Paper Houses

by Michèle Roberts

'Paper Houses' is the memoir of a young woman who comes down from Oxford to London in 1970, determined to break free from a conventional middle-class, close-knit family. In the streets and houses of a dynamic, shifting London she finds alternative homes, alternative families and friendships that challenge, inform and shape her.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Biography

352 pages, Hardcover

First published June 7, 2007

About the author

Michèle Brigitte Roberts is the author of fifteen novels, including Ignorance which was nominated for the Women's Prize for Fiction and Daughters of the House which won the W.H. Smith Literary Award and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Her memoir Paper Houses was BBC Radio 4's Book of the Week in June 2007. She has also published poetry and short stories, most recently collected in Mud: Stories of Sex and Love. Half-English and half-French, Roberts lives in London and in the Mayenne, France. She is Emeritus Professor of Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia.

Reviews

[Edwina · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this never having previously read any work by Michele Roberts and having heard her give a presentation. I was inspired by her creativity and search for life and meaning. This memoir can be read at many levels - its about friendship, houses, London streets, family relationships, growing up, catholicisim and sexual guilt, politics.
It also provides an essence of who Michele Roberts is/might be and therefore is also interesting from the point of view of people who want an insight into the creative and inner life of writers and the writing process.
Overall the book is powerful and thought provoking.

[Marina Sofia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Goodness, what an exciting life! There's richness and substance, flavour and colour a-plenty here, mentioning loves and friendships, rivalries and feminist art and literary projects. A woman after my own heart, you can't help but admire her single-minded focus on her writing, even though that meant many years of poverty, peripatetic house-moves in grotty accommodation, discouragement, growing apart from family. And I think her richly enumerative style, much like a feast in the South of France, is catching!

[Sull · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty good, brave, very honest bio. Extraodinary how MR was a fiesty bisexual feminist protester/communard/squatter wild child in the big city of London all through her 20's. Then she married a Consular type who took her away to live in foreign countries in her 30s and voila!...she morphed into a meek & frustrated housewife--cooking, cleaning & entertaining his Consulate contacts while she seethed inwardly. Did she leave him? Of course. Very interesting life story indeed.

[Kelly Somers · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked up a copy of this book at a Lynne segal talk, didn't know who Michele Roberts was, fifteen years later I've finally gotten round to reading it. Enthralling. I feel like I'm walking the streets of London with her. A memoir of place and places, the writing process, friendships and feminism, and finding a place of one's own. Brilliant.

[Kay · Rating 3 out of 5]

An exceptionally detailed memoir of her life, writing history, homes, politics, thoughts, and sexuality. It droned on a bit for me.

[Rosa · Rating 5 out of 5]

A stonking feminist memoir that brings to life London in the 70s; as a similar age to my mum I feel like they would have a lot to talk about. Great writing; fascinating detail.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this - didn't want it to finish. Roberts tells her life-story through the houses she's lived in - whether communes in South London, poky little flats or Italian villas owned by ex-husbands - and this housing history parallels her search for a literary home, as a young feminist poet and author. Interestingly, the novel of hers which I have most enjoyed - Daughters of the House - was written at a time of relatively stability and calm, which may explain its confident structure etc.