CLEMENTINE CHURCHILL: The Biography of a Marriage

by Mary Soames ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 5, 1979

Clementine Churchill, writes her daugher, ""never made a good Tory."" She was too much the fervent Utopian, the ""old-fashioned radical,"" for that. And she was too moralistic to approve of Winston's gambling or his tony friends, too practical to share his pleasure in picturesque, inconvenient, costly Chart-well, their home for 40 years. But she knew his value, and took him as her ""lifework,"" to love, humor, and protect against ""anything that might harm his reputation or dim his luster."" Including -- as Mary Soames shows in this forthright, even-handed biography--his own thoughtless, reckless nature. Had her life been different (a more simpatico mother, a less engorging husband), Clementine might have gone on to university, or made a sportswoman (she was an avid tennis player, and took up skiing at 60) or, as she demonstrated in two World Wars, a woman of affairs: but, if outwardly compliant, she kept her independence of mind and spirit--a splotch on the wall at Chart-well marks the day she threw a dish of spinach at Winston. She could be too obdurate: when Sunny Marlborough, Winston's cousin, objected to her writing to ""that horrible little man,"" Lloyd George, ""on Blenheim writing-paper,"" she left for London in fury. And when Winston, after the Gallipoli disaster, was dumped by Asquith, she wrote the P.M. in anguished, percipient protest . . . but it was she who went round to the Asqniths thereafter to keep Winston's political fortunes alive. The book is strongest in those early years when, separated even briefly, the two exchanged daily letters; but there is much, also, of Mary's experiences growing up as the youngest in a household dominated by politics and public affairs. Winston appears as an uncommonly involved father for his time (hovering, once, between buying plain white wood Noah's Ark animals for two-year-old Diana, or the ""much more interesting"" colored ones), and a gay, relaxed companion--while Clementine was too much the perfectionist to enter into the children's pastimes or understand their feelings. But it fell to her to discipline them, and as they grew up and drew away (into objectionable careers and disastrous marriages), strains turned into ruptures. In any crisis, however, she was a rock . . . ""& I depend on you and rest on you,"" wrote WC. A large-spirited book, of consuming interest to Churchill-watchers.

Pub Date: Nov. 5, 1979

ISBN: 0618267328

Page Count: -

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1979

Categories: NONFICTION