Book description
In these five stories Julia Blackburn recalls the significant animals
in her life and in so doing gives us a sidelong glance at the human
members of her family, her painter mother and poet father.
First comes Congo the bush baby, from the jungles of Madagascar via
Harrods pet department. He slept in an old cap on the back of the
door, and could leap about the room via the picture rails. Then there
are tropical fish, tortoises, chickens, guinea pigs, foxes (the last
three a combustible combination), pigs, and two very distinctive dogs,
Julia's own dog, Jason, a cocker spaniel whose habits of servility and
loyalty Julia's father, Thomas, was determined to undo ('He's worse
than Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, fawning at my heels!') and Henry, a
Parson Jack Russell terrier that Thomas got after his divorce, a dog
of great independence, dignity and forbearance, whom his master used
to take mountaineering.
This is a delightful book, wry, funny and wise, and unmistakably the
work of Julia Blackburn.
Julia Blackburn is the author of five books of non-fiction,
Charles
Waterton
,
The Emperor's Last Island
,
Daisy Bates in the D
esert,
Old Man Goya
and
With Billie
, and two novels,
The Book of Colour
and
The Leper's
Companions
, both of which were shortlisted for the Orange Prize. She is the author
of seventeen short stories specially commisioned by BBC Radio, a
selection of which were published in
My Animals and Other Family,
and four radio plays, including
The Spellbound Horses
, which was broadcast in 2011. She is married to the artist Herman
Makkink and they live in Suffolk and Italy.
