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Silver River
‘Other children had imaginary friends; I had a fictional mother, a siren from the southern hemisphere.’
Daisy Goodwin’s mother left home when Daisy was five and embarked upon a bohemian life in Swanage. Daisy was brought up by her respectable father and her meticulous German stepmother and adored her glamorous mother from afar. She made sense of her mother’s difference and of her absence through her imaginings about the family’s unstable South American history. It was only when Daisy underwent a deep depression following the birth of her own daughter, that she felt the weight of her mother’s abandonment and the burden of her family’s past take root in her own life.
Daisy’s family, on her mother’s side, is as eccentric and wayward as any family could be. Her Irish forebears – a Catholic and a Protestant – were driven from their southern Irish home and emigrated to Argentina. Their history there is one of vast wealth rapidly acquired and just as rapidly lost, of gambling, of horses, of suicides and breakdowns, of isolation in the bleak expanses of the Pampas and of the heights of high society. In this extraordinary memoir, the contrasts between Argentina and England serve as a metaphor for the clashes in the author’s life, caught between two parents, two countries and two cultures. Intensely personal, funny and unsentimental, ‘Silver River’ explores universal questions about families, identity and growing up in a way that has never been done before.
Daisy Goodwin’s mother left home when Daisy was five and embarked upon a bohemian life in Swanage. Daisy was brought up by her respectable father and her meticulous German stepmother and adored her glamorous mother from afar. She made sense of her mother’s difference and of her absence through her imaginings about the family’s unstable South American history. It was only when Daisy underwent a deep depression following the birth of her own daughter, that she felt the weight of her mother’s abandonment and the burden of her family’s past take root in her own life.
Daisy’s family, on her mother’s side, is as eccentric and wayward as any family could be. Her Irish forebears – a Catholic and a Protestant – were driven from their southern Irish home and emigrated to Argentina. Their history there is one of vast wealth rapidly acquired and just as rapidly lost, of gambling, of horses, of suicides and breakdowns, of isolation in the bleak expanses of the Pampas and of the heights of high society. In this extraordinary memoir, the contrasts between Argentina and England serve as a metaphor for the clashes in the author’s life, caught between two parents, two countries and two cultures. Intensely personal, funny and unsentimental, ‘Silver River’ explores universal questions about families, identity and growing up in a way that has never been done before.
256 pages, Paperback
First published September 17, 2007
About the author
Daisy Goodwin
32 books2,255 followersDAISY GOODWIN, a Harkness scholar who attended Columbia University’s film school after earning a degree in history at Cambridge University, is a leading television producer in the U.K. Her poetry anthologies, including 101 Poems That Could Save Your Life, have introduced many new readers to the pleasures of poetry, and she was Chair of the judging panel of the 2010 Orange Prize for Fiction. That was the year she published her first novel the American Heiress ( My Last Duchess in UK) , followed by The Fortune Hunter and now Victoria. She has also created VICTORIA the PBS/ITV series which starts in January. She has three dogs, two dogs, and one husband.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
October 15, 2012
I love books like these - books that combine history with travel and fire up your own imagination for *that* trip you need to make some day. My own 'some-day trip' is to follow in the footsteps of distant rellies who went out to Patagonia (and back. Twice.) in the late 1800s and this book was perfect inspiration. It is an engaging read and evokes both landscape and familial ties beautifully.
January 10, 2015
An interesting book and probably not one I would have chosen myself. Some wonderful character portraits- the stepfather and the Reverend Skull among them. Quite understandable how the isolation of the pampas destroyed people. Ultimately what a destructive way to live.
October 15, 2013
Not as expected -_-'
June 12, 2020
I started this a few weeks ago and I've got to say it was an ordeal to struggle through. It failed to hold my attention and I now hate these kind of diary type tales. It put me off visiting Argentina and the description of a polo match bored me. Not for me.
June 18, 2020
Interesting - I liked the weaving of the modern with the partially hypothetical past, and Goodwin has great empathy with everyone and self-awareness that paints her family with fair, nuanced strokes. A little too ‘grand destiny’ for me, but I suppose that’s the point.
July 16, 2012
This was moving and sometimes funny. Worth reading.
September 3, 2012
Enjoyed the first 1/2 of book which had some human inteest. Then became bored with history lesson and just little snippets of information loosely connected with Argentina. Just not my style of book
June 3, 2014
Just not good!!
I was really disappointed in this as I love Daisy's fiction. I couldn't bring myself to event finish it (entirely out of character for me when I've read half a book). Sorry Daisy!
I was really disappointed in this as I love Daisy's fiction. I couldn't bring myself to event finish it (entirely out of character for me when I've read half a book). Sorry Daisy!
February 29, 2016
gave up as couldn't get into it.
January 22, 2015
I enjoyed this better than i expected. I had not realised it was a memoir rather than fiction.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews