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rojaed's review against another edition
4.0
An easy and enjoyable read about growing up in the literary and intellectual atmosphere of Gloucester Crescent during the 1970s and 80s. The work of many of the people mentioned I was very familiar with but a child's perspective is interesting. The author's father, Jonathan, seemed to have problems with fathering, a common problem, especially in that period. William is no great stylist, but he has a readable and engaging style
schopflin's review
funny
lighthearted
sad
fast-paced
4.0
I hadn't expected to like this book much - I have mixed feelings about the tiny privileged community that Jonathan Miller and his neighbours belonged to. It turns out that William Miller did too and that although his background was a bit different from mine, growing up in North London in the 70s meant I identify with a lot of what he describes. The book is at its best describing the friends and neighbours who filled William's life. I don't usually like child's-eye view tales but it's barely a pretext here and works in an Adrian Mole way. The last chapter was the one where the book lost its shine for me. William seems to want to criticise the cosy community his parents lived in without acknowledging the immense privilege he himself took from it: literally having lunch at home with a family friend and walking into a job as production trainee. Not a glamorous job but an opportunity not available to most young people in the 80s. And he manages to describe his purchase of a Gloucester Crescent house without mentioning the colossal rise in house values between his parents £7k purchase in the 1960s and his in the 1990s. Having said all of which, the book is moving and well-written. I would be interested in reading his thoughts about his father's dementia but perhaps he's not ready to write about that.
june_englit_phd's review
3.0
This memoir centres around the author’s family: the writer, documentary-maker and doctor, Jonathan Miller, his wife, Rachel, and the author’s siblings, Tom, and Kate. The family lived in the leafy street, Gloucester Crescent, the backing track to their lives there produced by the sounds of typewriters (the author tells us that other famous writers/ artists also lived both on his street, and in the street behind – Regent’s Park Terrace - and so the collective ‘going to work’ sound were the keys on the various typewriters, always going at different speeds). The author tells of his childhood in the street, family holidays to Scotland, the collective assembly around the television to watch the moon landing, his school days, his visit to America and his romantic entanglement there, starting boarding school (and receiving ‘straight Os ‘ in his exams), to leaving to begin his new life in New York. The Epilogue brings the reader into 2018, several years after the author has returned to London. The death of Ursula Vaughan-Williams (one of their neighbours on Gloucester Crescent when William was a child) warrants the sale of her house, bringing William back to his childhood street, where he notes all its changes. William ultimately buys the house, ending up full circle back from where he started, within a short distance of his parents.
If I’m being honest, I did not really gel with this book. While it was very easy to read, I didn’t feel like I had learned anything on finishing it, other than places change – but that is a given anyway. I also found the continual reference the author made to himself and others as ‘me and xxx’ or, another example, ‘He couldn’t face the way Tom, Kate or me sometimes refuse to eat what’s put in front of us’ (20) grammatically grating – it’s one of my pet hates! For pure light-reading, entertainment value then this book is a pleasant way to pass the time.
If I’m being honest, I did not really gel with this book. While it was very easy to read, I didn’t feel like I had learned anything on finishing it, other than places change – but that is a given anyway. I also found the continual reference the author made to himself and others as ‘me and xxx’ or, another example, ‘He couldn’t face the way Tom, Kate or me sometimes refuse to eat what’s put in front of us’ (20) grammatically grating – it’s one of my pet hates! For pure light-reading, entertainment value then this book is a pleasant way to pass the time.
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