In My Father's House: Elegy for an Obsessive Love - Softcover

Seymour, Miranda

3.11

227 ratings by Goodreads

9781416502722: In My Father's House: Elegy for an Obsessive Love

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1416502726 ISBN 13: 9781416502722

Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK, 2008

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Dear Thrumpton, how I miss you tonight,' wrote George Seymour in 1944, when he was aged twenty-one. But the object of his affection was not a young woman, but a house -- ownership of which was then a distant dream. But he did eventually acquire Thrumpton, a beautiful country house in Nottinghamshire, and it was in this idyllic home that Miranda Seymour grew up. But her upbringing was far from idyllic, as life revolved around her father's capriciousness. The House took priority, and everything else was secondary, even his wife. Until, that is, the day late on in his life when George Seymour took to riding powerful motorbikes around the countryside clad in black leather in the company of a young male friend. Had he taken leave of his senses? Or finally found them? And how did this sea-change affect his wife and daughter? Both biography and family memoir, IN MY FATHER'S HOUSEis a riveting and ultimately shocking portrait of desire both overt and suppressed, and the devastating consequences of misplaced love.

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About the Author:

Miranda Seymour is the author of many acclaimed and bestselling works of fiction and nonfiction, including biographies of Mary Shelley, Robert Graves, Henry James, and, most recently, the pioneer French racing driver Hell� Nice. She lives in England.

Review:

Beautifully written. . . . It’s also the story of her father, and not the least of its accomplishments is that it instantly catapults him into the front rank of impossible and eccentric English parents. . . . Both comic . . . and immensely touching.” (New York Times Book Review)

“Miranda Seymour’s wonderful memoir is a kind of posthumous conversation with her father. The ending is particularly powerful. What a gripping, poignant, dramatic, emotionally searing book she has written.” (Joyce Carol Oates)

“A memoir that reads like a fairy tale gone wrong.” –Joyce Carol Oates, Times Literary Supplement, (named one of the best books of the year) (Times Literary Supplement (London))

“A rich and entertaining account of the upper classes in the early to mid-twentieth century. There are endless family tragedies, trysts and twists. . . . Needless to say, perfect for anyone who’s ever obsessed about a beautiful house in the country.” (Tatler)

“Disarming in its honesty, endlessly surprising and oddly touching.” (Jonathan Mirsky, The Spectator (A Book of the Year))

“A brilliantly crafted true story, In My Father’s House gains depth and complexity from its willingness to explore the ethical dilemma of revealing painful family secrets. There is more to learn about human nature in this short memoir than in many novels two or three times its length.” (Pat Barker, Booker Prize-winning author of The Regeneration Trilogy)

“Few books capture the pain and laughter of upper-class English life as vividly as this one. It is a gem of a memoir, and I wish there were others like it.” (Alexander Waugh, author of Fathers and Sons: The Autobiography of a Family)

“An extremely well-told tale of an unexceptional man. . . . For the reader, it is a treat to catch an author at the height of her descriptive powers, exposing the agony of parental disappointment with honesty, sensitivity, and touches of brilliance.” (The Guardian)

“This is a brilliant, original, and intensely readable book. . . . I cannot recommend it too highly.” (Julian Fellowes, creator of Downton Abbey)

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