Judy Golding

Beautifully written memoir about William Golding and family, by his daughter Judy. I don’t know if I have ever read an account so perceptive about the nuance and contradiction within the family drama of father, mother, son, and daughter. The love was there, no grotesque neglect or apocalyptic dysfunction, which goes to show that even « normal » families provide enough material to write a book about. In this case, the family wasn’t quite normal in that father was a dedicated and eventually famous and wealthy writer. Judy and her brother were « children of lovers » and their struggles to matter, especially to themselves, in light of the parental self-sufficiency, is meticulously detailed. The saddest part of the book for me is the apparent fact that Judy Golding has not written another book, which she is well equipped to do and which I would eagerly read.… (meer)