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Private Road
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252 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1978
5 people want to read
About the author
Forrest Reid
59 books15 followersForrest Reid was an Irish novelist, literary critic and translator. He was, along with Hugh Walpole and J.M. Barrie, a leading pre-war British novelist of boyhood. He is still acclaimed as the greatest of Ulster novelists and was recognised with the award of the 1944 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his novel Young Tom.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 17, 2025
https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/private-road-by-forrest-reid/
This is the second volume of Belfast-born writer Forrest Reid’s autobiography, published in 1940, fourteen years after Apostate, the first volume. I did not find Private Road as interesting; a lot of it is about the back-story behind each of Reid’s novels (more than a dozen at that stage), and as I haven’t read any of them, I did not learn much. There are however some interesting chapters about his education, at Inst and then at Christ’s, Cambridge, and about the rather small circle of literary enthusiasts in Belfast in the early 1900s; and there’s also a rather moving chapter about his love for his dogs and cats (in that order).
Reid does not seem to have had a long-term romantic partner, though it’s fairly clear what was going on with his series of male house-mates; there are a few women in the narrative (and I’m glad to see that he stayed in touch with his nurse Emma) but it’s mostly a story of men talking to men. Or not talking – an early dramatic moment is his friendship with Henry James, cut short when James apparently was mortally offended by Reid’s dedication to him of his very gay second novel, The Garden God.
I think that if I were going to make a serious effort to get into Reid’s fiction, and the circles he moved in, this would be a really interesting book, and I wonder if someone enterprising might produce an annotated version; but unlike with Apostate, I am not particularly interested in taking that on myself.
This is the second volume of Belfast-born writer Forrest Reid’s autobiography, published in 1940, fourteen years after Apostate, the first volume. I did not find Private Road as interesting; a lot of it is about the back-story behind each of Reid’s novels (more than a dozen at that stage), and as I haven’t read any of them, I did not learn much. There are however some interesting chapters about his education, at Inst and then at Christ’s, Cambridge, and about the rather small circle of literary enthusiasts in Belfast in the early 1900s; and there’s also a rather moving chapter about his love for his dogs and cats (in that order).
Reid does not seem to have had a long-term romantic partner, though it’s fairly clear what was going on with his series of male house-mates; there are a few women in the narrative (and I’m glad to see that he stayed in touch with his nurse Emma) but it’s mostly a story of men talking to men. Or not talking – an early dramatic moment is his friendship with Henry James, cut short when James apparently was mortally offended by Reid’s dedication to him of his very gay second novel, The Garden God.
I think that if I were going to make a serious effort to get into Reid’s fiction, and the circles he moved in, this would be a really interesting book, and I wonder if someone enterprising might produce an annotated version; but unlike with Apostate, I am not particularly interested in taking that on myself.
August 30, 2025
September 2023: 3 stars
My first taste of Forrest Reid and quite a promising one – it's given me an appetite to try out more of his writings, hence why I've already ordered Young Tom. This sort-of-autobiographical volume is a book of parts, some interesting, others less so. It's not so much about his life as about his books,and the circumstances surrounding their origins or people's reactions to them. But he has a nice style and manner about him. Maybe there is something Kenneth Grahame-ish about him, or perhaps of C.S.Lewis. His description of Uncle Stephen put me in mind of Uncle Andrew in the Chronicles of Narnia. Several of his books have been reprinted by the Gay Men's Press (which is where I first came across his name), but given their dates of first publication it will be interesting to see how overtly gay they actually feel in tone or intention. Reid's description of Henry James's reaction to The Garden God certainly got me intrigued.
As I've often found before, it's strange how an eclectic reading list can end up coinciding. Irish writers aren't my area of expertise but now, within a few days, reading books about people from opposite sides of the world (Australian-born P.L. Travers and Northern Irish Forrest Reid) I find that their worlds overlap when connected with such names as W.B.Yeats and “A.E.”
August 2025: 4 stars
I always feel a thrill whenever I read anything by Forrest Reid - a kind of pride that I have discovered this wonderful and most underrated writer, that I appreciate him and recognise his worth when the masses have never even heard of him. One day I hope his name will be as much a household name as those of Dickens or Austen or Wilde, because that is what he truly deserves. But for now he is a treasure who belongs to just the privileged few.
Two years ago Private Road was the first Forrest Reid book I ever read and marked the start of building up a complete collection of his works. It wasn't necessarily the ideal book to start with and yet I liked it even then. But it is better to be reading it now, at the end of having read all of his other books. Being an autobiography centring largely around his published books - the circumstances of their having been written, their reception, and his analysis of them - it all means more when the reader is familiar with those books too. When I read it the first time round I was in no position to question Forrest Reid's opinions of his own work, to question his judgment. But now I can disagree with him. Where he finds a novel trivial or unconvincing I can say I enjoyed it, where he seems to be almost ashamed of his earlier writings and wanting to distance himself from them, I feel he wasn't seeing clearly and was underestimating their real quality and worth.
My first taste of Forrest Reid and quite a promising one – it's given me an appetite to try out more of his writings, hence why I've already ordered Young Tom. This sort-of-autobiographical volume is a book of parts, some interesting, others less so. It's not so much about his life as about his books,and the circumstances surrounding their origins or people's reactions to them. But he has a nice style and manner about him. Maybe there is something Kenneth Grahame-ish about him, or perhaps of C.S.Lewis. His description of Uncle Stephen put me in mind of Uncle Andrew in the Chronicles of Narnia. Several of his books have been reprinted by the Gay Men's Press (which is where I first came across his name), but given their dates of first publication it will be interesting to see how overtly gay they actually feel in tone or intention. Reid's description of Henry James's reaction to The Garden God certainly got me intrigued.
As I've often found before, it's strange how an eclectic reading list can end up coinciding. Irish writers aren't my area of expertise but now, within a few days, reading books about people from opposite sides of the world (Australian-born P.L. Travers and Northern Irish Forrest Reid) I find that their worlds overlap when connected with such names as W.B.Yeats and “A.E.”
August 2025: 4 stars
I always feel a thrill whenever I read anything by Forrest Reid - a kind of pride that I have discovered this wonderful and most underrated writer, that I appreciate him and recognise his worth when the masses have never even heard of him. One day I hope his name will be as much a household name as those of Dickens or Austen or Wilde, because that is what he truly deserves. But for now he is a treasure who belongs to just the privileged few.
Two years ago Private Road was the first Forrest Reid book I ever read and marked the start of building up a complete collection of his works. It wasn't necessarily the ideal book to start with and yet I liked it even then. But it is better to be reading it now, at the end of having read all of his other books. Being an autobiography centring largely around his published books - the circumstances of their having been written, their reception, and his analysis of them - it all means more when the reader is familiar with those books too. When I read it the first time round I was in no position to question Forrest Reid's opinions of his own work, to question his judgment. But now I can disagree with him. Where he finds a novel trivial or unconvincing I can say I enjoyed it, where he seems to be almost ashamed of his earlier writings and wanting to distance himself from them, I feel he wasn't seeing clearly and was underestimating their real quality and worth.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews