Rumer Godden: A Storyteller's Life
"Once upon a time," this story of a storyteller's life begins, "by a river in India there lived a little English girl." That little girl grew up to be internationally celebrated author Rumer Godden, who seems to have had a lifelong gift for translating the circumstances of her real life into her fictions--to the occasional consternation of her family. Though written with Godden's cooperation and clearly sympathetic to her, Chisholm's account does not gloss over the author's sometimes difficult personality, the failure of her first marriage, and the difficulties of her relationship with her younger daughter. By giving lavish attention to the settings--India and England--in which the story of Godden's life unfolded, Chisholm also mirrors one of Godden's own great strengths as a writer. Although the pace is sometimes sluggish and the attention to Godden's actual work is occasionally scant, this biography succeeds as an acutely observed examination of the evolution of one little English girl into a grande dame of letters.Michael Cart