Have You Been Good?: A Memoir

New
Paperback
2016
$11.63

Vanessa Nicolson is the granddaughter of Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson. She was born to an illustrious name and an unhappy marriage. Her father, the art historian Ben Nicolson, was homosexual and his marriage to Vanessa's Italian mother fell apart when Vanessa was very young. In this powerful and meditative memoir she chronicles her disjointed childhood and reckless youth, including holidays at Sissinghurst Castle with her cousins, and her experience of a liberal English boarding school. Interlinked with her story is that of her daughter Rosa, who died, aged 19. This book is a meditation on the threads of love and loss that weave through a life and an examination of the meaning of cultural privilege in the context of emotional deprivation.

Synopsis

Vanessa Nicolson is the granddaughter of Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson. She was born to an illustrious name and an unhappy marriage. Her father, the art historian Ben Nicolson, was homosexual and his marriage to Vanessa's Italian mother fell apart when Vanessa was very young. In this powerful and meditative memoir she chronicles her disjointed childhood and reckless youth, including holidays at Sissinghurst Castle with her cousins, and her experience of a liberal English boarding school. Interlinked with her story is that of her daughter Rosa, who died, aged 19. This book is a meditation on the threads of love and loss that weave through a life and an examination of the meaning of cultural privilege in the context of emotional deprivation.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 320
Publisher: Granta
Published: 04 Feb 2016
ISBN 10: 1783780789
ISBN 13: 9781783780785
Book Overview: A powerful memoir from the granddaughter of Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson, chronicling holidays at Sissinghurst, reckless youth, and the tragic loss of her 19-year-old daughter Rosa

Media Reviews

A brutal, frank, and bittersweet memoir of poverty amid privilege - Peter Stothard, author, Alexandria
Beautiful and honest - Victoria Hislop, Summer Read, Women & Home
Vivid and sometimes painfully honest... She has taken the base and battered metal of her life and turned it into gold - Mail on Sunday
A collection of fragile fragments, handled with care - Daily Telegraph
[A] heartbreaking memoir - Books of 2015, Sunday Express
Full of vigorous humour and sharp social comment - Charlotte Moore, Books of the Year, New Statesman
Nicolson is a startlingly skilful writer and can wring bleak comedy from the unlikeliest of material... This level of honesty lifts the book into a league of its own: the enduring feeling, however, is of the author's own dogged inner vitality - Claire Harman, Evening Standard
Poignant... While there are harrowing aspects to Vanessa's story they are leavened by an atmospheric account of a life that was privileged in some ways, underprivileged in others but [...] always fascinating - Charlotte Heathcote, Daily Express
You finish this beautifully written, highly affecting memoir feeling that Vanessa Nicolson hasn't always been good, but wishing above all else that her mother could open her handbag now and, finally, give her the gift of love - Marcus Field, Independent
A searing and uncomfortable book... beautifully written - Vanessa Berridge, Sunday Express
In recording her own roles as both daughter and mother, Nicolson has penned a double helix to motherhood. It accounts for the many shades of experience that shouldn't be, but so frequently are, endured in families, irrelevant of privilege - Rebecca Swirsky, Observer

A brutal, frank, and bittersweet memoir of poverty amid privilege - Peter Stothard, author, Alexandria

Beautiful and honest - Victoria Hislop, 'Summer Read', Women & Home

Vivid and sometimes painfully honest... She has taken the base and battered metal of her life and turned it into gold - Mail on Sunday

A collection of fragile fragments, handled with care - Daily Telegraph

[A] heartbreaking memoir - 'Books of 2015', Sunday Express

Full of vigorous humour and sharp social comment - Charlotte Moore, Books of the Year, New Statesman

Nicolson is a startlingly skilful writer and can wring bleak comedy from the unlikeliest of material... This level of honesty lifts the book into a league of its own: the enduring feeling, however, is of the author's own dogged inner vitality - Claire Harman, Evening Standard

Poignant... While there are harrowing aspects to Vanessa's story they are leavened by an atmospheric account of a life that was privileged in some ways, underprivileged in others but [...] always fascinating - Charlotte Heathcote, Daily Express

You finish this beautifully written, highly affecting memoir feeling that Vanessa Nicolson hasn't always been good, but wishing above all else that her mother could open her handbag now and, finally, give her the gift of love - Marcus Field, Independent

A searing and uncomfortable book... beautifully written - Vanessa Berridge, Sunday Express

In recording her own roles as both daughter and mother, Nicolson has penned a double helix to motherhood. It accounts for the many shades of experience that shouldn't be, but so frequently are, endured in families, irrelevant of privilege - Rebecca Swirsky, Observer

Author Bio

VANESSA NICOLSON was brought up in London and Florence and has worked as an art historian and journalist. Her publications include The Sculpture of Maurice Lambert (Lund Humphries / Ashgate, 2002), commissioned by the Henry Moore Foundation. She is married to the writer Andrew Davidson and lives in Sissinghurst.