Book description
Michael Holroyd confronts an army of automobiles in this charming
book. Weaving together memoir and historical anecdote, he traces his
relationship with cars through a lifetime of biography.
Learning to drive was no easy matter for Michael: the lessons
required military precision when practising how to get in and out of
his car correctly. His biographical subjects also had their
difficulties: Bernard Shaw drove with reckless gusto when overtaking
his eightieth year; Vita Sackville-West's car became a chamber for
sudden romantic assignations and getaways; while Augustus John and his
family careered through vulnerable villages as the poor vehicle, piled
high with bohemian friends, stuttered and jerked along in first gear.
Wry, thoughtful and very funny, On Wheels is an elegy to the
glamour of the car. Subtle and perceptive, Michael Holroyd finds
surprising ways to understand the past and challenge our view of the future.
Besides the Lives of Augustus John, Bernard Shaw and Lytton Strachey
(which was filmed as
Carrington
), Michael Holroyd has written two volumes of memoirs,
Basil Street
Blues
and
Mosaic. A Strange Eventful History
won the James Tait Black Prize, and was a biography of two great
theatrical dynasties which included Henry Irving, Ellen Terry, and her
son Edward Gordon Craig. His most recent book,
A Book of Secrets
, combined memoir with biographies of a number of notable women. He has
been president of the Royal Society of Literature and is the first
non-fiction writer to have been awarded the British Literature Prize. He
lives in London and Somerset with his wife, the novelist Margaret
Drabble.
