THE LAST DIARIES
by Alan Clark
The third volume of Clark’s diaries covers the years between 1992, when he first left the House of Commons, and his death in 1999. Despite his skills as a diarist, and a few insights into the machinations of the Tory Party, it adds little to our knowledge. A huge vein of self-pity runs through it: his anguish at ending an affair because he could not leave “darling Jane”; his longing to get back into parliament — which he did, as MP for Kensington and Chelsea, in 1997; and the minutiae of his health — although this chronic hypochondriac proved brave and resilient when he became genuinely ill with the brain cancer that killed him (Phoenix £8.99). PB
YOUNG BETJEMAN
by Bevis Hillier
Twelve years in the making, this affectionate and detailed study, the first of two volumes, looks closely at John Betjeman long before he became the “National Teddy Bear”. It takes us from his precarious origins as the foreign-sounding Betjemann, son of a furniture manufacturer of whom he was ashamed, through Marlborough school and prewar Oxford (where he developed a life-long hatred for his tutor, C S Lewis), to his elopement with the equally eccentric Penelope Chetwynde. The supporting cast includes Evelyn Waugh and Anthony Blunt. Hillier has since spent as long again on volume two, slowly building a classic biography (J Murray £9.99). PhB
Advertisement
STORIES I STOLE
by Wendell Steavenson
Steavenson went to Georgia to look for stories, and, as a romantic in a romantic land, she found plenty. Interspersed with snatches from her own traumatic love affair are tales of sporadic electricity and days freezing in bed, duelling friends, antique village life, wars that the West has ignored, drink, drink and more drink. Her writing is terrific, and the sense of futility and resignation with which she describes Georgia’s squabbling peoples, plus her own attachment to the region, combine to produce an appealing and convincing book about the Caucasian mentality (Atlantic Books £7.99). RH
THINGS MY MOTHER NEVER TOLD ME
by Blake Morrison
This sequel to Morrison’s acclaimed book about his father centres on love letters from his parents’ wartime courtship, which was nearly derailed by religious intransigence, and his wonder at how uncertainly they read even though he knows the ending. His mother was a deeply private woman, about whom Morrison was embarrassed to know so little. He needs to uncover and disclose; she did not. The result is a powerfully cathartic memoir, given great immediacy by its staccato rhythm and spare phrasemaking, that is as much about Morrison as his mother, and which honours her, though she would probably have hated it (Vintage £6.99). RH