Blue Remembered Hills is Rosemary Sutcliff's memoir of her childhood, youth and her first love affairs. It's a classic of perfect writing about her close and not always easy relationship with her bipolar mother, life in the naval dockyards where her father was based, and the beloved family dogs, interspersed with her stoic endurance of physical and emotional pain. Sutcliff writes with joy about her fleeting childhood friendships in a lonely life as an only child. Her lyrical descriptions of the beauty around their remote house in Devon distract the reader from realising the excruciating clinical treatment Sutcliff underwent for years to repair the damage caused by Still's Disease on her joints. She describes how her isolation and her awareness of being physically different informed some of her best-loved novels, as did her early love affairs.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
March 12, 2024 -
Formats
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OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9781912766819
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EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9781912766819
- File size: 1442 KB
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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Publisher's Weekly
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Library Journal
May 1, 2024
In her gracious and moving 1983 memoir, the author of perennially prized historical fiction for youth (The Flowers of Adonis; The Changeling) recounts the enchantments and trials of her own coming of age. The only child of an often absent naval officer and a domineering bipolar mother, Sutcliff spent much of her itinerant and increasingly isolated early life in and out of hospitals, undergoing surgeries and often arduous therapies for Still's disease, a rare and debilitating form of juvenile arthritis. Sutcliff addresses these challenges with the brave resiliency of one of her novels' own heroes. She evokes the keenly observed joys and wonders of her widening world with an unforced humor, warmth, and frankness, an unflagging buoyancy that carries readers through the deeply poignant story of her gentle, doomed romance with a mercurial airman. VERDICT The antithesis of so-called "misery lit," this charming recollection captures the origins of a novelist who engaged her disability on her own terms and translated her experiences into captivating narratives that continue to inspire countless young readers to this day.
Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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