Mosaic: A Family Memoir Revisited - Hardcover

Holroyd, Michael

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0393052737 ISBN 13: 9780393052732

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 2004

Synopsis

A love story, a detective story, a book of secrets, a beautifully written journey into a forest of family trees.

After writing the definitive biographies of Lytton Strachey and George Bernard Shaw, Michael Holroyd turned his hand to a more personal subject: his own family. The result was Basil Street Blues, published in 1999. But rather than the story being over, it was in fact only beginning. As letters from readers started to pour in, the author discovered extraordinary narratives that his own memoir had only touched on.

Mosaic is Holroyd's piecing together of these remarkable stories: the murder of the fearsome headmaster of his school; the discovery that his Swedish grandmother was the mistress of the French anarchist Jacques Prévert; and a letter about the beauty of his mother that provides a clue to a decade-long affair.

Funny, touching, and wry, Mosaic shows how other people's lives, however eccentric or extreme, echo our own dreams and experiences.

About this title

About the Author:

Michael Holroyd has written celebrated biographies of Hugh Kingsmill, Augustus John, and Bernard Shaw, as well as the acclaimed Basil Street Blues and Mosaic. He lives in London with his wife.

From AudioFile:

British biographer Michael Holroyd continues the autobiography he began with BASIL STREET BLUES with this biography of his family, which pieces together the lives of his relatives, close and distant. He begins by relating the financial and legal details surrounding his aunt's death and goes on to draw a picture of her life. Stephen Thorne reads this memoir in a droll voice. He emphasizes each discovery of Holroyd's family tree with even tones, projecting a lack of emotion that distances the listener from the story. Holroyd's story details the exacting research that family historians and genealogists embark upon as they dig around in all the papers and clues left behind by loved ones. M.B.K. ©AudioFile, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0393052737
• ISBN 13: 9780393052732
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288