Lynn Freed (1945–2025)

A very observant and thought provoking novel of girl's (I hate using it but...) "coming of age." The story takes place post WWII in South Africa and spans two decades.The writing, plot, and all the characters are very well developed. The main character is the spunky, smart mouth, and, for now, nine-year-old girl, Cressida, whom I like very much. Freed's writing in regards to her, is exceptional. Her absurd reasoning, which oddly make sense and her mischievousness is refreshing after having show more been engaged with some serious charterers in my reading recently. show less

Found this at a library book sale. Freed is not a writer I'd known. An expatriate from South Africa with several novels to her credit, this collection of essays about her peripatetic life is quite entertaining, but only up to a point. Because the pieces were written over a period of twenty-plus years, some of them cover the same material and become redundant. Especially interesting is her account of how her first successful novel, HOME GROUND, was something of a scandal when she brought it show more to tour in Durban and other South Africa venues and a major newspaper gave it the headline, "Sex with the Servants." And, a veteran of teaching in various college Creative Writing programs, she quite bluntly admits that it's something of a racket, that good writing is not something that can be taught. There is much here too of her many travels and a permanent sense of displacement which she has come to terms with after over forty years of living in the U.S., noting that a certain distance is necessary to write good fiction. And her portraits of her parents - amateur theater types - are especially good, and at times very moving.

READING, WRITING, AND LEAVING HOME: LIFE ON THE PAGE is a pretty good read, certainly worth the two bucks I paid for it. If you want a colorful, and very personal look inside the writing life, you might like this book. Highly recommended.

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER show less

Lynn Freed is fast becoming one of my favorite authors. While not as luminous as the first of her books that I had read, "The Servant's Quarters", this novella, "House of Women" was still marvelous: atmospheric, chilling, provocative, and utterly MARVELOUS.

This retelling of the Greek myth of Persephone and Hades takes place in post-WWII South Africa, with a former opera diva as the over-protective mother Nalia, (Demeter of the myth) and her precariously inquisitive and disastrously naive show more daughter Thea ,(as the Persephone of the myth).
In order to escape her mother's stifling and mysterious affection she is kidnapped by/elopes with her father's swarthy, enigmatic, and much-older cousin, whose name we don't even learn till after she has born their twin children.
Alternately separated from her mother and her children, Thea labors to extract herself from the fathomless secrets that surround every part of her life...

Oh my word...it was so lovely in a dark and twisted kind of way, and the only thing that keeps me from rating it five stars is that the narrative becomes somewhat muddy and disjointed in the chapters concerning Nalia--I suppose Freed attempted to do too much with combining Nalia's past in a Nazi concentration camp and elements of the original Greek myth.
Not to mention that it's too short, which had been my only qualm with "The Servant's Quarters".
But still, "House of Women" is filled with the atmosphere, memorable characterization, and spell-binding prose that will make me read as much of Lynn Freed's work as I can find. Highly recommended! show less

The Last Laugh is the story of three sixty-nine-year-old women who decide to take a break from their families for a year. Now, if you're thinking The Enchanted April, you're halfway right. Ruth, Bess and Dania decide to go to a Greek Island. But, things don't turn out as they planned. Family is not so easily left behind, and soon Bess' son Wilfrid and his partner Tarquin and their adopted baby Mohammed descend on the women. They are followed by a psychotic patient of Dania's and ex-lovers. show more The events of the year are both hilarious and frightening.

Freed shows that age doesn't always bring wisdom, or fewer emotions, contrary to what Ruth, the narrator, might think: "Anyway, we said, passion had accomplished its chief work, at least from a biological point of view -- children and grandchildren. What we wanted now was peace." They might not achieve peace, but it is a good story. show less