My Father and Myself - Softcover

Ackerley, J. R.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0712652515 ISBN 13: 9780712652513

Publisher: Pimlico, 1992

Synopsis

J.R. Ackerley was born into a seemingly bourgeois family living in Richmond, Surrey. His mother was a frail ex-actress, his father a well-to-do, heavily moustached Edwardian paterfamilias. Only after his father's death did the author discover that "Dad" had long maintained a mistress and three daughters in Barnes. In unravelling the facts behind his father's duplicity - which include an odd relationship as a trooper with a mysterious Count de Gallatin and eccentric entry into the banana business - Ackerley also reveals much of himself: from schoolboy to frontline subaltern, from shiftless student to tireless searcher for the ideal friend in the twilight of homosexual London. The author also wrote "Hindoo Holiday", "My Dog Tulip", "My Sister and Myself: The Diaries of J.R. Ackerley" and "We Think the World of You".

About this title

Review

"I would like to give J.R. Ackerley's My Father and Myself to the entire Tory Shadow Cabinet... It shows how tissue-thin the narrative of power and 'respectable' class-consciousness always has been. The likes of David Cameron should read this book and think again if they believe hegemony to be part of their birthright." Will Self. (Times)

About the Author

J. R. Ackerley (1896-1967) was for many years the literary editor of the BBC magazine The Listener. His works include three memoirs, Hindoo Holiday, My Dog Tulip, and My Father and Myself, and a novel, We Think the World of You (all available as New York Review Books).

Edition details

• Publisher: Pimlico
• Publication date: 1992
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0712652515
• ISBN 13: 9780712652513
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224