Home Life Book Four

Home Life #4

by Alice Thomas Ellis

In this fourth and final volume of a year's worth of "Home Life" taken from the "Spectator", the author continues to ponder on the exigencies of modern life in town and country while weaving her way among broken-down tumble driers, orphan toothbrushes, queasy cats and other household encumbrances.

Genres: Essays, Nonfiction

176 pages, Paperback

First published December 31, 1989

About the author

Alice Thomas Ellis was short-listed for the Booker prize for The 27th Kingdom. She is the author of A Welsh Childhood (autobiography), Fairy Tale and several other novels including The Summerhouse Trilogy, made into a movie starring Jeanne Moreau and Joan Plowright.

Reviews

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

(2.5) For four years, Ellis wrote a weekly “Home Life” column for the Spectator. Her informal pieces remind me of Caitlin Moran’s 2000s writing for the Times – what today might form the kernel of a mums’ blog. In short, we have a harried mother of five trying to get writing done while maintaining a household – but given she has homes in London and Wales AND a housekeeper, and that her biggest problems include buying new carpet and being stuck in traffic, it’s hard to work up much sympathy. These days we’d say, Check your privilege.

The sardonic complaining rubbed me the wrong way, especially when the subject was not finding anything she wanted to read even though she’d just shipped four boxes of extraneous books off to her country house, or using noxious sprays to get rid of one harmless fly, or a buildup of rubbish bags because they’d been “tidying.” These essays feel of their time for the glib attitude and complacent consumerism. It’s rather a shame they served as my introduction to Ellis, but I think I’d still give her fiction a try.

Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.

[Jean Bowen · Rating 4 out of 5]

The last of the home life series. I feel like a good friend has moved away and while life isn't horrible, it will never quite be the same again. I ordered some of her fiction to fill the void.