Gilmore was the widow of Peake, the author of Titus Groan, Gormenghast, and other books, who was also a poet, a painter and a very talented illustrator.
As a biography, this doesn't really work. I was trying to use it as a source to write a potted biography of Peake's life and the lack of dates made this book difficult to use; we don't even know when he was born; it starts with Gilmore's first sight of him when they were together at Art School, she as pupil, he as teacher.
But if we don't get the facts we get a lot of the feelings. Their life together was one of artistic poverty in London flats (in those days it was cheap to rent in London!) and remote rural cottages (and on Sark). They were financially impoverished but they knew Dylan Thomas and Graham Greene and Laurence Olivier and Anthony Quinn. They brought up their family and created.
And then Mervyn starts suffering from a brain disease, perhaps Parkinson's, perhaps early-onset dementia (aged 46). Treatment includes a spell in a mental hospital, with ECT, and brain surgery. Clearly, an illustrator can't have shaking hands. Clearly, a writer needs to be able to remember things. And so, in desperate sadness, the author records the slow decline of her brilliant husband.
Selected quotes:
- “When one is unsure everyone else seems perfectly at ease” (8)
- “How could one know what love was, before living it? How could one know what life was, before loving it?” (20)
- “We saw a great deal more of England than we should have done if he or I had been more of a map reader.” (111)
- “I have played too much around the edge of madness.” (122)
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