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Monday, 15 February 2021

Take two: ‘Life in a Cold Climate: Nancy Mitford,’ Laura Thompson

The original book review is found on my Patreon site. I’m posting this sequel to that article for friends who won’t subscribe or for those who cannot. 

In the main review I talk about what kind of book this biography is, and how it fits in with many other, similar works. The Mitfords never seem to get old. And there’s something nice about reading the lives of the dead when you’re – like me – past your prime. It is like Nancy Mitford – the subject of this book – and her decision, following the release of the two novels for which she is most famous, to gravitate to biography as a form of expression. As she wrote to one of her correspondents, one of the most difficult things about writing novels is inventing plots. With biography she could still express herself but the story was already laid out by time and circumstance. As for this book, the autumnal triumphalism of the ending will warm many cockles.

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