Sybille Bedford: A Life

"Much of this [romantic] material is not especially interesting."

"Hastings...writes with her hallmark elegance, insight and forgiveness."

"Hastings is impeccable on the facts of Bedford's life—almost every meal and certainly every trip and romantic fling is exhaustively detailed—yet she refrains from passing much comment on Bedford's character, instead letting Bedford's personal writings, and the not always admiring correspondence from her many friends, paint a picture of a much loved, self centred, convivial bon vivant."

"Hastings traces a 'complex web of love and friendship—and occasional hostility' that spun around Bedford, who worked hard to succeed as a writer, producing a travel book based on a stay in Mexico, several novels, a reverent biography of Aldous Huxley, and a memoir ..."

"All three of these domineering, self-centered writers regularly behaved monstrously to others, sometimes unforgivably so."

"Because Selina Hastings, the spirit of biographical detachment, never says 'exactly what she thinks,' the book ends not with her own summing up but with the expert opinion of Brenda Wineapple, Bedford's friend and a witness to her final years."

"Hastings avoids assigning motives, though she rightly acknowledges Bedford's remarkable gift for friendship."

"Hastings has had the cooperation of the Bedford estate and full access to diaries and letters, and she and her researcher have delved heroically and judiciously."

"The supporting cast includes Martha Gellhorn, whose writing guidance proved important, and Richard Olney, the expatriate American who codified French cooking and wine."

"Because writing journalism for a contracted fee didn't count as 'art', Bedford finally found an ease and a fluency and a certain artisanal satisfaction in a job well done."