Amateurs In Eden

The story of Lawrence Durrell and his enigmatic first wife, Nancy: love, betrayal and literary endeavour set among the glittering intellectuals of 1930s London, Paris and Corfu 'The history of a literary wife . . . Her story is not a footnote; it is absolutely central' Lesley McDowell, IndependentGrowing up in a dysfunctional family, Nancy Durrell, the enigmatic first wife of Lawrence Durrell, future author of the Alexandria Quartet, was an introverted provincial schoolgirl who transformed overnight into a young woman of haunting beauty. From the smoky pubs of 1930s Fitzrovia to the sexual mayhem of the Villa Seurat in Paris, her story shines new light on an extraordinary group of people. In a remote village on pre-war Corfu Nancy and Lawrence found a paradise where for a time they wrote and painted, quarrelled and laughed and loved. Here, for the first time, is her riveting story.'Nancy, as beautiful as Garbo, and as reticent, can finally take her place as a significant, if sad, figure in a story more troubling and authentic than any from The Alexandria Quartet' Miranda Seymour, Sunday Times'A vivid picture of smoky rooms bare of furniture, madcap escapades intended to shock the bourgeoisie and inebriated nights at the Café Royal' Bel Mooney, Daily Mail'The bohemian world of the mid-century Mediterranean makes a sparkling backdrop to a nuanced portrait of this gifted, volatile pair' i (Independent­) Nancy Durrell was a woman famous for her silences. Anaïs Nin said 'I think often of Nancy's most eloquent silences, Nancy talking with her fingers, her hair, her cheeks, a wonderful gift. Music again.' As the first wife Lawrence Durrell, author of The Alexandria Quartet, it is perhaps surprising that she is an unknown entity, a constant presence in the biographies of Durrell and others in the Bloomsbury set, yet always a shadowy figure, beautiful and enigmatic. But who was the woman who was with Durrell during the most important years of his development as a writer? Joanna Hodgkin decides to retrace her mother's fascinating story: the escape from her toxic and mysterious family; the years in bohemian literary London and Paris in the 1930s; marriage to Durrell and their discovery of the 'Eden' of pre-war Corfu and her desperate struggle to survive in Palestine alone with a small child as the British Mandate collapsed. Amateurs in Eden is a fascinating biography of a literary marriage and of an unusual woman struggling to live an independent life.