Living With a Writer

by D. Salwak (Editor)

Overview

Living With A Writer brings together a group of prestigious contributors to discuss the writing lives of contemporary poets, novelists, critics, dramatists, editors and collaborators. What are the practical considerations of being a writer? What are the household dynamics? How do the circumstances contribute to the work? What does it tell us about the creative process? The book features pieces from well-known authors and partners in famous literary relationships, including John Bayley, Amanda Craig, Nadine Gordimer, Ann Thwaite, Paul Theroux and John Updike.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781403904768
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan UK
Publication date:	08/11/2004
Edition description:	2004
Pages:	237
Product dimensions:	5.51(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.03(d)

About the Author

CATHERINE AIRD Author of detective fiction BRIAN W. ALDISS Novelist/ science-fiction author FRANCES H. BACHELDER Poet and novelist JOHN BAYLEY Husband of the late Iris Murdoch; Warton Professor of English Emeritus, Oxford University and novelist JAMES J. BERG Associate Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning, Minnesota State Colleges and Universities System, USA ANNE BERNAYS Teaches at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism, Harvard University; novelist MALCOLM BRADBURY Formerly Professor of American Studies, University of East Anglia, UK; novelist JUDY CARVER Daughter of William Golding; novelist MARY ANN CAWS Distinguished Professor of English, French and Comparative Literature, Graduate School of the City University of New York, USA; writer and biographer GEORGE HOWE COLT Novelist and former journalist AMANDA CRAIG Novelist and Journalist for The Sunday Times, The Times, The New Statesman, and The Independent MARGARET DRABBLE Novelist BETTY FUSSELL Author of biographies and memoirs NADINE GORDIMER Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature; Novelist and Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, Vice President of PEN International and a Goodwill Ambassaor of UNDP JOHN HALPERIN Centennial Professor of English, Vanderbilt University and Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature; biographer MICHAEL HOLROYD Novelist JUSTIN KAPLAN Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1966; novelist and biographer JEFFREY MEYERS Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature; biographer EDMUND MORRIS Winner of Pulitzer Prize and American Book Award in 1980, Member of the Modern Library Editorial Board and writer in residence at the University of Chicago; biographer HERSHEL PARKER Associate General Editor of the Northwestern-Newberry Edition of the Writings of Herman Melville; biographer ROB ROLLISON Retired from the University of South Australia; currently researching and writing on modern poets and their politics KATHLEEN SYMONS Wife of Julian Symons, writer ANN THWAITE Author of children's books and biographies; Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature PAUL THEROUX Novelist DAVID UPDIKE Associate Professor of English, Roxbury Community College, Boston, USA; author of children's books and novelist JOHN UPDIKE Winner of the Pulitzer Prize; novelist LAUREL YOUNG Currently completing PhD in Literature, Vanderbilt University

Table of Contents

Preface; D.Salwak Acknowledgements Notes on the Contributors PART ONE: THE PLEASURES The Spouse in the House; M.Bradbury Living with Writers; A.Thwaite Lady Naipaul; P.Theroux Lady of Letters: Living with Sylvia Jukes Morris; E.Morris Yesterday's News; M.Holroyd The Open Door; M.Drabble Harbour and Voyage: The Marriage of Ann and Bill Golding, 1939-1993; J.Carver C. P. Snow and Pamela Hansford Johnson at Home; J.Halperin Hong Kong Time; G.H.Colt Writers as Progenitors and Offspring; J.Updike My Grandmother's Only Son; D.Updike I am Two Fools - Or Home Alone; C.Aird Margaret; B.Aldiss Living with Julian; K.Symons When Writing Entered My Mind; F.H.Bachelder Pen and Ink: The Life and Work of Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy; J.Berg PART TWO: THE PROBLEMS Forget She (or He) is a Writer, and All May Be Well; J.Bayley Getting Along with Myself; N.Gordimer The Pantomime Horse; A.Craig Can This Collaboration Be Saved?; A.Bernays & J.Kaplan Maugham's Marriage; J.Meyers Being Two of Us; M.A. Caws The Mystery of the Vanishing Wife; L.Young Room for One; B.Fussell Peter Levi: A Corresponding Friendship; R.Rollison Damned by Dollars: Moby-Dick and the Price of Genius; H.Parker A Perilous Art; D.Salwak Related Works Index

Editorial Reviews

'For the first time, spouses, children and parents of writers have collaborated in compiling their experiences of living with a scribe, remembrances which reveal their frustrations, irritations and sheer madness of sharing a roof with an ink-stained genius.' - Amelia Hill, The Observer

'Pleasing and interesting...' - Literary Review

'The range does the book credit...we hear as much about the satisfaction of mutual support, the thrill of being the first to read a new thing, and the fascination of watching experience turn into words, as we do about the misery of Emma Hardy...or what Colt calls the unions that 'could only end in alcoholism and madness (the Fitzgeralds), black eyes and hurled martini glasses (McCarthy and Wilson), or separation and suicide (Hughes and Plath)''. - Andrew Motion, The Guardian

'...[includes] a series of touching accounts of domestic happiness...[although] the popular image of writers as selfish brutes is affirmed in the shorter section of the book, 'The Problems', which features failed marriages and disastrous relationships' - Jessica Mann, The Literary Review

'Everyone agrees that writers' lives are internal and invisible in certain crucial ways, and most people also suppose that the parts which do show are predictably unpleasant... [However, in this book] we hear as much about the satisfaction of mutual support, the thrill of being the first to read a new thing, and the fascination of watching experienceturn into words, as we do about the misery...' - Andrew Motion, Guardian Online

'[F]or every account that supports the perception that writers are self-centered, moody, brooding enigmas of petulant genius, there are uplifting tales of support, nurturing and inspiration' - Nicholas A. Basbanes, LA Times

'The editor of this intriguing little medley asked a number of writers to write something about living with a writer...the brief has been liberally interpreted, which makes it all the more interesting...The writer's inner self is what it's all about, of course, and this is precisely why Living with a Writer is (an) enjoyably prurient read. Get stuck in.' - The Evening Standard

'Conveys a sense of the writer's world.' - Times Higher Education Supplement

'Accomplished writers who read those words will almost certainly concede that they recognize themselves. Non-writers who live with writers will experience twinges of recognition, too. Bless them all, including my wife and children, who put up with so much.' - Steve Weinberg , The Writer

From the Publisher