TWO FLAMBOYANT FATHERS

by Nicolette Devas ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 5, 1967

Nicolette Devas is the sister of Caitlin Thomas, daughter of poet, philosopher, economist Francis Macnamara. When his belief in free love drove him to desert his family seven years after a love marriage, she attached herself to portrait painter Augustus John as Father-Lover figure. The other men in her life include Dylan, her brother John, her husband Anthony who left her desolately widowed after twenty-seven years of marriage--now all are gone and she has had to start again. But to return to the green years: life in a bohemian, artistic ambience was interrupted by a period of French schooling from which she returned ""fifteen and bilingual if nothing else"" to a household bursting with nubescent girls. Then she was off to Slade School of Art, where she met Anthony Devas, who fulfilled her need to be ""une bonne bourgeoise. Caitlin married Dylan (she does not seem to have any great love for Caitlin, the adored and spoiled one). Her father became old and ill and at the end of his life wrote ""I have only just found out that affection and tenderness are important."" There was the essential reconciliation. Except for her father's portrait, these are essentially sketches--of Virginia Woolf as a granite pillar of mourning, of Dylan as a ""planter of seeds"" in people. An engaging divertissement for the fringe literati.

Pub Date: April 5, 1967

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Morrow

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1967

Categories: NONFICTION