Antonia Fraser is known in England as Lady Antonia Fraser, her father having been an Earl. Her forthcoming book Must You Go? – My Life with Harold Pinter will be released in the U.S. on November 2, 2010 by Nan A. Talese/ Doubleday. Fraser’s memoir centers on her 33-year love affair with, and marriage to, the celebrated playwright and poet Harold Pinter.
We’ll have a review up by the release date of Must You Go? but, in the interim, it’s worth noting that this memoir is getting fantastic write-ups on the other side of the pond. Here’s a small sampling.
“Writing with exemplary clarity and courage… Fraser keeps her gaze steady and her heart open.” – The Independent
“The book is intimate without being confessional, and on certain subjects (Fraser) prefers to say nothing. But she’s not so discreet as to be dull, and there’s a lot of humour.” – Blake Morrison, The Guardian
“It may lack sensational revelations but Antonia Fraser’s memoir of married life with Pinter is eccentric and hilarious.” – Rachel Cooke, The Observer
“It is neither autobiography nor biography but a love story, romantic, poignant and very funny, illuminating her husband’s character and creativity.” The Times
“This book works, just as it appears their lives (together) worked, as the most touching and enduring of love stories… The ending is… almost unbearably moving. The whole of this lovely book fills you with a gratitude that happenstance can, once in a while, not screw up and find the right girl for the right boy.” – Dominic Dromgoole, Financial Times
“It’s enormously enjoyable to read… because this is a book that’s intimate without being confessional, and that’s a very unusual thing today. At the end of it you feel you’ve had an insight into a great romance… She’s really pulled off something of enormous subtlety.” Tina Brown, The Daily Beast
“This book – full of funny and tender things – satisfies on more than one level. It is an intimate account of the life and habits of a major artist; it is a pencil sketch of British high society in the second half of the 20th century; and it is, more than either of these things, and much more unusually, a wonderfully full description of the deep pleasures and comforts of married love.” – The Spectator
“The final third of Must You Go? is dominated by Pinter’s ill-health, his award of the Nobel prize, and his courageous struggle still to speak out on the issues that concerned him. In many ways they are the best part of the book.” – Robert Harris, The Sunday Times
Interested? Lady Antonia Fraser will appear at the Los Angeles Public Library (630 W. 5th Street) at 7:00 p.m. on November 8, 2010; and at the San Francisco City Arts & Lectures Herbst Theatre (401 Van Ness Avenue) on November 9, 2010 at 8:00 p.m.
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