Basil Street Blues and Mosaic

Michael Holroyd, one of the finest biographers of the twentieth century, finds an extraordinary story to tell of his own family. His Swedish mother was born three months prematurely after a terrible fire that killed her two-year-old brother. His Anglo-Irish father, full of inventiveness, met her on the North Sea, but their marriage soon failed and all four of their subsequent marriages were illegal. Michael was brought up by his grandparents, careering towards bankruptcy in an eccentric house in Maidenhead.