Laurie Lee

The author of one of the great memoirs of the century, Cider With Rosie, was also one of the most secretive and elusive of men. "The most devious person it is possible to invent", said his brother Jack. And Lee himself admitted, "I am a person of concealment. No one has ever managed to get through." Whether Valerie Grove ever really gets through, in this magisterial, 500-page biography, is perhaps open to debate. But she brings Lee vividly to life, in all his charm and flirtatiousness, lyricism and laziness. From his early childhood in the beautiful Slad valley in the Cotswolds, to his time in the Spanish Civil War (where he may or may not have fought at the terrible battle of Teruel--depending whom you believe), to his latter days sitting in the Chelsea Arts Club, the Great Author, with a keen eye for a pretty girl in a short skirt, was no intellectual, no thinker. He appeared to have no convictions or opinions and lived entirely through his senses. Perhaps that is why he remains such an elusive character to comprehend. Nevertheless this is a fine and enjoyable biography, the first to be written since his death, with the full co-operation of his estate and access to his wonderful letters. --Christopher Hart

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Not as good as I had hoped - Rated
I found this biography very long winded - too much detail in fact in the end I was bored of it and found myself flipping through the book to find the interesting bits. I loved Cider with Rosie and When I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning - however to learn more of Laurie Lee was to diminish the aura of what he had produced in his writings. He was in fact a very imperfect human being and the biography gives every small detail of this man's life and his connections and relationships. I suppose I would have liked the biography to be more poetic in some sense but perhaps Grove gives us the facts rather than the 'idea' of the man.

A remarkable insight to an essentially private man - Rated
We all thought we knew what there was to know about the late and great Laurie Lee. Not so. Valerie Grove has unearthed a minefield of hidden agendas, thought processes and diversions of the greatest descriptive writer of his age. "Cider With Rosie" " As I Walked out..." " A moment of war" and others are mere blips in a life filled with lives, loves, hates and downright excesses. These excesses Grove explains with conviction and reason, moreover she has delved to look beyond just mere surface. There is no doubting Lee's masterful verses with the pen, what has now come to light is the many influences and sheer timing. It stems from a time no so very long ago, but seemingly a golden time before the very burst of modernism and the hateful traits that prevent such writing, such artistry, such poetic patronage. Valerie Grove has captured the character, the very things that made Lee and in some ways destroyed his will to continue writing beyond those pre and post war years. Although all his published masters were written from 1947 onwards,with breaks between each of the volumes, the reader of Grove's biography finally is told and can understand the reasons why. The theft of Lee's diaries in 1969 was not only a disaster, but the last remains of the true 'Spanish' picture, now subject to immense debate by scholars and historians. It is to Lee that we must thank for remembering almost the full picture from memory without the aid of the diaries, and thus bringing forth the many failures of democracy, let alone communism! Valerie Grove's book is a masterpiece in itself and can proudly sit beside Lee's work on the bookshelf.

A work of fine detail and even finer sensitivity. - Rated
Whilst he was the author of one of the best-loved books in the modern era, Laurie Lee was an elusive character, almost proud of the fact that he allowed no-one to be so close that they knew everything about him. This biography simply could not have been written whilst he lived. By winning the trust and co-operation of so many who knew Lee, Valerie Grove has pieced together the definitive work on him. Many would have been tempted to judge him - dreamer, liar, philanderer - but Valerie Grove demonstrates a true understanding of Laurie Lee; he was a hopeless romantic in all he said, wrote and did. Of course, he only chose to write about some event several decades after it took place and whether it was the poverty of his childhood or the battle at Teruel, what he wrote was inevitably distorted by time and his romantic view. Valerie Grove's achievement here is not to hold Lee up to the bright light of examination but to illuminate things for the reader the way he saw them. For me, this shows not just understanding but a fine sensitivity for what made him what he was; an incurable romantic. Unlike so many biographies, this book is itself beautifully written. The passage describing his death in the village where he had, by now so famously, been born and grown up is extremely moving. Only later can you realise just how Valerie Grove has made you love this incorrigible rogue and sometime vagabond. Millions worldwide have read and enjoyed 'Cider with Rosie'. If you are one of them and if you have ever wondered what became of little Lol, you should read 'Laurie Lee - the well-loved stranger' by Valerie Grove.