Customer Reviews

April Ashley's Odyssey

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Miss Ashley's Odyssey is a voyage indeed. Told with frankness, humour, wit, and a total lack of self pity, April Ashley started out life as a boy in Liverpool, and became famous as Britain's most glamorous sex change. It took courage and determination, and after I read this wonderful book I felt, well, if April Ashley can get through life, then so can the rest of us.

In these pages, the book is beautifully written, you will meet anyone who was anybody in the haute bohemian world of the swinging 60's. You will meet such diverse characters as Lady Diana Cooper, Little Gloria from Leeds, Viva King, Sarah Churchill, various titled folk and other folk who live by their wits and their talents. Thankfully Miss Ashley is not a snob and will chat to anyone, and the resulting narrative has such wit and style, it is almost an object lesson in how to present a life lived to the full.

This wonderful book reminds of Misia Sert's memoirs, and also Daphne Fielding's Mercury Presides not forgetting Lady Diana Cooper's autobiographies. It has the same laugh-out-loud humour of Helene Hanff's Underfoot in Show Business too.

I read this fabulous biography after April Ashley signed and gave me a copy to read. I met her years ago in London and she told me the story in the book of her life. She was a guest in my home for a week. Duncan Fallowell was also there at times. Very interesting writer and very fond of April. I was deeply touched and sympathetic to April's journey from man to woman. Truly interesting and a must read. MCS