Alfred and Emily - by Doris Lessing (Paperback)

About the Book

From the winner of the 2007 Nobel Prize in Literature comes a memoir that interweaves fiction writing and autobiography in an utterly unique and innovative way.

Book Synopsis

Alfred and Emily is an intimate and revealing book by Doris Lessing, the winner of the 2007 Nobel Prize in Literature and author of The Grass is Singing and The Golden Notebook, that explores the lives of her parents, each irrevocably damaged by the Great War.

In this profoundly moving book, Nobel Laureate Doris Lessing explores the lives of her parents, each irrevocably damaged by the Great War. In the fictional first half of Alfred and Emily, she imagines the happier lives her parents might have made for themselves had there been no war. This is followed by a piercing examination of their relationship as it actually was in the shadow of the devastating global conflict.

"Here I still am," says Lessing, "trying to get out from under that monstrous legacy, trying to get free." Triumphantly, with Alfred and Emily, she has done just that.

From the Back Cover

In this profoundly moving book, Nobel Laureate Doris Lessing explores the lives of her parents, each irrevocably damaged by the Great War. In the fictional first half of Alfred and Emily, she imagines the happier lives her parents might have made for themselves had there been no war. This is followed by a piercing examination of their relationship as it actually was in the shadow of the devastating global conflict.

"Here I still am," says Lessing, "trying to get out from under that monstrous legacy, trying to get free." Triumphantly, with Alfred and Emily, she has done just that.

Review Quotes

"In its intimacy, incisiveness and literary construct, [Alfred and Emily] is her most powerful book: a bold exorcism of her parents' traumas in the first world war, and a thorough examination of her relationship with them...a poignant tribute...a final act of compassion." - Newsweek (International Edition)
"...the voices, both Lessing's and her parents', are alive, fluid, anxious, believeable." - Seattle Times
"In its generosity of spirit, its shaped and contanied fury, Alfred & Emily is also an extraordinary, unconventional addition to Lessing's autobiography . . . but there isn't the slightest tone of valediction or summing up here. That's why she remains so vital: even in old age, she sounds as fierce and passionate as a girl." - New York Times Book Review
"Lessing has pushed the boundaries of the memoir form . . . fluidly conversational prose . . . thought-provoking." - Los Angeles Times Book Review
"An odd and powerful excursion into lost time. . . . a powerful reminder not only of Lessing's past but also of how each of us can return to our own and come back with something precious." - San Francisco Chronicle Book Review
"An intriguing work . . . [that] shimmers with precisely remembered details." - Michiko Kakutani, New York Times
"Alfred and Emily explores the boundary where reality and imagination meet, through the use of a formally innovative structure. . . . Wonderfully evocative. . . . Glimpses into the creative process of one of the world's most gifted and socially engaged writers make Alfred and Emily a valuable addition to the Lessing oeuvre." - Boston Globe
"An intriguing work...Writing with the incandescent clarity of her 88 years, Ms. Lessing...conveys the appreciation she now feels for the hardship of her parents' lives, and the anger she often felt as a young girl in rebellion against her mother...shimmers with precisely remembered details." - Michiko Kakutani, New York Times
"Alfred and Emily reveals why Lessing deserved literature's highest honor. There is a remarkable level of courage, honesty, and wisdom in Alfred and Emily. . . . Lessing, nearing 90, continues to surprise." - USA Today
"A clever, moving coupling of fiction and nonfiction. ALFRED & EMILY is...a testament to [Lessing's] ongoing literary vitality." - Washington Post Book World
"A truly intriguing piece of work...the book is also an interesting glimpse of an empire and an era: of how the hazy, golden afternoon of the Edwardian Age faded into the dark of World War I and of the way that disappointed British citizens fueled their postwar dreams by leaving their country." - Christian Science Monitor
"She has never displayed her potent imagination to better effect, or her gift for probing realism. The author's capacity to summon up her feelings so vividly is as effective as it is chilling...a profoundly moving memoir and portrait of a marriage." - Wall Street Journal
"She has never displayed her potent imagination to better effect, or her gift for probing realism . . . a profoundly moving memoir and portrait of a marriage." - Wall Street Journal
"Lessing's taste for discomfiting truths is as evident as ever...as bracing and engaging as anything she has written." - Kirkus Reviews
"Vivid, turbulent, fresh with raw emotion...Clarity and darkness, honesty and obscurity are tumbled together: the work of a writer who knows that the truths of the heart are hideously complicated" - Sunday Telegraph