Bad Blood: A Memoir

I really liked this memoir of the literary critic Lorna Sage’s unconventional childhood in Wales with her parents and grandparents because it is written with such passion and humour. The story tells how, through her academic ambitions and determination, Sage manages to transcend the ‘bad blood’ that has cursed the family, although her escape from her miserable circumstances seems at one point to be threatened, when she becomes pregnant at 15. She analyses her dysfunctional family perfectly, and the characters, especially her grandfather, are very gothic and fascinating. [2011]

Some of the print reviews call this memoir tenderly written, an exuberant celebration, generous. I'm going to say no to all of that. For the most part the author is a sullen observer of miserable people. One reviewer said it described a time in English villages that England continues to run from - that comes closest to my perception. However there are some pertinent observations on women and their lives and the fact that intelligence, education, self determination and books can pull them out of drudgery and self destruction.

Loved this biography which seemed to combine something like Laurie Lee's 'Cider with Rosie' style with an 'Akenfield' one. Village living, amazing characters and dysfunctional families as I believe all families are. What is normal? Beautifully written, funny and sad. I will pass this book on to be enjoyed and to demonstrate the restrictions and uptightness of the 50s and early 60s, the feel and restrictions of the times. Does anybody else live in a house where the chimney is blocked for two floors by a bird's nest?

Terrific memoir about growing up in the fifties and sixties. The story of the vicarage childhood and school days of a bookish girl who didn't fit in. Moving and ultimately uplifting.

I really enjoyed the first 3/4 of the book, although I had to finally skim through some of the stuff about her Grandfather. The end felt very rushed and not as honest as the rest of the book. For me it felt like a big disconnect and left me disappointed. Plus she visits Liverpool and is the same age as the Beatles and no mention of this fact?!

I generally love memoirs, but I had trouble getting too involved in this one. The author, Lorna Sage, grows up in a "bad" family in Britain and becomes a teenage mother. I didn't find Sage's story particularly interesting, particularly sad, or particularly funny.

With her father off fighting in World War II, and her mother engaged in a self-involved abandonment of her parental duties, the late British literary critic Sage (1943-2001) was raised at her grandparents' gloomy vicarage. In this wry memoir she tells why she embraced books instead of her bitter family. A New York Times "Editor's Choice" for 2002. However, I found this a difficult read, the prose rather flat and uninteresting, and the characters "at a distance" as if we were being given a dose of family dynamics involving lack of emotional connection. These characters fail to come to life as believable, rounded, vivid persons. Nobokov's autobiography is hugely better.