I wanted to read this memoir ever since I heard Elizabeth Jane Howard being interviewed -- a woman of such elegance & intelligence still exhibiting a giant inferiority complex. She hinted that it sprung from her mother's indifference & dismissiveness. I still haven't had much enlightenment on this, but read the book with much interest. A wonderful novelist, yet this memoir isn't particularly well-written (reflecting her own self-deprecation I must guess). It is so uneven. Mildly interesting in childhood years & through WWII. Excessively irritating & dull in her hedonistic late 20s & 30s years. Very fascinating in the years of her marriage to Kingsley Amis & after. Although she never really says a single harsh thing about Amis (& hopes up until his death that they could once more be friends), just her telling of the FACTS of their life together reveals the husband from the deepest depths of hell. EJH is a puzzle. Such a monument to "innocence" & martyrdom, that even for those days is inconceivable. I started out disliking her -- largely for virtually abandoning her only child to her first husband's mother, born when Howard was barely out of her teens. Subsequently the sleeping with any man that wandered by (even though her circle consisted of upperclass literati) further indicated a pathetically low self-esteem.
By the end of the book I am in awe of her patience, sensitivity & dedication (towards everyone but herself), not to mention her stamina & achievements. The mystery remains. How can anyone with such self-hatred, survive & accomplish what she did? ( )

I knew very little about Elizabeth Jane Howard before starting this book, but I enjoyed it very much. It's primarily the story of her life: her childhood, her relationships and marriages (including marriages to Peter Scott and Kinglsey Amis), and her struggle to gain sufficient independence, confidence and income to write. There's comparatively little about the process of writing her books, but it's hard not to like an author who is so candid about her failings, nor a book in which Daniel Day Lewis pops round to help clear out the garage. ( )