Deceived with Kindness: A Bloomsbury Childhood

by Angelica Garnett

The daughter of Vanessa Bell recounts her Bloomsbury childhood and the emotional consequences of her discovery of her real father's identity and of the past relationship between her older husband, David Garnett, and her father.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, Memoir, Autobiography, History, Biography Memoir, Womens

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1984

About the author

Daughter of Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant, married to (late great) David Garnett.

Daughter of Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant. Although her parentage was well known in Bloomsbury circles, she did not learn that Clive Bell was not her father until she was nineteen. She spent her childhood at Charleston and in the South of France and went on to become an actress and artist, collaborating with Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant on the murals for Berwick Church. Much to her parents horror, she married David Garnett, her father's former lover, in 1942.

Reviews

[Alwynne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Angelica Garnett’s award-winning autobiography took her seven years to write. Still best known as the daughter of artists Vanessa (Nessa) Bell and Duncan Grant, and niece of writer Virginia Woolf, in her early twenties Garnett scandalised her family by marrying David (Bunny) Garnett who was more than twice her age. But the issue was less to do with their age gap as it was Bunny’s history. It was only later that Garnett uncovered the truth. Bunny had not only been present when she was born and famously announced his intention to marry her, but had also been her father’s lover with a record of failed attempts to seduce her mother Nessa. When Garnett finally set out to chronicle her experiences she was already separated from Bunny and her mother was long dead, but it was only after Duncan’s death that she finally felt free to confront her childhood memories.

Garnett’s book is a curious one. On one level it's a highly-conventional memoir packed with vivid images of everyday life at Nessa’s homes in Charleston and Bloomsbury. But these recollections are interwoven with a form of therapeutic outpouring – albeit an oddly inhibited one – a means of laying the ghosts of the past associated with Nessa, an approach inspired by Garnett’s encounter with Freudian psychology. Although, by the end I was still unclear about the exact nature of Garnett’s deep-seated conflict with Nessa. There is, of course, the obvious, massive betrayal: Nessa only told Garnett who her actual birth father was when Garnett was 17. Until then Garnett had lived with Nessa and Duncan believing Nessa’s husband Clive Bell was her father, and Duncan a distant yet glamorous household figure. Someone who stirred an unspecified attraction that perhaps intensified Garnett’s sense of shock when the truth was revealed. Yet it’s not that betrayal that seems to haunt Garnett the most, it’s a more amorphous notion of Nessa as sombre and oppressive, clinging to each of her children like a limpet. At the same time the portrait Garnett paints of their relationship is rather more distanced. Garnett is brought up - rather like a traditional Victorian, upper-class child – by a succession of nurses only briefly deposited with her mother for tea or other pastimes, then later leaves for boarding school. This disconnect made me feel as if I were trying to piece together a puzzle missing several of its key pieces. Although to be fair Garnett’s afterword suggests she also felt as if her explorations never quite took her where she’d hoped to go.

Garnett, who comes across as equal parts diffident and arrogant, was clearly disturbed by her underlying emotions about Nessa and Duncan. Although the charming but oblivious Duncan seems to have managed to escape any material responsibilities for his daughter or indeed anyone, or anything, else around him, resting instead on his position as an artist whose work must always come first. More than once, Garnett refers to him as extraordinarily serene and no wonder. However, with the exception of her daughters, Garnett seems to be ambivalent about most of the people she knew growing up. The early sections of her work focus on a retelling of the story of Nessa and Virginia’s early lives, which moves between explicit speculation and a strange sense of certainty about things that Garnett couldn’t possibly be certain about: a prime example is her representation of the intimate dynamic between Nessa and Virginia - with Virginia playing the role of manipulative, perpetual psychological burden. An impression that’s then undercut by subsequent revelations about Nessa’s own mental health struggles coupled with various accounts of her supposed everyday inadequacies. This emphasis on Nessa and Virginia’s failings is, in turn, countered by sudden bursts of enthusiasm for both of them.

Garnett’s prose is fluid and really springs to life in her numerous depictions of nature from the gardens at Charleston to the grounds of Clive Bell’s Downton-like family estate. As an insight into the domestic habits of members of the Bloomsbury circle I found it fascinating but it was also a potent reminder of the near-impossibility of reliably uncovering absolute, psychological ‘truths’ – the reason perhaps that Garnett kept returning to scenes from Bloomsbury in her future writings.

[Beth Bonini · Rating 4 out of 5]

Initially, I rated this book three stars, but I have revised it upwards to four stars on my second reading.

A well-written, compelling book . . . and yet.
Angelica Garnett describes Bloomsbury and Charleston from an insider's point of view, and yet I felt that the story had such a strong personal slant -- that I was none the wiser about what Duncan Grant or Vanessa Bell (the writer's parents) were really like. She doesn't whine exactly, and you couldn't say she was self-pitying, and yet there is still the strong sense of damage . . .and of an emotional axe to grind. It feels like you are looking through a very small and distorted keyhole.

Reread at the beginning of May 2016.
It's always interesting to reread a book. I reread this one in anticipation of my first visit to Charleston - the home that Angelica Garnett was raised in along with Vanessa Bell (her mother), Clive Bell (her putative father), Duncan Grant (her biological father) and her older half-brothers Julian and Quentin. Angelica describes a childhood that was charmed in many ways: she was the little doted-upon princess at the heart of an artistic and literary world. But she suffered from unusual privations, too. Her education was erratic; she was both spoiled and smothered; and the secret of her real father was kept from her until she was 18. In her words, instead of having two fathers it felt more that she had none. Even worse, in my opinion, she ended up marrying David 'Bunny' Garnett when she was 21 and he was 48. He had been her father's lover for several years, and had also had a complicated emotional relationship with her mother. Without understanding the context of the Bloomsbury values, it is difficult to understand how such a marriage ever occurred - but it did, and Angelica finally broke away from it after 25 years of marriage. She has written this memoir in middle age, at a period of time when she is really coming to terms with her childhood ghosts and the complex psycho-drama of her life. Despite the fine writing, and sometimes tender reminiscences, a tone of bitterness often breaks through.

I'm not sure why, but on second reading, I definitely felt more compassion for the author - and more admiration for the spirit of her project.

[Stuart Macalpine · Rating 3 out of 5]

At home with the Bloomsbury Group, and slightly limited by a child's perspective, the memoir is useful ground work for exploring Bloomsbury texts and art. Duncan Grant comes out well - and as I lived next to his childhood holiday home, between Aviemore and Kincraig in Scotland - then I obviously found it a pleasure. The Grant family themselves are fascinating - everything from 'Memoirs of a Highland Lady' to Grant's Whiskey made by the other half of the family who founded Granton-On-Spey.

Having read Mr. Garnett's Lady into Fox, and Woolf's Orlando in which Angelica appears as the photo of the Russian Princess 'Sasha' who is described as a 'fox', you can't help noticing that something utterly bizarre happened at Angelica's birth.... it goes something like this...

'Bunny' Garnett was the homosexual lover of Duncan Grant. Duncan Grant had a sexual liaison with Vanessa Bell, who was married to his friend Clive Bell. When the child was born, apparently, Bunny declared he would marry her when she was an adult. When Angelica was 7, Bunny wrote a book about a wife changing into a fox, having an illegitimate child with another fox, and calling it Angelica; the husband then 'loves' the baby fox instead.

If that isn't weird enough, Virginia Woolf, when she modeled Sasha on the child Angelica in 1928 when Angelica was 10, calls Sasha a Russian 'fox' in the text of Orlando. She must have read Garnett's book and understood the reference.

Then... Bunny (rabbit hunted by foxes) did go and marry Angelica when she emerged from her teens. If this happened in more recent terms, then phrases like 'taken into care' and '10 to 15 years' would come to mind. They were a crazy lot those Bloomsbury types.

[Alexa.elam · Rating 2 out of 5]

Written after years of psychotherapy, and after discovering that her husband had once been her father's lover, this is an interesting book, though I do not highly reccommend it. I think my own interest in the book stems from the fact that I have read so much about her family and their coterie-- for avid Bloomsburyist only.

[Kirsten · Rating 4 out of 5]

A vivid picture of the Bloomsbury group from the point of view of someone raised in it from childhood (though Angelica was a casualty of her parents' dedication to art and to themselves before all else). She brings everyone to life.

"Of Lytton [Strachey] I remember little--he was for me hardly more than a pair of dark brown eyes magnified by glasses, kindly, but so intensely reflective that communication was almost out of the question."

"Virginia poured out tea, not as Vanessa did, with a careful, steady hand, but waving the teapot to and fro as she talked, to emphasize her meaning."

And this from the beginning:
"In the passage at Charleston I had hung some photographs of my grandmother, Julia Jackson, taken by my great-great aunt, Julia Margaret Cameron. As I looked at them I became conscious of an inheritance not only of genes but also of feelings and habits of mind which, like motes of dust spiralling downwards, settle on the most recent generation."

[Hella · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dentro il Bloomsbury Group, a contatto con Vanessa Bell, Virginia Woolf e tutti gli affascinanti personaggi intorno a loro... un sogno per me.
Angelica Garnett, figlia di Vanessa, quel sogno l'ha vissuto, e qui lo rivive e ce lo fa vivere.
Memoir meraviglioso.

[Hon Lady Selene · Rating 4 out of 5]

When Angelica was born, Bunny Garnett had written to Lytton Strachey saying of the baby: "Its beauty is the remarkable thing … I think of marrying it; when she is 20 I shall be 46 – will it be scandalous?"

It was.

[Sylvie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is memoir as exorcism.

“...it represents nothing so much as an emergence from the dark into the light.” Epilogue

Angelica Garnett spent seven years writing this memoir, working through the emotions of her childhood and subsequent marriage, in the hope of extricating herself from their strong grip. Some novelists find writing about loss or the story of a parent therapeutic, which does not always work. In Angelica’s case, she reveals feelings and failings, good and bad, in a remarkably candid and perceptive way. She does not spare herself. Some may call it self pity, and indeed she acknowledges the existence of the Stephens gene of self pity. I call it facing reality as she saw it – a tool for survival in her case, though unfortunately her aunt Virginia did not get rid of her demons. Virginia saw life as it was in the raw, and her vision was exacerbated by the war and her nephew Julian's death. Read about Septimus in Mrs Dalloway.

As is well known, Virginia put stones in her pockets and walked into the river. Here is what Angelica writes:

“Leonard, white from exhaustion, though as always objective and dispassionate, sat in the drawing room and told us how they had found her body in the river that Juliian had loved and where I could remember a dolphin that had once tempted Virginia down to the bank to stand beside us, watching its strange and lovely antics.”
Angelica never forgot her aunt's intense response to the natural world.

Angelica managed to order and resurrect her complex thoughts in the face of the tangled relationships of her parents and their entourage. It makes me almost understand why people in society feel the need for taboos and rules, and why they impose them. It does away with, or at least contains, the messiness of love and sex.

Her mother Vanessa she considered already old. Later came the shock of being told that Duncan Grant was her father, not Clive Bell, Vanessa’s husband.. Duncan was already in the ménage à trois, and Vanessa had long ceased to be sexually attracted to Clive. Clive was a womaniser, as was Duncan. Weren’t they all? Bunny Garnett, too, a friend of the family, whom Angelica married when she was just 19. She had four children before she finally left him. He was considerably older, a father figure who tried to mould her according to his needs. She learnt he had been her father Duncan’s lover, and had also once made advances to Vanessa, which she had rejected. All these emotions, jealousy, love rivalry went into the mix.

It was interesting for me in many ways. She is a shrewd and fair judge of character. The portraits of Leonard Woolf, the Stracheys, Roger Fry and everyone she gets to know are vivid, and tie in with what we have learnt from other sources. She recalls incidents and her surroundings, even those from an early age.

Virginia gave Angelica an allowance, which she often forgot to bring with her:

“...(she) had to ask Leonard to pay me by cheque. It was a little like extracting water from a stone.. Although Leonard did not protest, he went through the process of finding and putting on spectacles, which made him look like a nanging judge, plunging his hand into some inner pocket to draw out his cheque book, then his pen, from which he uscrewed the cap with some difficulty, and finally writing and signing the cheque with a trembling hand in complete silence – all of which seemed a test of endurance. In the end he handed it over to me with a half smile, like the flash of a needle under water. “

During the winter of the war, Angelica meets a young German, Eribert and invites him to her birthday party. Bunny treats her to an outburst of devastating jealousy. At the party, Eribert must have been totally bewildered by that unconventional household in a strange country with hardly any knowledge of the language:

“he found himself in a situation rather like that of Le Grand Meaulnes, in a remote farmhouse full of people of all ages in evening dress, intimate and familiar, related to one another in ways that to him were a mystery. People’s manners were free and easy, they were out to enjoy themselves, there was a defiant abundance of food and drink, and afterwards music and dancing. Every time Clive addressed Eribert, he rose to his feet, clicked heels together and saluted.”

I have long been and still am an admirer of Virginia Woolf. I absolutely loved Charleston farmhouse when I visited it many years ago. Angelica’s writing recalls a lost world, albeit a disturbing one when viewed more closely. Art and painting were paramount in their lives, writing, in Virginia’s case. The demands of sex, of life itself were resisted and indulged equally, creating tensions. For me, the tangle of emotions, the messiness, Vanessa's laisser-faire, Virginia’s astute and perceptivel observations (thought by some to be cruel), are not as important as the works the gifted sisters produced. Reading about their lives does not detract from the paintings, the wonderful Charleston, the novels. I dislike it when they are all lumped together and labelled as “Bloomsbury”, as if it’s a term of abuse. They had to belong somewhere, just like everybody else; they had to have friends and a way of life. That way of life damaged Angelica, yet who knows if she might not have suffered equally under a less relaxed, less indulgent regimen. In any case, she survived emotionally to recreate compassionate portraits and a milieu that still fascinates..

[Myriam · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘Neither of them could tell us what they felt, partly because they were not prepared to put all their cards on the table, but also because Vanessa, in trying to protect first Duncan and then myself, only succeeded in preventing us from understanding each other.’

[Marica · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un vialetto di ghiaia nelle scarpe
Non è il tipo di libro che avrei letto, perché le vite degli artisti sono spesso deludenti rispetto alle opere e l’autrice è nipote di Virginia Woolf. L’ho letto perché me l’ha messo in mano un’amica e comunque è risultato piacevole, venato di colori e di un involontario umorismo. La protagonista non ha avuto una vita felice e come molti, in questi casi, va a cercarne le ragioni fuori da sé, in particolare le attribuisce alla madre. La madre Vanessa Bell era una pittrice post-impressionista, le cui opere sono nei principali musei londinesi. Qualche volta il libro, con le dovute differenze, ricorda Beautiful: la madre le ha nascosto chi era il padre biologico, non Clive ma Duncan. Non per biechi motivi di interesse, ma per non dare un dispiacere ai suoceri. Non cambiava molto, tanto sia Clive che Duncan erano sempre fra i piedi e in campagna c’era posto per tutti. Però si sentiva in colpa e quindi l’ha allevata con la massima dolcezza, sottraendola a ogni confronto stressante, impedendole così di sviluppare la propria personalità. Probabilmente vero, tuttavia l’amatissimo fratello Julian è morto nella guerra di Spagna e la zia Virginia gestiva una casa editrice e ha scritto, fra le altre opere, Una stanza tutta per sé; il fratello Quentin è stato un brillante critico letterario e scrittore divertentissimo. Il sospetto di una scarsa intraprendenza e di una tendenza all’autocommiserazione si presenta, fra un tè e una fetta d’arrosto.
La mamma era possessiva e non incoraggiava i suoi studi: però fra le righe le faceva studiare francese e italiano, violino e pianoforte, inoltre pittura e letteratura erano l’argomento della vita quotidiana. La colpa più grossa, non averle impedito di sposare Bunny, che era stato amante di entrambi i genitori, Vanessa e Duncan e presente alla nascita. Anche con Bunny, grossi contrasti, poiché aveva approfittato della sua giovane età e l’aveva schiacciata col suo sentimentalismo. La madre invece aveva difficoltà a esprimere i suoi sentimenti, il padre biologico era infantile, quello nominale sarebbe stato valido ma artisticamente non all’altezza. La zia Virginia era bisognosa d’affetto, brillante da oscurare il faro del libro omonimo, vicina, trasandata, regale, generosa, un po’ pazza ma senza disturbare, non lei almeno. Lo zio Leonard era ebreo ma puritano, severo, di onestà cristallina.
Si potrebbe intitolare anche “Poteva andare peggio” o “Autobiografia di un’ingrata smidollata”. Sono di parte, lo so.

[Wendy]

From a review by Tiffin on LibraryReads: "The book ... sheds light into certain corners of Virginia Woolf’s personality, Vanessa Bell and the lives of the whole Bloomsbury group. But that illumination is incidental to the real purpose of the book: a deeply introspective look by an individual at what has shaped them to be the person they have ended up being. An interesting read."

[Marieinsweden · Rating 3 out of 5]

Författaren var dotter till målarna Vanessa Bell och Duncan Grant, så mycket intressant om Bloomsburygruppen. Hade jag läst den innan jag såg tv-serien Life in Squares hade jag nog uppskattat serien mer. #jagnärmarmigvirginiawoolf

[Jonathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Slim but well-observed autobiography of Vanessa Bell's daughter, each chapter focussing on her life with a relative/central member of the Bloomsbury set. Not much in the way of revelations, but some nice details that would get left out of a more conventional biography.

[Federica Volpera · Rating 4 out of 5]

Il mondo di Bloomsbury tratteggiato da un insolito punto di vista. Mirabile il ritratto di Virginia Woolf che le parole di Angelica Garnett sanno disegnare.

" ...critiche, domande e scherzi sgorgavano liberamente e ci trovavamo trasportati nel regno della sua immaginazione, di fronte a una mente compatta e accuminata come l'ossidiana".

"Il verde era il colore preferito di Virginia: una pera di cristallo verde stava sul tavolo della sala da pranzo, simbolo della sua
personalità ".

"Trasandata, in disordine, i capelli da cui sfuggivano le ciocche, le dita macchiate di nicotina, se ne infischiava completamente del proprio aspetto, ma per qualche strana bizzarria del fato, appariva sempre raffinata ed elegante".

"Avvertivo in lei una forza e un coraggio che resistevano a tutte le prove e trasparivano dietro i suoi scherzi e le sue risate".

[Marjet · Rating 4 out of 5]

Deceived with kindness van Angelica Garnett is een auto-biografisch verhaal over haar jeugd als dochter van Vanessa Bell en Duncan Grant, de twee beroemde schilders en leden van the Bloomsbury group aan het begin van de vorige eeuw in Engeland.
Tot haar achttiende wist Angelica niet beter dan dat dat Clive Bell haar vader was, Vanessa was immers met hem getrouwd en hij was de vader van haar zoons Julian en Quentin.
De vrijheid van opvatting die de ouders hadden over relaties en seks, ook met seksegenoten, heeft niet altijd bijgedragen tot de openhartigheid van het uiten van gevoelens. Behalve dat iedereen op de hoogte was dat Duncan Grant Angelica's vader was, heeft Vanessa Angelica kennelijk willen beschermen, en daarmee onherstelbare schade aangericht. Toen Vanessa haar dochter de waarheid vertelde, kwam de vader-dochter relatie die Angelica meende te hebben met Clive onder grote druk te staan, net als de vriendschappelijke relatie met Duncan, die opeens haar vader bleek te zijn.

Psychologisch vind ik dit een zeer boeiend gegeven, temeer omdat Angelica trouwde met de veel oudere Bunny Garnett, een intieme vriend van haar ouders en ex-lover van Duncan. In hem zocht ze een vaderfiguur, helaas mislukte dit huwelijk en beiden, Angelica en Bunny, werden diepongelukkig, hoewel ze met hem vier dochters kreeg.
Angelica heeft zeven jaar over dit auto-biografisch schrijven gedaan, de psychologische ontleding van haar moeder, haar tante, Virginia Woolf en andere beroemde figuren uit die tijd zijn scherp en feilloos, ze heeft haar jeugd kunnen verwerken en afstand kunnen nemen van haar bijzondere moeder om gelukkiger te worden.

[Gisela Hafezparast · Rating 2 out of 5]

Quite disappointing. Left me with a clear dislike for the Bloomsbury lot, although I love a lot of their paintings. I live very neer Charlston and it is a beautiful place, where if you grew up there and/or where able to do what you liked best in the company of those you loved you were a very lucky person. From this book (although I came to greatly sympathise with Angelica once she found herself in the clutches of her clearly horrible husband) I came away with the feeling that at a time when most of the UK population and indeed in the world, they lived a very priviliged and life, so all the snobberies and looking down on servants, is for me, hard to take.

[Belinda · Rating 2 out of 5]

What a self absorbed woman Angelica grew up to be. Getting to old age and still bemoaning your childhood, which was bohemian but privileged, just annoyed me. I constantly felt like tracking the woman down, shaking her and saying "Grow up!"

[teresa]

Reading as part of my interest in the Bloomsbury group, specifically Vanessa Bell, the sister of Virginia Woolf. This is a book by Vanessa's daughter.

[Annie Garvey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Heartfelt, but whiny

[Josephine Ensign · Rating 1 out of 5]

A bitter and vengeful memoir that was quite boring in large sections.

[Benjamin Kahn · Rating 2 out of 5]

It feels a little harsh to read someone's life story and find it wanting, but there was a lot of this book that I found boring. Garnett spends a lot of time chronicling her youth with very detailed descriptions of the nature she encountered, childish games she played, places they visited, etc. All of this was very dull. I'm also not really that familiar with the Bloomsbury Group - the first time I ever heard of them was when I watched the movie Carrington, and I've never heard of any of them beyond Virginia Woolf, Maynard Keynes (and E. M. Forster, who is not mentioned in this book). So there might have been a layer of watching celebrities in their private lives that was lost on me by my lack of familiarity.

I found the last couple of chapters the most interesting, although some of it was a little frustrating. The chapter on Bunny's courtship and marrying her was rather horrifying. Garnett never really addressed any of the issues she had with those that surrounded her. So there is a lot of regret, a lot of talk about how if she had spoken to some of the people that surrounded her, things might have been different. How she never acknowledged to Duncan that he was her real father ; that she never addressed with Clive that although he wasn't her biological father, he still occupied that place for her ; or that she and Vanessa were never able to talk about the issues that separated them. So there's a lot of regret.

And she also has to then make major assumptions about people's motivations. She talks a lot about why people acted the way they did, and what they were thinking, but it's all supposition as she never had the conversations with them or their contemporaries to try to figure out what happened. So one gets the feeling that she's grasping in the dark to try to understand why things were allowed to happen the way they did.

There is some interesting discussion of how she was overwhelmed by the strength of Bunny's personality, and how she found joy in her daughters but also how being so quickly thrust into the role of mother and wife stunted her development and prolonged her immaturity. There is also a great sadness here, that her life wasn't allowed to develop or take the paths it might've if she hadn't married so young, if she had been challenged or allowed to be challenged in school, if she had been given a little more guidance and discipline. A lot of regrets at paths not taken.

Although I sympathize with her, and I feel badly for her, there was too much wading through days of idyllic youth for me to rate this book any higher than I did.

[Ann · Rating 2 out of 5]

A memoir, or rather, an analysis, by Angelica Garnett, a prominent member of the second-generation of the Bloomsbury group. I say "analysis", because from the very first pages on, I noticed expressions like "to explore my relationship with my mother" and "the influence of her personality" that made me think there was some psychoanalytical influence. Sure enough, in the epilogue, the author stated that the works of Karen Horney made a big impression on her. So that explained the strange idiom that the author used to describe her life, and her interactions with the Bloomsbury group.

The dramatis personae : Vanessa Bell, her former lover and lifelong friend and house-mate Duncan Grant, Clive Bell (Vanessa's husband, now more of a devoted friend), and "Bunny" Garnett. Pay attention now, because the relationships become complicated. Vanessa wanted to bind Duncan to her by having his child. This happened, and the child was Angelica. But to save appearances, and because the carefree Duncan Grant was not interested in fatherhood, Angelica was presented to the world as the biological child of Clive Bell, Vanessa's legal husband. In the meantime, Duncan, who was more homosexual than bisexual, has started a relationship with Bunny Garrett. After this episode is done, Bunny, who is more heterosexual than bisexual, gets married and has children. When Angelica is in her teens, Bunny starts to show romantic interest in her, and sure enough, the two get married and eventually have 4 daughters. So, to summarize : Angelica married the man who had slept with her father and had hoped to sleep with her mother but was rejected. Is it any wonder that, in retrospect at least, she doubted his motives for his interest in her ? As if this Gordian knot of relationships wasn't bad enough, there are some serious losses in this family, most notably the suicide of Virginia Woolf (Angelica's cousin) and the death of Julian (Angelica's half-brother) during the Spanish Civil War.

One would be psychologically messed up for less, and one of the book's themes is that of Angelica feeling different, inadequate, incompetent, unable to reach the people she loves. But the main reason why the book left me cold is not that it's depressing, but that it's essentially a long attempt at analyzing the characters and motivations of everyone in Angelica's life. This can lead to strange juxtapositions - how can one be at the same time "intimate" and "detached"? - and I kept on thinking "yes, but how do you know that?" whenever Angelica ascribed a motivation to one or other of her family members. So all in all... rather boring and dated.

[Judith Rich · Rating 2 out of 5]

Slightly whiny autobiography of the daughter of Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant (and therefore niece to Virginia Woolf), who spent the first 19 years of her life thinking her father was Clive Bell, Vanessa's husband, rather than the bisexual Grant, who mostly had affairs with men.

My problem was that she kept saying her relationship with her mother was difficult, but what she wrote didn't describe it as such. She had an unconventional but privileged childhood, and was actually rather cosseted and spoilt, to the point her mother enabled her to give up subjects she didn't like at school and then got her out of taking the equivalent of GCSEs. She says this wasn't good for her (fair enough), but I never really felt I was reading about a "difficult" relationship. She seems to criticise her mother for not talking more about her feelings, and her father and stepfather for not "reaching out" more, but who in their generation did? I can't imagine my grandmother or great-aunts discussing their feelings with their children.

I didn't feel Vanessa, Clive or Duncan Grant came out of this too badly. The person who does, whether or not she intends him to, is David "Bunny" Garnett, who comes across as petty and vengeful, and a dirty old man. His pursuit of Angelica (having previously been her father's lover and turned down by her mother) is really creepy.

[S.C. Skillman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a powerful, poignant and often disturbing account of the family life and relationships of Angelica Garnett, daughter of Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant. I bought the book during a recent visit to Charleston, "home of the Bloomsbury group" in Sussex, where Vanessa (Virginia Woolf's sister) set up her menage a trois with Duncan Grant and David Garnett in 1916. During the early part of Angelica's story, I felt slightly uncomfortable and disturbed at Angelica's meticulous analysis and started almost to feel sorry for Vanessa, the subject of her observations. But then as her account became ever more insightful, the feeling of the reader is 'how painfully sad and intense some of this is.' This effect was heightened for me because I have so recently been in Charleston and can call to mind in vivid details the rooms in which Angelica describes certain conversations taking place. At times melancholic and mournful, this account also arouses feelings of strong anger at David Garnett's behaviour in particular, and a sense of pity at this family's inability to share their feelings or communicate important things, in time to prevent tragic life choices.

[Jane · Rating 2 out of 5]

I bought this whilst at Charleston Farmhouse the setting for some of this book. I wanted it to be much more exploratory of emotions and descriptively rich to match the decorative features of Charleston. There were parts that lived up to this. But other parts were little more than “What I did on my holiday” style writing. With little depth or passion.

I’m sure the writing of it was very cathartic. But it didn’t add a lot to my understanding of the life that was had at Charleston. About how you grow up split between London and Sussex. About how it feels to discover that your father isn’t the man you thought he was. Or what it is like to discover that your husband was rejected as a bed-fellow for your Mother, but not by your birth Father. I wanted to feel empathy, to gain an understanding into what must have been an extraordinary childhood/adulthood.

[Mike Reed · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully written memoir, brilliantly conjuring both a lost period (primarily the pre-war 1930s) and life in a group who seem almost like caricatures of “bohemian artists” on the surface. Garnett makes these extraordinary people vivid and complex and all-too human. Her language is precise and lucid, often sharply funny, equally often devastating. That she wrote about the events at (for the most part) almost 50 years’ remove makes their freshness and clarity even more remarkable. Of course, as she admits, no autobiography can be objective. But you feel you get to know these characters and their flaws intimately through Garnett’s eyes – as well as understanding the lens of those eyes themselves. Superb

[Pip Tlaskal · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very easy book to be absorbed in with hints of Laurie Lee and Gerald Durrell as she describes her protected yet extraordinary childhood in the countryside, London and abroad. Virginia Woolf was in charge of her 'clothing allowance' of 15 pounds per quarter. At the heart of it is sadness at her perceived inadequacy and her strained relationship with her mother. This book digs out the richness that was definitely there and happily, she seems to have had the last laugh by being a great mother to her own brood of children. An interesting psychological peep into the edges of the Bloomsbury world.

[Ruth Brumby · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting to read more about the Bloomsbury group and with some good writing, especially where she is recounting her own memories. The style of narrator as objective and knowledgeable does not come across well especially in the context of more contemporary memoir writing such as marina Warner's 'unreliable memoir' and when Angelica Garnett mentions that one can never really know.
The fact that she is self obsessed and still rather teenagerish may be accounted for by her experiences but still doesn't make for good reading. The claustrophobia of her environment comes across, but I am left thinking that one might not want to read this book if it didn't have famous connections.

[Diem · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you've found your way to this title it's probably because you have some interest in the Bloomsbury Group. This is a worthy addition to your research but it's real contribution to literature is as a study in a adult daughter coming to terms with her unconventional upbringing. It isn't always an easy read because the author can come across as lacking compassion, ungrateful, self-centered...unless you understand that these are all necessary stops on the way to what she calls "understanding." Seen from that lens everything written becomes clear and being along on the journey very gratifying.

The writing can get a bit wordy for my specific preference but soldier on.

[ReadingwhileWalking · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting and valuable perspective from the daughter of Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant on the whole Bloomsbury phenomenon but tragically, Angelica isn't quite able to call a spade a spade (or sexual abuse, sexual abuse) when it comes to her marriage to David Garnett, her mother's old friend, and father's ex lover, who seduced her while still in her teens. Why her parents did not tell her their concerns, worries and past histories when it might still have saved her is a hard thing to forgive. When she wrote this book, Angelica still had some working out to do.