Caroline Blackwood
‘He couldn’t help being a bit surreal’
Love him or loathe him, Lucian Freud was a maverick genius whose life from the off was as singular as…
Born tough
Elaine Showalter celebrates the grit and wisdom of Elizabeth Hardwick
Carrying on loving: Elizabeth Hardwick’s and Robert Lowell’s remarkable correspondence throughout the 1970s
Since Robert Lowell’s sudden death in 1977 his critical reputation has suffered from the usual post-mortem slump. Interest in Lowell’s…
What made Lucian Freud so irresistible to women?
Amedeo Modigliani thought Nina Hamnett, muse, painter, memoirist, had ‘the best tits in Europe’. She fell 40 feet from a…
Muses, nurses and punch-bags
The conceit of this book — the author’s third on Robert Lowell — is strong, although its execution is less…
‘Crazy mixed-up Yid’
Even David Litvinoff’s surname was a concoction. It was really Levy. Wanting something ‘more romantic’, he appropriated that of his…
