A Life of My Own

Praise

“[An] intelligent and humane book…There is genuine appeal in watching this indomitable woman continue to chase the next draft of herself. After a while, the pages turn themselves. Tomalin has a biographer’s gift for carefully husbanding her resources, of consistently playing out just enough string. When she needs to, she pulls that string tight.” —Dwight Garner, The New York Times

“Tomalin brings to her memoir a pro’s practiced ability at threading the personal, the professional and the contextual with details that sing… [She offers] a wonderful evocation of London’s vibrant literary culture of the 1960s and ’70s…An elegant profile in courage and fortitude.” —Washington Post
 
“[A LIFE OF MY OWN] navigates artfully between tantalizing revelations and unobtrusive elisions. I read the memoir twice in an effort to deconstruct how Ms. Tomalin does it, leading us into her nooks and crannies and then firmly closing the curtain at some point, but literary ingenuity of this caliber is always hard to pin down…The pleasures of reading this book are many…I hesitate to call this book enchanting because Ms. Tomalin’s life is strewn with tragedy…but it is certainly an exceptional account, daunting and inspiring at the same time, written with no end of poignancy, humor and perspective.” —Wall Street Journal

“In this memoir as in her acclaimed biographies, Tomalin lets the telling of a story reveal its own truth, unmarked by the moralizing of the soapbox. And what a story it is.” —Christian Science Monitor
 
“[Tomalin] is a master craftswoman, and it’s a thrill to see her prose and capacity for moving storytelling turned on her own life… If it leads you to read some of her biographies (Jane Austen is a favorite), you’ll be better off.”—Vogue.com

“An arresting look at a professional life inextricably entwined with the lifelong personal concerns of a woman who is also a wife, daughter, and mother…A quiet book, beautifully told with both restraint and generosity of spirit.” —BookPage
                                     
“An extraordinarily candid autobiography…This is an elegant, significant book.”—Kirkus Reviews

“[A] captivating and thorough memoir. Tomalin sets out to describe her “experience of the world”…a gracious, inspiring look at her family, colleagues, and friends.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)