"A Dog's Life," by Michael Holroyd
Michael Holroyd--now aged 82--is best known for his biographies, which include ones of Augustus John, the painter, Lytton Strachey, and Bernard Shaw. This short novel was his first, and it may be his only novel (not sure). I picked it up in the local library, attracted by a cover drawing that suggested it was a classic funny read.
At the end of the paperback edition of "A Dog's Life " he includes an interesting article about its genesis and why it was first published in the United States but not in the U.K. until forty years later.
The novel clearly uses Holroyd's own family as characters. He is Kenneth, on leave from doing his National Service in the army. The family are gathered together in a house named "This'll Do," and the plot, such as it is, revolves around the illness and death of the dog named Smith. In addition to Kenneth, we have his grandfather Eustace and his grandmother Anne, both of whom are portrayed as distressingly senile to the extent that one begins to feel that the descriptions of their actions are somewhat unkind. Kenneth's father, Henry, divorced from Kenneth's mother, lives in the same house, and he is unsympathetically portrayed. We also have Eustace's eccentric spinster sister Mathilda, who lost her lover many years ago. She is devoted to Smith, and his death produces a sort of coda to the book as she reviews her life. Unexpectedly, Henry's first wife appears on the doorstep and consumes much alcohol. There are two further caricature characters, Mrs. Gaff the cook, and an aging Miss Tooth, who was originally brought into the household as a nanny for Henry some 50 years ago and has stayed ever since.
Holroyd's father hated the novel and threatened legal action if it was published, contending that it defamed him and was unkind and inaccurate about his aging parents. It was this that led to the publication of the novel in the States after careful review to see if a successful legal action could be made against it. Holroyd waited forty years before publishing it in the UK, by which time all the characters were dead.
By a strange coincidence, we went to a talk at the Kensington Library, where Holroyd and a member of August John's family talked about a recently published book of the letters of Ida John, Augustus' first wife, who died at around thirty. In answer to some questions, Holroyd talked about some of the things he wrote as the postscript to "A Dog's Life"---the problems that arise with biographies when family members are at odds with the way they, or their families, are portrayed. And in that postscript he also mentions the ancient Augustus John climbing into bed with one of his many illegitimate daughters (then aged in her late thirties) and telling her "he couldn't do it anymore." It left open the question whether he would have done it if he could.
I wouldn't suggest anyone go off to a library to track down the book. I just felt that I should keep my nose to the grindstone with the blog, if only to keep the record of what I have been reading.