MEMORY IN A HOUSE

by L.M. Boston ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 1974

Adult readers taken with the commanding sense of place in the author's Green Knowe books will dote on Mrs. Boston's account of her life and love affair with the real Green Knowe, the Norman manor house she bought in the late '30's, spent ""by far the happiest two years"" of her life restoring (undoing previous inhabitants' ""inadequate, stingy and lunatic repairs,"" uncovering windows and fireplaces and the stone beneath foot-thick layers of wallpaper), and has by now come to consider her life's ""work of art."" There is less here than we would like to know of the books and their genesis and perhaps a genteel much about cherished friends, whos physical appearance Boston describes at length but without projecting their personalities or otherwise placing them at all. However her self-deprecating anecdotes are amusing -- as when her wartime entertainment of servicemen prompted visits from various officials who suspected the dirndl.clad hostess of spying and -- in one case -- prostitution. More important, the loving descriptions of house, garden, servants and ghosts (the last all the more impressive for Mrs. Boston's reticence about the few still unexplained ""hauntings""), along with the floor plans and interior and exterior photos of the house in various stages of restoration, add a gratifying dimension to our experience of Green Knowe.

Pub Date: April 1, 1974

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: 142

Publisher: Macmillan

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1974

Categories: NONFICTION