Take a Girl Like Me: Life with George

by Diana Melly

At once heartbreaking and hilarious, this is an addictive and exceptional memoir of a woman’s life and turbulent marriage to a famous musician.

Once there was a girl, pretty, smart and sexy. By sixteen she was married, by seventeen she had a child, and by eighteen she’d sent her son to live with an aunt. By her early twenties, she’d acquired another child and second husband, and life wasn’t going according to plan. Then she met George Melly — famous for being bisexual, for a comic strip and for his music. He was brilliant, impossible, charismatic, kind and outrageous; when he wasn’t performing in jazz clubs, he went fishing — and not just for fish. Sex, drugs and jazz were a heady combination for the girl from Essex, and she found him irresistible. Suddenly it was the swinging sixties and she was juggling babies with one hand and popping pills with the other.

A classic in the making, Take a Girl Like Me is the extraordinary story of a turbulent marriage, of the uncharted trajectory of a woman’s life from the fifties to the new century by way of a glittering gallery of personalities that includes Bruce Chatwin, Jean Rhys, Sonia Orwell, Kenneth Tynan, Jonathan Miller and a host of other luminaries. Written with a unique and clear-eyed self-effacement, it is an exceptional memoir, glowing with life and love.

Genres: Nonfiction

256 pages, Hardcover

First published September 5, 2005

Reviews

[Sull · Rating 3 out of 5]

OK, this was a compllete exception to the rule that says memoirs written by the spouse of a famous person are worthless. This was an excellent, & very very funny handbook on how to survive being married to a unique & creative celeb (who's also bonkers) like jazz singer George Melly. It's a strange book, but so much more uplifting than Judy Cook's quietly sobering sob-fest.

Diana Melly had lots of reasons to sob, & she made some truly horrendous blunders--with her children & her lovers & George--but somehow she survived, maybe even thrived, with her sense of herself & her self-worth intact. An amazing accomplishment, and a startlingly honest, curious & many-layered book...

[William Murphy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Those looking for more Good Time George will feel somewhat shortchanged as the story gives mostly details about the support the singer and raconteur increasingly required to carry on his busy life into old age and less on those activities themselves. After all it is a retrospective about Diana herself. Personally I am one of those eccentric Brits, as described by Richard Ingrams, who combine left wing views with fairly conservative morals so I thought the account of the Mellys' extra-marital bed hopping and skirting around the 60s and 70s North London middle class drug scene excessive while the true flavour of those decades as I remember them, the political and anti-government demonstrations (Red Lion Square the Vietnam War) and culture (the Roundhouse was right next door to them!) hardly mentioned save a Ban the Bomb demo in Trafalgar Square. There are mentions of TV personalities and popular mainstream pundits like Alan Bennett and Jonathan Miller and a specially moving description of Christopher Chataway's struggle with AIDS. The author comes across as a warm free spirit prone to depressive episodes but I was increasingly turned off by her resort to support in order to carry on supporting such as a handy list of well off acquaintances ready to lend overseas villas etc for longish sunny breaks. In fact, the book tends to read as a travelogue of vacations interspersed with sections on living with George or getting fed up complicated family crises.... yawn! I know a lot of people who carry on without that crutch. Their stories are richer. On the whole though when I finished my opinion of George Melly, knowledgeable but not learned he comes across and pretty useless at most things except being the centre of attention, was diminished while of Diana I had no opinion. I also thought given how dreadful Britain was at this time despite all the fashionable backward looking today Bogarde did the sensible thing and emigrated to live in France.

[Nicola Pierce · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had heard mention of this writer and memoir in the wonderful biography of Jeans Rhys (by Miranda Seymore). Seymour praised it for its honesty and I absolutely agree. What a life! And it wasn't always an easy read - her carelessness and bewilderment regarding her eldest child and the seemingly awful men that she fell for, before and after her marriage to George Melly, made my insides churn. But this is a tale of triumph, of overcoming an extraordinary variety of challenges from her husband's clingy mistresses and her own messy relationships to the worse kind of tragedy. This is a life muddled through and presented honestly and simply. Initially, I wasn't sure I liked her much but she certainly had my attention and, by the final page, my respect and admiration. I would have liked to have known more about her writing life but, even so, there was plenty here and I couldn't turn the pages fast enough.

[Lorna · Rating 2 out of 5]

One that Bill chose as he liked George Melly but there was something lacking in this book. At times very amusing but it just rattled on!

[Tracy Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

excellent thought provoking story of her bohemia style life. her highs & lows had me laughing & crying.