Alan Bennett - A Life Like Other People's

REview by Maggie Perkovic on show 15th April
It is a poignant memoir of his parents marriage and his own childhood, recalling christmases with grandma peel and the lives loves and deaths of his unforgettable aunties Kathleen and Myra. With the sudden descent of his mother into depression and later dementia, a long held family secret is uncovered in this moving autobiography o one of our best loved English writers.
I was told this book was depressing and boring!! But I enjoyed reading it. It is sad when we hear of his mothers fear of imaginary evils, of her hiding from 'them' and how his father visited her whn she was in hospital. How well meaning professionals tried to help and how in the end his dad died first after a life of trying to cope with his mothers illness.
It is stangely heart warming in several passages and Alan Bennett is honest in judging his own behaviour under stress.
review by Mags