Patrick Kurp lightens the burden of his past with a refreshing and well deserved swipe at John Hawkes, and a sideswipe at Doris Lessing (link). I can't find his email address at the moment so I will have to respond in public. Like Patrick, I have never finished The Golden Notebook, but I am intrigued by the fact that Lessing herself apparently grew irritated at its cultic status among serious and sensitive young women.
But Walking in the Shade: Volume Two of My Autobiography 1949 to 1962 (1997) is a wonderful memoir of London in the 50s, London before London was London. I love her story about going to Leicester Square on New Years' Eve--it must have been about 1950--to look for the action. But no one was there: in those days, London was like that.
Patrick also discusses Lessing's somewhat iffy relationship with Clancy Sigal. As it happens, Sigal's Going Away is an even better memoir (lightly disguised as a novel) of more or less the same period, this time in America. Seems to be out of print, pity. Might be a good candidate for the New York Review of Books Classics Reprint line.
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