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The Durrells: The Story of a Family
A variously tragic tale of escapism and assimilation, Richard Bradford's The Durrells explores the truth behind the image.
The Durrells are probably the most celebrated literary family of the 20th century. Gerald turned them into celebrities with his tripartite memoir, beginning with My Family and Other Animals (1956) which told of his experiences with his widowed mother Louisa and three siblings during their time in 1930s Corfu. We know of the Durrells from their own writings and from the image of them created by TV, film and biographical accounts of specific figures. What we do not know is the truth.
Using previously unpublished material from the Jersey Archive, Richard Bradford unravels the lives of the famous four children of the Corfu era – Larry, Gerry, Margo and Lesli – as they find themselves geographically and emotionally divided amongst a backdrop of imperial decline and unrest. The children of moneyed colonialists, they were already used to being treated with aghast fascination by the island's locals, and by expatriate Britons as a disgrace to the homeland.
Yet their story goes beyond the Ionian Sea, and The Durrells delves into the complex social and political circumstances in which the family lived, with seemingly constant threats of war and endangerment to both themselves and their natural environment.
The Durrells are probably the most celebrated literary family of the 20th century. Gerald turned them into celebrities with his tripartite memoir, beginning with My Family and Other Animals (1956) which told of his experiences with his widowed mother Louisa and three siblings during their time in 1930s Corfu. We know of the Durrells from their own writings and from the image of them created by TV, film and biographical accounts of specific figures. What we do not know is the truth.
Using previously unpublished material from the Jersey Archive, Richard Bradford unravels the lives of the famous four children of the Corfu era – Larry, Gerry, Margo and Lesli – as they find themselves geographically and emotionally divided amongst a backdrop of imperial decline and unrest. The children of moneyed colonialists, they were already used to being treated with aghast fascination by the island's locals, and by expatriate Britons as a disgrace to the homeland.
Yet their story goes beyond the Ionian Sea, and The Durrells delves into the complex social and political circumstances in which the family lived, with seemingly constant threats of war and endangerment to both themselves and their natural environment.
- GenresHistory
382 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 5, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
August 10, 2025
I received a free copy of, The Durrells, by Richard Bradford, from the publisher and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. The Durrells: Lesli, Margo, Gerry, and Larry, come from old money, but they were not universally loved. I did not care for this book or these people, they were to arrogant for me.
October 7, 2025
At times a very academic book, over-written, especially its earlier sections. I was flummoxed as to why Richard Bradford would go to the effort to write a book about people he seemed to dislike? There are veiled and overt aspersions and negative judgements about the character and accomplishments of most members of this family throughout the book, and the veracity of these hinges on readers not having a clear view on Larry’s fiction, or reasons for Gerry’s despair. One that particularly stayed with me was a patronising reflection on why Louisa, their mother, would cook Indian food despite being in England. Apparently, she couldn’t “detach from the Raj” and the memory of her husband (p39). The woman was 42 when she went to England for the first time!!! Isn’t that reason enough for why she wasn’t “normal” enough to offer bangers & mash?!?! I mean, her normal was not English cuisine, obvs…
There’s a lot more like this.
The book potentially raises interesting questions about what to do with artistic outputs from scoundrels (Larry) - but instead of exploring this the author is intent on convincing us that really Larry’s books have no merit because, in brief, they’re elitist, dense and stem from an awful lot of amoral infidelity. We could chuck out an awful lot of canon, then.
This gets to the biggest gripe I had with this book, which is the relationship between experience and fiction. The fact that Gerry fictionalised the Corfu years for My Family and Other Animals is treated as a “gotcha!” finding. Is it? The book recounts Gerry’s boyhood years from when he was 10-14. This is prime childhood nostalgia period. Did Gerry ever claim it to be anything else? Larry’s serial philandering as the basis for his novels is treated with disdain, as if using personal experience as the basis for fiction were cheating, too. These Durrells can’t win. Bradford implies that there is a tension here - that there need to be clear demarcations between “real life” and “fiction”, where fuzziness between these is a failing, rather than the very source of creativity.
There were also some glaring errors, with Gerry and Larry mixed up in the text.
There’s a lot more like this.
The book potentially raises interesting questions about what to do with artistic outputs from scoundrels (Larry) - but instead of exploring this the author is intent on convincing us that really Larry’s books have no merit because, in brief, they’re elitist, dense and stem from an awful lot of amoral infidelity. We could chuck out an awful lot of canon, then.
This gets to the biggest gripe I had with this book, which is the relationship between experience and fiction. The fact that Gerry fictionalised the Corfu years for My Family and Other Animals is treated as a “gotcha!” finding. Is it? The book recounts Gerry’s boyhood years from when he was 10-14. This is prime childhood nostalgia period. Did Gerry ever claim it to be anything else? Larry’s serial philandering as the basis for his novels is treated with disdain, as if using personal experience as the basis for fiction were cheating, too. These Durrells can’t win. Bradford implies that there is a tension here - that there need to be clear demarcations between “real life” and “fiction”, where fuzziness between these is a failing, rather than the very source of creativity.
There were also some glaring errors, with Gerry and Larry mixed up in the text.
January 4, 2026
This isn't so much a biography of a family as it is a repetitive editorial by an author who clearly holds the people he was writing about in great contempt. How many times do we need to be told the mother is potrayed in Gerry's fiction as "batty" and sweet but she was actually a drunk? Or how poorly Larry wrote? The author spends an excessive amount of time trying to convey how terrible they were as people and writers. Frankly, the main takeaway I got was the author himself must be bitter and nasty. It is important to shine a light on the darker aspects of a biography's subjects, but this reads like an opionated hit piece by someone with an axe to grind. Did not finish.
February 12, 2026
The Durrells: The Story of a Family by Richard Bradford takes a probing and revisionist approach to one of the twentieth century’s most mythologized literary families. Rather than leaning into nostalgia shaped by memoirs and television adaptations, Bradford seeks to examine the more complex realities behind the celebrated image created by Gerald Durrell’s beloved accounts of life in Corfu.
Drawing on previously unpublished archival material, the book attempts to reposition the Durrell siblings Larry, Gerry, Margo, and Lesli within the broader historical forces of imperial decline, displacement, and social change. By situating the family within the tensions of colonial identity and interwar instability, Bradford aims to move beyond anecdote and charm toward a fuller understanding of their personal and cultural circumstances.
The biography’s strength lies in its effort to challenge accepted narratives. Instead of treating the Durrells as eccentric idyll-makers, it frames them as individuals shaped by upheaval, contradiction, and the shifting politics of empire. The Corfu years, often romanticized, are reexamined against a backdrop of economic fragility and looming global conflict, adding gravity to a story many readers know primarily through humor and affection.
Ultimately, The Durrells offers readers a more sober and analytical portrait of a family long defined by literary myth. It invites reconsideration of how personal storytelling, public memory, and historical context intertwine to shape enduring reputations.
Drawing on previously unpublished archival material, the book attempts to reposition the Durrell siblings Larry, Gerry, Margo, and Lesli within the broader historical forces of imperial decline, displacement, and social change. By situating the family within the tensions of colonial identity and interwar instability, Bradford aims to move beyond anecdote and charm toward a fuller understanding of their personal and cultural circumstances.
The biography’s strength lies in its effort to challenge accepted narratives. Instead of treating the Durrells as eccentric idyll-makers, it frames them as individuals shaped by upheaval, contradiction, and the shifting politics of empire. The Corfu years, often romanticized, are reexamined against a backdrop of economic fragility and looming global conflict, adding gravity to a story many readers know primarily through humor and affection.
Ultimately, The Durrells offers readers a more sober and analytical portrait of a family long defined by literary myth. It invites reconsideration of how personal storytelling, public memory, and historical context intertwine to shape enduring reputations.
July 31, 2025
A slightly odd, curate’s egg of a book. It is badged as “The story of a family” on the cover, with a poster style picture of a family idyll. It turns out largely to be about Larry and Gerry, which given they were both famous and copious writers with packed lives is in one way fair enough but why sell this as the story of a family when three out of the five are definitely relegated to second division? Margo, the sister, was also an author. Richard Bradford takes a dark view of his subjects despite the sunny cover- alcoholism, philandering, wife beating and even incest all feature in an account of golden lives gone wrong. He does not appear to like his subjects very much. Fair enough; they did much that was unlikeable. He also throughout states both Larry and Gerry made their supposedly factual accounts of their lives up. Not a revelation for My Family and Other animals, but did Gerry really make up his account of how he met his second wife? The book makes heavy reference to prior biographies, for example the Botting biography of Gerry. The small number of photos are of Larry and Gerry. All in all a missed opportunity to do what the book’s title promised - deliver a portrait of a family where the crucible of creativity - genetics, upbringing and crucially Corfu- was in common, but the subsequent lives lived were very different indeed.
December 16, 2025
Having loved Gerald Durrell's My Family and Other Animals and other memoirs, and the delightful TV series based on them, I was looking forward to learning more about the real Durrell family. I didn't expect them to be exactly like the television characters, in fact, I knew they were not. But I wasn't looking for an extended takedown of the family, either, which is what this book is. I do not understand how an author could dedicate years of his life and hours of research to a subject he so clearly holds in utter contempt. He appears to simply hate every member of this family and made it his life's work to expose them as liars, cheaters, misogynists, and drunks. It just got tiring and I didn't finish.
November 25, 2025
Very long winded book on the Durrell family. The focus primarily was on Larry and Gerry's life. The real story on the family was quite different than what was portrayed on the PBS series. The author went into great depth on Larry's life as an author. He really wasn't a very nice person from the way the author portrayed him in this biography. The book was very detail on oriented with all the various people that both of the brothers had encountered during their lifetime. So it gave you more than a glimpse into the reality of who they were.
October 7, 2025
Thoroughly researched but maddeningly disorganized and written from a perch of snide contempt. Those looking for a reason to avoid the work of Lawrence or Gerald Durrell can content themselves with the knowledge that this book offers plenty and then skip it, too.
March 22, 2026
A warts and all biography of Larry and Gerry... finally quashing the romanticism of My Family and Other Animals.
October 5, 2025
An unhappy life-and-times
The first 50 pages were intensely readable, especially as I thought that Bradford was gently getting at the truth of what the Durrells were all about. But it is at this point that he begins in earnest to discredit both Larry and Gerry (which, I suppose, is warranted), to the extent that I didn't want to spend any time with two men who were, apparently, egomaniacs who didn't much like people. To that end, Bradford reads the two brothers into and out of their writings, and it is a kind of psychoanalysing that is not so much revealing as it is damning.
Well, fair enough, I guess. I was expecting more, though, from the Corfu years -- even the colourful dust jacket itself nods to the recent TV series' introductory tableaus, promising, perhaps, a focus on those years. Nope. What you get is primarily the lives of Larry and Gerry after Corfu, with Margo and Louisa making guest appearances. Of Leslie there is next to nothing. Bradford really dislikes Larry's writing, and downplays Gerry's successful books (which, admittedly, I didn't like).
What is the point, then, of reading such a dour book? There isn't one, unless you have an investment in knowing that Larry was a really shitty human being and that Gerry preferred animals to humans. Indeed, it may be that these things are the case; but there are certainly better ways of making that case rather than pumping out 350 pages of an almost gleefully done character assasination. I was never hoping, going into the book, for a more polished and uplifting bio, as I don't really care about the Durrells one way or another; and I knew that the TV series was largely a fabrication. Still, this book was about as persistently unhappy as winter rain in Bournemouth. The lack of photographs beyond the very few of Larry and Gerry is also unfortunate. Missed opportunity.
The first 50 pages were intensely readable, especially as I thought that Bradford was gently getting at the truth of what the Durrells were all about. But it is at this point that he begins in earnest to discredit both Larry and Gerry (which, I suppose, is warranted), to the extent that I didn't want to spend any time with two men who were, apparently, egomaniacs who didn't much like people. To that end, Bradford reads the two brothers into and out of their writings, and it is a kind of psychoanalysing that is not so much revealing as it is damning.
Well, fair enough, I guess. I was expecting more, though, from the Corfu years -- even the colourful dust jacket itself nods to the recent TV series' introductory tableaus, promising, perhaps, a focus on those years. Nope. What you get is primarily the lives of Larry and Gerry after Corfu, with Margo and Louisa making guest appearances. Of Leslie there is next to nothing. Bradford really dislikes Larry's writing, and downplays Gerry's successful books (which, admittedly, I didn't like).
What is the point, then, of reading such a dour book? There isn't one, unless you have an investment in knowing that Larry was a really shitty human being and that Gerry preferred animals to humans. Indeed, it may be that these things are the case; but there are certainly better ways of making that case rather than pumping out 350 pages of an almost gleefully done character assasination. I was never hoping, going into the book, for a more polished and uplifting bio, as I don't really care about the Durrells one way or another; and I knew that the TV series was largely a fabrication. Still, this book was about as persistently unhappy as winter rain in Bournemouth. The lack of photographs beyond the very few of Larry and Gerry is also unfortunate. Missed opportunity.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews