There are several recent additions to the TBR pile to talk about, but perhaps none that has had quite the advance press of this book. There has been an obvious and keen sense of anticipation in various quarters about Nicola Beauman's biography, The other Elizabeth Taylor, partly due to its subject - much read and admired but about whom little was generally known - but also because of its disclosure of facts which Mrs. Taylor's family wished to remain private and its reliance on letters she must have assumed had been destroyed. So, a writer whose work deserves re-acquaintance, a hitherto hidden past, and a biographer with a dilemma.
I'm reminded here of James Runcie's novel East Fortune (I wrote about it recently) which dealt in part with characters' private history to which they had accorded "the grace of silence": "you should always speak the truth but the truth need not always be spoken". Nicola Beauman, writing a literary biography, states in her preface, "To leave out the truth, if it can be established as truth, is simply not possible", and she goes on to justify that with reference to the enhancement of her subject's literary reputation.
All controversy apart, I am looking forward to reading this biography and then to re-reading some of Elizabeth Taylor's novels, so if the book set out to whet appetites it has certainly suceeded. Reviews abound: for example, you can see what The Times critic had to say and what Barbara thought of it. More on this in due course.
