Instead of a Letter

I've been waiting for years to make Athill's 1963 memoir a Phinney by Post selection, so as soon as NYRB Classics brought it back into print, I pounced. Athill was a prominent British book editor, and this was the first in a series of memoirs she published in a late-blooming writing career. It's often summed up by a particular tragic incident that happens off-stage (in fact, it hardly happens at all) midway through the book, but really it's the story of Athill coming to understand herself, through years of happiness, great sadness, and happiness again. And what's best about this superb book is the thrillingly crisp but good-humored frankness with which she writes, sparing no one, least of all herself.