The Children of Lovers: A memoir of William Golding by his daughter - Tapa dura

The Children of Lovers is an interesting, intelligent memoir, written in an engaging and unsentimental style. Judy is a compassionate and forgiving daughter, and she has managed to arrive at some understanding of who her father was, and of how he shaped who she is. -- Irish Times

Judy Golding is a sophisticated and self-conscious memoirist, flagging delicate evasions and yet having the courage to explore the cruelties, inconsistencies and conflicts within her father as they impacted on family life and her own psyche... Golding was a large figure and he emerges from this memoir with clarity and complexity. It is of great credit to Judy Golding that the reader concludes by being just as interested in his daughter. -- Helen Taylor, Independent

In 1993, Golding died after an evening with the family, drunk and alone, at about 4am a bad time for a sufferer of night terrors... On the same night, in a nearby room, Judy had a prophetic dream that at last she could think and write whatever she liked. This book, so clear thinking and devoid of self-pity has emerged from that discovery. While William Golding may give The Children of Lovers its heft and weight, the author gives it wings, and her book takes flight in a light-spirited way that those brilliant, brilliant, demon-haunted novels never quite did. --Sarah Bakewell, Sunday Times

This is a lovely book. Judy Golding writes of her father indeed of both of her parents with candour, humour and great insight and perception. More than that, her is an exemplary memoir of childhood, not remorsely chronological, but drawing on the jumbled past to give an account of what it was like to be a child in an unusual family... Judy writes of her mother with tact and delicacy... Judy s memoir is the perfect compliment to John Carey s biography... a book that deserves to become a classic memoir of childhood, in which her loving but clear-eyed portrait of a man she sees now as two people warm and embracing but also at times self-centred and cruel an absorbing read, a must read for Golding devotees, and, frankly, for anyone. -- Penelope Lively, Spectator

Spectacular... intensely moving, ingeniously structured, honest and straightforward account of a dysfunctional English family that is by turns very ordinary and very bizarre... Golding emerges as an admirable personality, however flawed... packed with rich material, at times warming, often chilling, but always memorable... Judy Golding, with an artistry that is equal to (and a clarity that surpasses) her father s, presents a brilliant example of how [writing a family saga] can be best accomplished. -- Alexander Waugh, Literary Review

One of the attractions for me in writing a memoir, [Judy Golding] admits, has been the tantalising prospect of bringing my father to life again. The prospect is fulfilled. Here is Golding, shuffling around in his old naval clothes, indulging in amateur dramatics, drinking heavily, forever tempted. --Ian Sansom, Guardian

'The Children of Lovers are Orphans.' Proverb Bestselling novelist, author of Lord of the Flies, William Golding was a famously acute observer of children. What was it like to be his daughter? In this frank and engaging family memoir, Judy Golding recalls growing up with a brilliant, loving, sometimes difficult parent. The years of her childhood and adolescence saw her father change from an impecunious schoolteacher to a famous novelist. Once adult, she came to understand some of the internal conflicts which led to his writing. The Golding family life, both ordinary and extraordinary, always kept its characteristic warmth, humour, complexity, anger and love, danger and insecurity. This is a book about family and parents, about lovers and their children, and about our impact on one another - for good or ill.