HOVE PARK I’ve read most of Margaret Forster’s excellent work that has been gathering successful publication from the 1970s. Invariably her fictional narratives simultaneously give an account of social history in Britain through the story of women’s lives. Having never before though read any of her biography, I pounced on this enticingly titled paperback as soon as I spotted it. An ingenious way of relating her memoir, the author unfolds the telling of her life through the prism of all the homes she’s ever lived in. Starting from her birth in a council house on a new estate in Carlisle to her much loved home in London’s Hampstead which was bought for, in today’s prices, an unbelievable £5,000, though in dire need of updating and complete with an elderly sitting tenant. She writes with sensitivity and clarity, offering the perspective of her life as a writer, mother and wife through the homes that meant so much to her and which shaped her life with husband journalist and writer Hunter Davies and their three children. Following this work written in her mid 70s, one final novel was published posthumously in 2016 from the cancer that she writes candidly about here. I for one will be reading more of her non-fiction which maybe I’ll come across out of hours in one of Brighton & Hove’s other branch libraries. Read lots more of Anne’s book reviews, along with links to authors talking about their work, on her blog site annedoyle. hove.wixsite.com/whatannesreading
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