Jigsaw: An Unsentimental Education

Bedford's few novels rarely stray far from the facts of her own history, but with a family like hers, you can understand why. She was raised in the fertile (for a novelist) ground of a family with more culture than money, and spent her childhood shuttled among parents and friends in Germany, London, Italy, and, most memorably, a small town in the South of France. The characters and incidents in this story are too deliciously varied and interesting to list; her character has a genius for befriending her elders, which means she witnesses the messy lives of adults far before she is one herself. Her style is exquisite, and her assessments of others and herself are incisive but generous. With her adolescent perspective, this wonderful book reads like a series of Henry James novellas (this Maisie knows a lot), until her brilliant mother's hunger for morphine turns it into something by Zola. (I listened to the audiobook, superbly narrated by Sian Thomas, via our partners at