Deceived With Kindness

The classic account of a Bloomsbury childhood. 'Anyone who vowed never to read another word about Bloomsbury should relent over this book.' Christine Verity, Sunday Times

Passionate, lucid, risky, rash, hard to put down and impossible to forget

Beautifully written and admirably honest... Refreshing and surprising

Angelica Garnett may truly be called a child of Bloomsbury. Her aunt was Virginia Woolf, her mother Vanessa Bell, and her father Duncan Grant, though for many years Angelica believed herself, naturally enough, the daughter of Vanessa's husband Clive. Her childhood homes, Charleston in Sussex and Gordon Square in London, were both centres of Bloomsbury activity, and she grew up surrounded by the most talked-about writers and artists of the day - Leonard and Virginia Woolf, Roger Fry, the Stracheys, Maynard Keynes and many others. In 1942 she married David Garnett, but they later separated. In 1993 she published Deceived with Kindness, an extraordinarily frank memoir about her childhood, which won the J.R. Ackerley Prize for Autobiography. She is a painter and has lived in France for many years.

Angelica Garnett may truly be called a child of Bloomsbury. Her Aunt was Virginia Woolf, her mother Vanessa Bell, and her father Duncan Grant, though for many years Angelica believed herself, naturally enough, the daughter of Vanessa's husband Clive. 
 
Her childhood homes, Charleston in Sussex and Gordon Square in London, were both centres of Bloomsbury activity, and she grew up surrounded by the most talked-about writers and artists of the day - Leonard and Virginia Woolf, Roger Fry, the Stracheys, Maynard Keynes, David Garnett (whom she later married), and many others. 
 
But Deceived with Kindness is also a record of a young girl's particular struggle to achieve independence from that extraordinary and intense milieu as a mature and independent woman. With an honesty that is by degrees agonising and uplifting, the author creates a vibrant, poignant picture of her mother, Vanessa Bell, of her own emergent individuality, and of the Bloomsbury era.

Angelica Garnett

Real life and fiction meet as Angelica Garnett vividly evokes what it is to grow up in the shadow of artists. Her family appear in different guises in the stories, but at the centre of each one is Garnett herself. She is naïve and foolish as Bettina, desperately seeking acceptance into the grown-ups circle ('When All the Leaves Were Green, My Love'); shy and cautious, but finally disloyal, as Agnes ('Aurore'); a hesitant, uncomfortable Emily ('The Birthday Party'); and a contemplative, even witty older woman, full of appetite and guilt, as Helen ('Friendship'). Spanning an entire life, each story reveals a figure trying to understand her place not only within the polished circle of her family, but in an ever-changing world. 
 
Sharply observing a colourful social milieu and the vibrant characters that populate it, these are stories about family and friendships, yet also curdled relationships and small betrayals. A fictional counterpoint to her acclaimed memoir, Deceived with Kindness, here is a portrait of a woman seeking an understanding and acceptance of her past.

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