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On Sunset: A Memoir
In the tradition of The Hare with Amber Eyes and Running in the Family, a memoir of the author's upbringing by her grandparents in a fading mansion above Sunset Boulevard -- a childhood at once privileged and unusual, filled with the mementos and echoes of their impossibly exotic and peripatetic lives.
Kathryn Harrison always understood that her family was beyond eccentric -- they'd breached the bounds of the unconventional. She was largely raised by her grandparents in an outsized Tudor confection of a house on the periphery of Bel Air, which she thought of as "Sunset," her kingdom of the imagination, inhabited by the past and its numberless artifacts. True wandering Jews, her grandparents had arrived in Los Angeles in the forties after dramatic, globetrotting lives. Harry Jacobs had been a fur trapper in Alaska, a soldier in the trenches of the Great War, a traveling salesman in a Model T. Margaret Sassoon had lived a privileged life as a member of a Jewish merchant family in Shanghai, turning down offers of marriage from Russian princes exiled by the Revolution. Kathryn Harrison grew up in an almost mythical realm of their letters and artifacts and stories -- until declining finances forced to sell the house on Sunset in 1971, and night fell fast. On Sunset seeks to recover that childhood, that place, those lives -- and does so with piercing poignancy.
Kathryn Harrison always understood that her family was beyond eccentric -- they'd breached the bounds of the unconventional. She was largely raised by her grandparents in an outsized Tudor confection of a house on the periphery of Bel Air, which she thought of as "Sunset," her kingdom of the imagination, inhabited by the past and its numberless artifacts. True wandering Jews, her grandparents had arrived in Los Angeles in the forties after dramatic, globetrotting lives. Harry Jacobs had been a fur trapper in Alaska, a soldier in the trenches of the Great War, a traveling salesman in a Model T. Margaret Sassoon had lived a privileged life as a member of a Jewish merchant family in Shanghai, turning down offers of marriage from Russian princes exiled by the Revolution. Kathryn Harrison grew up in an almost mythical realm of their letters and artifacts and stories -- until declining finances forced to sell the house on Sunset in 1971, and night fell fast. On Sunset seeks to recover that childhood, that place, those lives -- and does so with piercing poignancy.
262 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 2, 2018
32 people are currently reading
1341 people want to read
About the author
Kathryn Harrison
47 books296 followersKathryn Harrison is the author of the novels Envy, The Seal Wife, The Binding Chair, Poison, Exposure, and Thicker Than Water.
She has also written memoirs, The Kiss and The Mother Knot, a travel memoir, The Road to Santiago, a biography, Saint Therese of Lisieux, and a collection of personal essays, Seeking Rapture.
Ms. Harrison is a frequent reviewer for The New York Times Book Review; her essays, which have been included in many anthologies, have appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, Vogue, O, The Oprah Magazine, Salon, and other publications.
She lives in New York with her husband, the novelist Colin Harrison, and their children.
She has also written memoirs, The Kiss and The Mother Knot, a travel memoir, The Road to Santiago, a biography, Saint Therese of Lisieux, and a collection of personal essays, Seeking Rapture.
Ms. Harrison is a frequent reviewer for The New York Times Book Review; her essays, which have been included in many anthologies, have appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, Vogue, O, The Oprah Magazine, Salon, and other publications.
She lives in New York with her husband, the novelist Colin Harrison, and their children.
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
October 8, 2018
I devoured this book - it was such a pleasure to read about Harrison's childhood and loved the way she went back and forth between the lives of her grandmother and grandfather, whose lives traversed across histories and continents to meet in LA and eventually raise Harrison. We see Kathryn as a child, wondering at her grandparent's lives the way one might wonder at fairy tales. Pictures of their lives and their families are sprinkled throughout the book, and this helps to place them in relationship to historical events as well as to class and sexuality. A snapshot of a bygone time, in all its pleasures and adventures as well as the repression and erasure of culture that came with British colonization. We keep seeing the young Kathryn trying to locate herself in relationship to the stories she hears, stories that live in her and create the writer that she becomes.
January 4, 2019
I just absorbed this book -- every word is perfect Harrison tells us about her childhood with her grandparents. Her grandmother was a Sassoon and grew up in pretty much endless wealth in Shanghai; that wealth is dwindling quickly but this isn't a story of impending poverty It is filled with the goodness and wisdom of her grandfather, her grandmother's fascinating life, and Harrison who was raised as her grandmother was raised -- early to bed, none of the fads of a child in 1970 although they live at 11247 Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles.
Harrison's love for and admiration of her grandparents is parable. A lot of priceless stories too, like doing her grandmother's driving test for her or the chair in the avocado tree. And Harrison knows just where and when to stop with this perfect blend of memoir and history.
Harrison's love for and admiration of her grandparents is parable. A lot of priceless stories too, like doing her grandmother's driving test for her or the chair in the avocado tree. And Harrison knows just where and when to stop with this perfect blend of memoir and history.
October 4, 2018
On Sunset
A Memoir
by Kathryn Harrison
Doubleday Books
Doubleday
Biographies & Memoirs
Pub Date 02 Oct 2018
I am reviewing a coy of On Sunset through Doubleday and Netgalley:
Kathryn Harrison always knew that her family was eccentric, her family breached the bounds of the unconventional. Kathryn was raised largely by her grandparents in an outsized Tudor style home on the periphery of Bel-Air, which she thought of as ”Sunset” the kingdom that existed in her imagination., inhabited by the past and it's artifacts.
Kathryn’s grandparents were true wandering Jews! Her grandparents had arrived in Los Angeles in the forties after leading globetrotting lives. Her Grandfather Harry Jacobs has been a fur trapper in Alaska, a soldier in the trenches during the Great War. As well as traveling salesman in a Model T. Her grandmother Margaret Sassoon has lived a life of privilege as a member of a Jewish Merchant family in Shanghai even turning down offers to marry Russian Princes who were exiled by the revolution. The family was supposed to sale the house due to failing finances in 1971, this book seeks to recover Kathryn's childhood in a way.
I give On Sunset five out of five stars!
Happy Reading!
Kathryn’s grandparents were true wandering Jews! Her grandparents had arrived in Los Angeles in the forties after leading globetrotting lives. Her Grandfather Harry Jacobs has been a fur trapper in Alaska, a soldier in the trenches during the Great War. As well as traveling salesman in a Model T. Her grandmother Margaret Sassoon has lived a life of privilege as a member of a Jewish Merchant family in Shanghai even turning down offers to marry Russian Princes who were exiled by the revolution. The family was supposed to sale the house due to failing finances in 1971, this book seeks to recover Kathryn's childhood in a way.
I give On Sunset five out of five stars!
Happy Reading!
December 13, 2025
This was a relatively quick and interesting read.
October 22, 2018
I won a copy in a Goodreads giveaway; this did not influence my review.
I initially found On Sunset difficult to follow; Harrison meanders and swiftly shifts topics and time periods. While she never develops a true organization for the book, I eventually found a rhythm in reading it. It is a strange book that is sort of a hybrid memoir/biography as much of the book is told from the perspective of hearing stories from her grandparents as a child in their house on Sunset Boulevard (thus the title). The synopsis on the book jacket led me to expect more stories about the house itself and her family's financial difficulties. While these topics are interspersed throughout, I found the book primarily one of family lore. I was particularly enthralled with the photographs, some of which are over one hundred years old. Harrison shares some fascinating stories of her grandparents' lives but there is little overlap in their shared histories as a married couple or as parents. Typically Harrison alternates between stories of her grandmother's and grandfather's early lives before they met one another, though occasionally Harrison veers into stories of earlier ancestors or of the places her grandparents once resided - I found the latter topics a bit dry. The big disappointment of the book is that it ends when she and her grandparents are forced to sell their house on Sunset Boulevard; I was left wondering if her grandparents lived to see her to adulthood. An epilogue would have provided a more well-rounded ending.
I initially found On Sunset difficult to follow; Harrison meanders and swiftly shifts topics and time periods. While she never develops a true organization for the book, I eventually found a rhythm in reading it. It is a strange book that is sort of a hybrid memoir/biography as much of the book is told from the perspective of hearing stories from her grandparents as a child in their house on Sunset Boulevard (thus the title). The synopsis on the book jacket led me to expect more stories about the house itself and her family's financial difficulties. While these topics are interspersed throughout, I found the book primarily one of family lore. I was particularly enthralled with the photographs, some of which are over one hundred years old. Harrison shares some fascinating stories of her grandparents' lives but there is little overlap in their shared histories as a married couple or as parents. Typically Harrison alternates between stories of her grandmother's and grandfather's early lives before they met one another, though occasionally Harrison veers into stories of earlier ancestors or of the places her grandparents once resided - I found the latter topics a bit dry. The big disappointment of the book is that it ends when she and her grandparents are forced to sell their house on Sunset Boulevard; I was left wondering if her grandparents lived to see her to adulthood. An epilogue would have provided a more well-rounded ending.
November 17, 2021
A unique memoir - like following your best friend around as she chats with her eccentric family. This book is a joy to read, and each chapter pulls the curtain back to share a strange anecdote or quirky habit. A gem of a book.
October 31, 2018
This was poignant and lovely...a nostalgic portrayal of an unconventional family and upbringing, compassionately told by Kathryn Harrison.
Thank you Goodreads giveaways for the ARC.
Thank you Goodreads giveaways for the ARC.
October 18, 2018
Brave, raw, interesting, engaging, & honest as always.
November 19, 2018
I've always really liked her work, but this one didn't engage as others have. It's well written, for sure. I just didn't care all that much.
March 8, 2021
On Sunset, by Kathryn Harrison, is an exceptional book. She chronicles the extraordinary lives of her grandparents, Harry Jacobs and Margaret Sassoon Benjamin, and writes about her equally extraordinary life with them, raised as a child of the British upper classes in the late 19th or early 20 Century. All the while, she lived on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles in the 1960s.
Most of the chapters begin with a conversation between young Kathryn and her grandparents about some fascinating item of their pasts. The rivers of Alaska, where young Harry Jacobs worked as a surveyor for a railroad, the family tree of the celebrated Sassoon family, who migrated from Bagdad where they lived, says Harrison, as merchant princes, on to India in the early 19th Century , where they became British subjects (in those days, it was subjects, not citizens). Thence, business took them to Shanghai and Hong Kong where they accumulated millions, by forcing the Chinese to use opium.
By 1880, Harrison says, the Sassoons controlled 70 percent of the opium trade in China and were the richest Jews in the world. Her great grandfather, David Sassoon, was not involved in the opium trade, but her grandmother was raised amid almost unimaginable luxury. Six thousand mile trips with her governess on the Trans Siberian Railroad from Shanghai to London to go to boarding school. Chauffeurs, maids, a whole stable of domestic help.
All this money made it impossible for her grandmother to adjust to a standard of living that the rest of us would call more than adequate. Bit by bit, the money slips away, leaving her grandmother to talk about debtors' prison. Furnishings and the sumptuous decorative items that were scattered around the house slowly disappear.
The book presents her family history both through the eyes of a child (she thought David Sassoon, the first to go to India, arrived on a magic carpet) and the eyes of an adult, who researched all the events her grandparents recalled. This is a great book. Read it.
Most of the chapters begin with a conversation between young Kathryn and her grandparents about some fascinating item of their pasts. The rivers of Alaska, where young Harry Jacobs worked as a surveyor for a railroad, the family tree of the celebrated Sassoon family, who migrated from Bagdad where they lived, says Harrison, as merchant princes, on to India in the early 19th Century , where they became British subjects (in those days, it was subjects, not citizens). Thence, business took them to Shanghai and Hong Kong where they accumulated millions, by forcing the Chinese to use opium.
By 1880, Harrison says, the Sassoons controlled 70 percent of the opium trade in China and were the richest Jews in the world. Her great grandfather, David Sassoon, was not involved in the opium trade, but her grandmother was raised amid almost unimaginable luxury. Six thousand mile trips with her governess on the Trans Siberian Railroad from Shanghai to London to go to boarding school. Chauffeurs, maids, a whole stable of domestic help.
All this money made it impossible for her grandmother to adjust to a standard of living that the rest of us would call more than adequate. Bit by bit, the money slips away, leaving her grandmother to talk about debtors' prison. Furnishings and the sumptuous decorative items that were scattered around the house slowly disappear.
The book presents her family history both through the eyes of a child (she thought David Sassoon, the first to go to India, arrived on a magic carpet) and the eyes of an adult, who researched all the events her grandparents recalled. This is a great book. Read it.
September 1, 2018
3.5 Kathryn Harrison could describe a pile of dirt and make it sound like the most fascinating thing in the world. This one wandered a bit without ever reaching any clear conclusion or making a point but it's almost forgivable for her descriptions of atmospheres, of how things must have felt to someone or how she remembers that they felt to her. I liked her writing entirely from her childhood perspective, something very different from her other memoirs.
October 31, 2018
For me this was an unusual memoir, I had the book and audio, but spent the majority of the time listening, it was like a wild stream of consciousness. Usually memoirs are linear and straightforward, I went to school here, married, had job a, blah blah blah, but this was all over the map like a tumbling river. Easy to get lost in and obviously she is a free and fluid thinker. Enjoyed my arm chair travels back in time.
October 19, 2018
This was unexpectedly lovely. If you liked this, try The Mad Boy, Lord Berners, My Grandmother and Me by Sofia Zinovieff.
November 1, 2018
Poorly written memoir. Does not make you fully understand the make up of her family. Only touches on her relationship with her mother
December 10, 2018
An absolute delight!
March 9, 2021
A well-told story of the author's grandparents and their past histories, from Persian Jewish "Rothschilds" and Australian convicts, via a circuitous route, to CA in the 1950s and 1960s.
November 11, 2022
I enjoy everything she writes, and this was particularly evocative.
January 25, 2023
Fascinating family history. I could have read much more.
August 13, 2023
An interesting read about another lifetime and all the adventures and events of a family.
July 13, 2024
Extraordinary.
Extraordinary memoir of Kathryn Harrison's childhood living and being raised by her grandparents. Extraordinary people.
Margaret Sassoon, a privileged member of a Jewish merchant family in Shanghai marries Harry Jacobs, a fur trapper in Alaska, a soldier in the trenches of the Great War, a traveling salesman in a Model T.
Extraordinaryly written from the POV of Kathryn, beloved granddaughter.
Worth every moment of reading.
Extraordinary story.
Extraordinary memoir of Kathryn Harrison's childhood living and being raised by her grandparents. Extraordinary people.
Margaret Sassoon, a privileged member of a Jewish merchant family in Shanghai marries Harry Jacobs, a fur trapper in Alaska, a soldier in the trenches of the Great War, a traveling salesman in a Model T.
Extraordinaryly written from the POV of Kathryn, beloved granddaughter.
Worth every moment of reading.
Extraordinary story.
June 25, 2018
Often I wonder, why did an author bother to publish a memoir? Not so with this fascinating story of being raised in the home of grandparents who have had incredible lives. It is delightful to hear about the very different backgrounds of the grandparents and the unlikely happenings that brought them together.
Anecdotes, after anecdote, charmed me as a reader. I wanted more!
I am a huge fan of Harrison’s husband and I am glad that this very different novel totally enthralled me. Hope there is a second volume, I would love to read about the rest of the story.
Anecdotes, after anecdote, charmed me as a reader. I wanted more!
I am a huge fan of Harrison’s husband and I am glad that this very different novel totally enthralled me. Hope there is a second volume, I would love to read about the rest of the story.
June 27, 2018
I am a fan of Kathryn Harrison’s books. She always shares her life episodes in a totally honest raw nothing hold back style.This book about growing up in a mansion over Sunset Blvd raised by her grandparents. An unusual raising fantastic home but money was scarce. A book that kept my interest reading about her unusual to say the east upbringing.Thanks#doubledaybooks #netgalley for advance copy.
July 17, 2018
The writing is littered with details and jumps around so it is hard to follow.
I received an ARC from NetGalley.
I received an ARC from NetGalley.
Want to read
October 7, 2018I received this book for free through Goodreads Giveaways on Friday, October 5, 2018.
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews