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Description: Juliet Stevenson reads Juliet Nicolson's journey through seven generations of women, including her Flamenco dancing great great grandmother Pepita, her grandmother Vita Sackville West and her mother Philippa all of whom have shaped and formed, in extraordinary ways, exactly who she has become today.
We journey through the slums ofth century Malaga to the political elite of Washington, from English boarding schools during the second world war, to London in thes and New York in thes.
It is one woman's investigation into how her past forms and informs her future,
I really enjoyed this memoir/biography based on the authors family, Two early female forebears are followed by indepth accounts of the lives of Vita Sackville West, Phillipa Nicholson, the author Juliet Nicholson , her daughters and granddaughter, producing very interesting and moving stories.
Juliet Nicolson has written some excellent books, including two works of history, “The Perfect Summer” and “The Great Silence,” plus a novel, “Abdication.
” However, in this new book she turns her attention to her own family history and what a family it is.
The granddaughter of Vita SackvilleWest and Harold Nicolson, daughter of Nigel Nicolson and sister of the historian Adam Nicolson, she comes from a great literary heritage as well as having the shadow of the great family estates of Knole and Sissinghurst as part of her history.
That is not to mention her familys involvement in politics, Vitas greatest friend Virginia Woolf or even the fact that her favourite teacher at school was no less a person than Penelope Fitzgerald and that she was unfazed when Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor came for a visit.
This book though, is not interested in the rich and famous , even if most of those who inhabit these pages are one or the other if not both, but looks at seven generations of women in her family from the birth of her grandmothers grandmother into the birth of her granddaughter.
All of these women, apart from one, were privileged in terms of wealth and all were daughters as all women are born, and remain, daughters.
As Juliet Nicolson says, families have different expectations from sons and daughters and this story is riddled with secrets and maternal jealousy, as well as maternal love.
This history begins with Juliets greatgreatgrandmother, the Spanish dancer, Pepita, Unlike all of the other women in this history, Pepita was born into a life of poverty.
Her mother worshipped her beautiful and talented daughter and, before long, Pepita had found fame and fortune, She also had an early marriage an unfortunate fact when she fell in love with Lionel SackvilleWest, a twenty five year old attaché at the British Legation in Germany, with whom she would have children but never a real family.
The next woman in this history is Pepitas oldest daughter, Victoria, Unlike her mother, Victoria eventually became accepted by society and married a man with the exact same name as her own father her cousin Lionel SackvilleWest.
Married in, the couple were originally head over heels in love but a terrible experience with childbirth led to the marriage turning sour and left Vita as their only daughter and, indeed, only child.
Vita SackvilleWest was entirely unconventional and, like many of the daughters in this book, had an early , slightly suffocating, relationship with a mother, which became distant and estranged as the young girl became more independent with age.
Her marriage to Harold Nicolson was, despite their difficulties, built upon a commitment to each other, although motherhood baffled Vita.
We then move on to Juliets mother, Phillipa whose own mother Pam married Vitas son, Nigel Nicolson.
Juliet Nicolson does not hesitate to reveal the less comfortable sides of wealth, privilege and snobbery such as the time when Pam and a young Phillipa reduced young evacuees staying at their house to tears, or when she is open about the problems with alcohol she shared with her own mother.
Philippa obviously cared about her daughter and visited her every day in hospital when she was once ill, but it is distressing to read how little warmth Juliet was shown and how she can even recall the rare occasions her mother held her hand.
The book continues with her relationships with her own daughters, Clemmie and Flora, and the circle closes with the birth of her granddaughter, Imogen.
I really enjoyed this family history, which concentrated on the female line of a family, There is the unconditional love of motherhood, but also manipulative behaviour, selfishness and benign neglect, This is an honest account of mothers and daughters and is both moving and well written, Lastly, I received a copy of this book from the publisher, via NetGalley, for review,
An exploration of the lives and loves of a very posh family indeed.
Struggles with love, struggles with drink, the pain ! of having to pay inheritance tax I mean, how much sympathy can you have for anyone who owns a house withrooms.
. .
I can't help but feel that it would have strongly benefited from a far more brutal editor.
I received a free copy of this book via NetGalley,
I wasn't that lucky by finding memoirs in, Oftentimes, they turned out to be real different from what I was looking for at that moment, However, 'A House Full of Daughters' started strong and I was completely in love by the middle of the book.
There're two problems that usually make memoirs quite tricky for me, One, the author might not find the right stories and items left behind and two, sometimes the book ends up to be a collection of let's say letters but there's no overall theme behind them.
Nicolson was lucky as a few of her ancestors already left diaries and autobiographies behind, Besides, talking about and reflecting about other family members seemed to quite common within her family, What I liked the most was the fact that I could tell from the beginning what she set out to do.
By looking at the oldest daughter in every generation she presented their lives within their time as well as searching for common themes that united the women in her family.
There was a lot of honesty involved when it came to the darker aspects of the story, I believe it takes a lot of courage to talk about the notsobright parts in your family history.
The only downside for me was the focus on the oldest daughter which is understandable as you can't talk about all of them but it felt a little awkward when there was more than one girl.
I'm a big fan of the writing style, The author managed to present current day events as intriguing as theth century past, Really entertaining and easy to read,
The end of the book made me quite emotional and I can see myself reading it again as there're a lot of information and maybe I'll discover new aspects the second time.
The title was the first thing that intrigued me about A House Full of Daughters as did the idea of bringing together seven generations, spanning decades upon decades of family history.
So I was very excited when I got the chance to read it and am very glad I did.
Thanks to Random House and Netgalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Family history is absolutely fascinating, especially when it is conducted by a family member themselves, I myself have been fascinated by the history of my family, the way in which the different generations interacted with each other and where potential roots can be found.
And since Nicolson comes from a fascinating family, one which started in Spain, stopped over in Washington before becoming nobility in England , A House Full of Daughters is quite an intriguing read.
What immediately endeared Nicolson and her book to me, however, was that she purposefully looked at the women in her family and their roles and relationships with each other.
History is largely manmade and hence full of men doing interesting things that we're all taught about, with women too often sidelined and invisible.
What Nicolson shows in A House Full of Daughters is that women have always led equally fascinating lives, even if they haven't been as reported about, as men and that these deserve as much attention.
The emphasis upon daughterhood as well, a singular concept which shows how women never truly lose their ties to family, provided Nicolson with an interesting perspective to approach her family history.
I thoroughly enjoyed A House
Full of Daughters but I don't think it's necessarily for everyone to read about the ups and downs of a single family, even if it is an interesting one.
I'd recommend this both to fans of Historical Fiction and Biographies,
For full review: sitelink blogspot. co. uk A raw and honest insight into seven generations of the feminine side of the SackvilleWest dynasty, given from the perspective of Juliet Nicholson, daughter of Nigel Nicholson and Phillipa Tennyson d'Eyncourt.
I bought this book at the SackvilleWest's ancestral home of Sissinghurst where I felt the presence of this family's creative and expressive spirit still lingering in every nook and cranny and in the spectacularly beautiful garden.
I thoroughly enjoyed Nicholson's straightforward narrative and the thoughtful perspectives on the relationships and decisions of her forebears.
Truly excellent. Each chapter in this fascinating book concerns itself with famous ancestors,daughters and a granddaughter of Juliet's,
From her Spanish great, great grandmother Pepita, growing up in Malaga, becoming a famous Flamenco dancer and feted all over Spain via Vita Sackville West the sometimes ambivalent writer who's first love was Knole in Kent, a grand family house, now owned by the National Trust.
Juliet writes fascinating life stories of the many strong independent ladies that are a part of her family history.
A great book to dip into as each part can be read independently,
Very highly recommended.
I was given a digital copy of this book by the publisher Chatto and Windus via Netgalley in return for an honest unbiased review.
I've read two history books by Juliet Nicolson and enjoyed them both, so I was pretty confident I would enjoy this family memoir
Nicolson starts her book with the story of her great, great grandmother, the very lowly born Spanish dancer Pepita, and then works throughgenerations of the female line to end with a beautiful chapter on her own much loved grand daughter Imogen.
Much of the early part of this book will be familiar with those who have read The Disinherited by Robert Sackville West, a relative cousin I think of Nicolson.
Nicolson is a talented, clear and elegant writer, and the early chapters show she is a more than capable historian and biographer.
However, I think the book really comes into its own when she writes about her own mother, and then about herself, motherhood and her battle with alcoholism.
Nicolson admits how difficult it was to write this part of the book, and indeed the doubts she had about even trying to do so.
But she confronts it unflinchingly and whilst I very rarely cry at any book, this got me very close!.
stars
An interesting, well written book, but oh, so much privilege, I'd be interested to read a similar book aboutfemale generations of a more 'ordinary' family, From BBC Radioabridged version really very interesting though it petered off with the more current descriptions in the last part.
From BBC radioBook of the Week:
Juliet Stevenson reads Juliet Nicolson's journey through seven generations of women, including her Flamenco dancing great great grandmother Pepita, her grandmother Vita Sackville West and her mother Philippa all of whom have shaped and formed, in extraordinary ways, exactly who she has become today.
We journey through the slums ofth century Malaga to the political elite of Washington, from English boarding schools during the second world war, to London in thes and New York in thes.
It is one woman's investigation into how her past forms and informs her future,
A Pier production for BBC Radio,
sitelink bbc. co. uk/programmes/bysd,
Acquire A House Full Of Daughters: A Memoir Of Seven Generations Penned By Juliet Nicolson Rendered As Manuscript
Juliet Nicolson