"Slipstream: A Memoir"

I recently finished reading a fascinating book: "Slipstream: A Memoir" (Macmillan, 2002), by the wonderful novelist Elizabeth Jane Howard. I often enjoy reading memoirs by writers, as they offer insights into those magical people who create new worlds for us as readers to explore. This one is of particular interest to me for several reasons. First, I have read most of Howard's novels, including the addictive, intense quartet about what was happening during World War II back home in England, collectively titled "The Cazalet Chronicles." Second, she apparently knew everyone in the world of English literature, as well as many in the other arts, throughout the second half of the 20th century. A short list of her famous friends and acquaintances includes Sybille Bedford, Ivy Compton-Burnett, Antonia White, Stephen Spender, Elizabeth Taylor, Marc Chagall, Philip Larkin, Penelope Lively, Evelyn Waugh, and many more. She was married three times, including a turbulent marriage to the celebrated but difficult novelist Kingsley Amis, and had romances with many others, including the French novelist Romain Gary. Despite all her publications, her famous friends, her love affairs, and her beauty, she was quite insecure most of her life. Only in old age (she was in her early 80s when she wrote this book) did she find a kind of balance and peace within herself. However, she did have a great talent for friendship, and appreciation of and loyalty to her friends; she also derived great pleasure from nature and gardens, as well as from travel. This brings me to the third reason this book is of interest to me: As with Diana Athill's memoirs (see my 3/15/10 post), it is wonderful to hear from and about a person who has lived a long life and is still writing, still reading, still enjoying life despite some physical illnesses and restrictions. Howard, like Athill, is also very candid about her life, her loves, and her weaknesses; perhaps there comes a point when it is no longer necessary to pretend and conceal the truth? It is also probably easier to be candid when one has outlived many of the people one writes about - family, friends, husbands, lovers, employers, editors, and agents. In any case, I admire Howard's making her way as an often single woman or a woman in a difficult marriage, working, writing, persisting, often short of money and support, at a time when these things were even more difficult for women than they are now. Although it is a bit of a commitment (477 pages), I recommend this memoir to those who are interested in writers' lives, women's lives, and the world of twentieth century English literature.