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About
This book is an intimate, fond and funny memoir of one of the greatest novelists of the last century. This colourful, personal, anecdotal, indiscrete and admiring memoir charts the course of Muriel Spark's life revealing her as she really was. Once, she commented sitting over a glass of chianti at the kitchen table, that she was upset that the academic whom she had appointed her official biographer did not appear to think that she had ever cracked a joke in her life. In Appointment in Arezzo Alan Taylor sets the record straight about this and many other things.
With sources ranging from notebooks kept from his very first encounter with Muriel and the hundreds of letters they exchanged over the years, this is an invaluable portrait of one of Edinburgh's premiere novelists.
The book is published to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Muriel's birth in 2018.
With sources ranging from notebooks kept from his very first encounter with Muriel and the hundreds of letters they exchanged over the years, this is an invaluable portrait of one of Edinburgh's premiere novelists.
The book is published to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Muriel's birth in 2018.
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Reviews
"'So true in its friendship to and its critique of Spark and her work, and at the same time such a good read, that I found myself still reading it walking along streets and waiting for Tube trains. It celebrates Spark's work with real understanding while it celebrates their friendship with candour and warmth. I loved it'"
Financial Times, Best Books of 2017
"'Controversies are not shied away from but it is her vivacity, generosity and quixotic character that are emphasized. Taylor writes with affection and humour… Published to mark the centenary of her birth in 1918, Taylor's memoir should encourage (re)discovery of the challenges, joys and humour in reading Spark's words'"
The Australian
"'Muriel Spark, now more than ever looks like the standout British novelist of the later 20th century. Spark's novels - 22 in all - are the product of a ruthlessly confident, even clairvoyant sensibility, and fuse an impossible range of tones and strengths'"
The New Statesman