully told with both restraint and generosity of spirit.” —BookPage
                                     
“An extraordinarily candid autobiography…This is an elegant, significant book.”—Kirkus Reviews

“[A] captivating and thorough memoir. Tomalin sets out to describe her “experience of the world”…a gracious, inspiring look at her family, colleagues, and friends.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

From the Publisher

…intelligent and humane…There is genuine appeal in watching this indomitable woman continue to chase the next draft of herself. After a while, the pages turn themselves. Tomalin has a biographer's gift for carefully husbanding her resources, of consistently playing out just enough string. When she needs to, she pulls that string tight.

The New York Times - Dwight Garner

★ 05/28/2018
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. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

07/01/2018
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

Library Journal

2018-05-10
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.

Kirkus Reviews