Readers' rating:
Published Sep 2010
256 pages
Genre: Biography/Memoir
Publication Information
In this poignant memoir of his parents' marriage, Alan Bennett recalls the lost world of his childhood and the lives, loves, and deaths of his unforgettable aunties, Kathleen and Myra. First published in the acclaimed collection Untold Stories, this tender, intimate family portrait beautifully captures the Bennetts' hopes, disappointments, and yearning for a life like other people's. With the sudden descent of his mother into depression, and later dementia, Bennett uncovers a long-held family secret in this extraordinarily moving and at times irresistibly funny work of autobiography.
"Alan Bennett's memoir of his parents' marriage and his mother's battles with depression is clear-eyed, touching, occasionally waspish, not always charitable, and ever honest." - The Independent (UK)
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Author and actor Alan Bennett was born in Armley in Leeds, Yorkshire in 1934. He attended Leeds Modern School and learned Russian at the Join Services School for Linguists during his National Service, during which he attended Cambridge University. He applied for a scholarship at Oxford University from which
he graduated with a first-class degree in History
After some time teaching and studying at Oxford, in 1960 Bennett, along with Dudley Moore, Jonathan Miller, and Peter Cook, achieved instant fame by appearing at the Edinburgh Festival in the satirical revue Beyond the Fringe.
His first stage play, Forty Years On, was produced in 1968. Many television, stage and radio plays followed, along with screenplays, short stories, novellas, a large body of non-fictional prose and ...
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