Romany and Tom: A Memoir
By:
Sign Up Now!
Already a Member? Log In
You must be logged into UK education collection to access this title.
Learn about membership options,
or view our freely available titles.
- Synopsis
- Longlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction 2014Ben Watt's father was a working-class Glaswegian jazz musician-a politicized left-wing bandleader and composer-whose heyday in the late 1950s took him into the glittering heart of London's West End. His mother, Romany, the daughter of a Methodist parson, was a Shakespearean actress who had triplets in her first marriage before becoming a leading showbiz feature writer and columnist in the '60s and '70s. They were both divorced and from very different backgrounds, and they came together at a fateful New Year's Day party in 1957 like colliding trains.Romany and Tom is Ben Watt's honest, sometimes painful, and often funny portrait of his parents' exceptional lives and marriage, depicted in a personal journey from his own wide-eyed London childhood, through years as an adult with children and a career of his own, to that inevitable point when we must assume responsibility for our own parents in their old age. Spanning several decades-and drawing on a rich seam of family letters, souvenirs, photographs, public archives, and personal memories-it is a vivid story of the postwar years, ambition and stardom, family roots and secrets, big band jazz, depression and drink, life in clubs and nursing homes. It is also about who we are, where we come from, and how we love and live with each other for the long term.
- Copyright:
- 2014
Book Details
- Book Quality:
- Publisher Quality
- Book Size:
- 368 Pages
- ISBN-13:
- 9781620403730
- Related ISBNs:
- 9781408845103
- Publisher:
- Bloomsbury Publishing
- Date of Addition:
- 03/06/21
- Copyrighted By:
- Ben Watt
- Adult content:
- No
- Language:
- English
- Has Image Descriptions:
- No
- Categories:
- Nonfiction, Biographies and Memoirs
- Submitted By:
- Bookshare Staff
- Usage Restrictions:
- This is a copyrighted book.