9 months
2 weeks ago
I’ve admired Elizabeth Jane Howard, the author, one-time director of the Cheltenham Literature Festival, and former wife of the late Kingsley Amis, ever since I heard her opining, on Radio 4, on my favourite subject: the agony of writing. And sure enough, it wasn’t long into her talk on Thursday that she returned to the theme. ‘Writing is difficult for me,’ she remarked, sitting perched on a mobility scooter. ‘I’m very slow, I don’t write easily, and I envy people who love writing. I feel awful when I don’t write but then I feel pretty awful when I do write. It’s like trying to punch a whole into a tin of condensed milk.’
Of course, finding something difficult doesn’t mean that you don’t want to do it, and Howard, now in her eighties, has always been incredibly driven. A famous beauty, she married young and, after a series of affairs, left her first husband and daughter to become a writer in 1947. ‘I moved to a flat in Bayswater. I was selfishly determined to be a writer at any cost. I always wanted to write. I remember writing my first story at the age of seven. It was the story of the nativity written from the view of the innkeeper. My grandmother summoned the servants on a Sunday afternoon and read the story to them. I remember feeling terribly embarrassed.’ Given this intensity of ambition, her success must have been very pleasing? ‘Well, I had quiet success, I was not a bestseller or winner of prizes. But it felt good to be able to carry on.’
She was being modest: the sell-out crowd was proof that she has done more than just ‘carry on’ writing. She has now penned 12 novels and a frank memoir entitled Slipstream. Though her productivity did fall while she was married to Kingsley Amis. ‘It was hard to write at all when we were married, what with the three stepkids and other commitments. I remember saying to him in advance that I couldn’t iron shirts, which was a complete lie, but at least I didn’t have to do that. But being a step mother is time-consuming, and then stepchildren started having girlfriends and boyfriends which meant making dinner for 12 people at times. But Kingsley was very funny to be with, which was great. Also, I had a writing block for a long time.’
A block that is clearly no longer a problem. Howard spoke at length about, Love All, her latest novel, dismissing the sniping of a reviewer who remarked that the title made it sound like ‘the biography of a lesbian tennis player’. ‘Some people were rather rude about the title. But I like it! The book is about the consequences of the absence of love on various levels… sexual, intellectual and so on, and the damage it does. Love is the single most important thing people can have.’
Did her mother, Kit, a composer’s daughter, who gave up her career as a dancer in the Ballet Rambert for marriage to Howard’s father, an inspiration for the book?. ‘Well, I don’t think she cared for me much. She loved her sons. It took me a long time to get out on the other side of that. I think she had a very sad life, giving up work for marriage. I think she always regretted that, but she was a victim of her times.’ It’s a theme Howard will be returning to in her next novel, which will explore the tension between careers and homelife in three generations of women. ‘People imagine it has changed more than it has.’
Sathnam Sanghera is one of our three writers in residence at this year’s festival. Catch up with Sathnam Sanghera, Kapka Kassabova and Vesna Maric in event 282 on Sunday 18 October.
Sathnam’s latest book is The Boy with the Topknot published by Penguin.
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We’ve tagged this post with literature, review, writers in residence on Friday 16 October 2009.
