Heads and Straights: The Circle Line

Posted on 17 September 2018 by Lucy Wadham

From Lucy Wadham, the bestselling author of The Secret Life of France , an autobiographical tale of bohemians, punk, the King s Road in the 1970s and family part of a series of twelve books tied to the twelve lines of the London Underground Lucy is a Chelsea girl, brought up off the King s Road in the seventies when punk was in full bloom Her family comes in the wonderful tradition of English eccentrics In Heads and Straights , she creates a funny, moving account of a family eager to escape the confines of class Through interlocking tales of their extravagant and often self destructive journeys away from the Circle line stops of Sloane Square, South Kensington and Gloucester Road, Lucy evokes the collision between conformism and bohemian excess and the complicated class antipathies that flourished in that particular time and place In the end we are left wondering is it ever possible to escape, or do we, in our travels, simply loop back on ourselves New Read Books Heads and Straights: The Circle Line by Lucy Wadham – kino-fada.fr Enjoyable tale of a girl s memory of growing up in London with her rebellious sisters Docked a star for not REALLY having much to say about the circle line And quite a rushed abrupt ending.Middle class family explodes as parents cannot cope with their promiscuous, drug taking, daughters or their feminist, not giving a shit, mother in law Ultimately well written and enjoyable, if a little self indulgent, but does seem to ...really enjoyed this little book that is part of the Penguin Lines series which makes links with different london underground lines this one is about the circle line kind of.the author writes about growing up in chelsea with her four sisters and one brother and they are slightly posh, slightly bohemian and kind of intellectual there are great bits about her sisters the sisters made me think of The Virgin Suicides and also about her grandma who knew virginia woolf , h...A lovely little book that follows the author s family tree I read it at one sitting, in a Costa in Staines, and the excursion to 1970s Chelsea was very welcome Heavy on anecdotes which made me want to read them aloud to friends, and plenty of character...What a wonderful book goodness she writes well By the time I d read about 10 pages I was onordering some of her other books Wonderful account of growing up in Chelsea in the late 70s, early 80s and a beautiful memoir of family relationships.If you are between 40 and 60 and spent any of your youth in London, do read this very short memoire.Heads and Straights is a fantastic novella detailing Lucy Wadham s family life growing up in Chelsea with her sisters in the 1970s It s semi autobiographical the names of her sisters are different , but I m not sure about the content It s almost as though the family story is so outlandish that you couldn t make it up Anyway, it really doesn t matter as the story is fascinating.The sisters are into everything, such as punk and being as non Chelsea like as they possibly can drugs, protests, Heads and Straights is a fantastic novella detailing Lucy Wadham s family life growing up in Chelsea with her sisters in the 1970s It s semi autobiographical the names of her sisters are different , but I m not sure about the content It s almost as thou...Prijemne cteni, ale co to melo mit spolecneho s metrem, netusim.Great quick read good accompaniment to Viv Albertine s memoir Clothes, Clothes, Clothes Music, Music, Music Boys, Boys, Boys though there s less of all three in this, which is really just a snapshot of a time and place.Lucy Wadham offers here a rich and spicy recollection of her life among her parents, colorful sisters, eccentric grandmother, and uncles in Britain during the 1970s and 1980s One of the passages that I delighted in reading was the following Eileen s the author s maternal grandmother, who was a free spirit and a feminist love of Virginia Woolf was all encompassing It embraced not only the woman s work but also her prejudices the championing of Art above Commerce and the belief in Beauty as Lucy Wadham offers here a rich and spicy recollection of her life among her parents, colorful sisters, eccentric grandmother, and uncles in Britain during the 1970s and 1980s One of the passages that I delighted in reading was the following Eileen s the author s maternal grandmother, who was a free spirit and a feminist love of Virginia Woolf was all encompassing It embraced not only the woman s work but also her prejudices the championing of Art above Commerce and the belief in Beauty as a portal to Truth She passed on Woolf s love of nature to us, teaching us the names of trees and flowers, an old world knowledge that would make us ridiculous to future boyfriends Her cure for birds that fell from their nests was a short spell in her bra I ll never forget the sight of a revived baby blackbird flying out of her bosom Our grandmother s Edwardian English ma...

English
17 September 2018

Lucy Wadham