by Maggie Gee
First published 2011
Maggie Gee begins her story in a small family far removed from London's literary circles. At seventeen, she enters university unprepared for what awaits her. The decades that follow bring the social upheavals of her generation: birth control transforms relationships, class boundaries shift, and racial tensions surface. Gee faces rejection after rejection from publishers through the 1970s. In the 1980s, she finally sees her work in print, finds love, marries, and becomes a mother. The next thirty years test her resolve as she builds a writing career while navigating the demands of family life. Gee examines the cost of artistic ambition alongside the pull of domestic responsibility. She confronts questions about achievement and disappointment, sexuality, mortality, and raising a child. Her memoir refuses to romanticize the writer's life, instead revealing the persistence required to sustain creativity across decades. This is a story about choosing art while remaining fully human.
Genres: 20th-century, autobiography, biography-memoir, 21st-century
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: coming-of-age, persistence, self-discovery
Setting: London
Period: 1970s, 1980s
232 pages · Hardcover · Telegram Books