Fathers and Sons: The Autobiography of a Family [Hardcover]

Alexander Waugh (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 29, 2007

If there is a literary gene, then the Waugh family most certainly has it—and it clearly seems to be passed down from father to son. The first of the literary Waughs was Arthur, who, when he won the Newdigate Prize for poetry at Oxford in 1888, broke with the family tradition of medicine. He went on to become a distinguished publisher and an immensely influential book columnist. He fathered two sons, Alec and Evelyn, both of whom were to become novelists of note (and whom Arthur, somewhat uneasily, would himself publish); both of whom were to rebel in their own ways against his bedrock Victorianism; and one of whom, Evelyn, was to write a series of immortal novels that will be prized as long as elegance and lethal wit are admired. Evelyn begat, among seven others, Auberon Waugh, who would carry on in the family tradition of literary skill and eccentricity, becoming one of England’s most incorrigibly cantankerous and provocative newspaper columnists, loved and loathed in equal measure. And Auberon begat Alexander, yet another writer in the family, to whom it has fallen to tell this extraordinary tale of four generations of scribbling male Waughs.

The result of his labors is Fathers and Sons, one of the most unusual works of biographical memoir ever written. In this remarkable history of father-son relationships in his family, Alexander Waugh exposes the fraught dynamics of love and strife that has produced a succession of successful authors. Based on the recollections of his father and on a mine of hitherto unseen documents relating to his grandfather, Evelyn, the book skillfully traces the threads that have linked father to son across a century of war, conflict, turmoil and change. It is at once very, very funny, fearlessly candid and exceptionally moving—a supremely entertaining book that will speak to all fathers and sons, as well as the women who love them.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. The scion of an illustrious—and fabulously eccentric—English literary dynasty referees four generations of father-son antagonisms in this scintillating family memoir. Waugh (God) focuses on the fraught relationship between his great-grandfather, prominent critic and publisher Arthur Waugh, and Arthur's son, the famous novelist Evelyn. Arthur was a hopeless Victorian who doted on his elder son Alec and warmly sentimentalized their family life and boarding school traditions, Evelyn was the disaffected black sheep who wallowed in drink, bisexual dissipation and modern cynicism. In contrast to Arthur's paternal overinvolvement, Evelyn tried hard to avoid his own children's company or, when contact was inescapable, to heap exquisitely refined derision on their heads. But while he found his seven-year-old son, Auberon, the author's father, to be "clumsy and disheveled, sly, without intellectual, aesthetic or spiritual interest," he managed to impart a legacy that emerged in Auberon's career as a notoriously acerbic columnist. Waugh often lets the diaries and letters of his compulsively self-documenting subjects carry the story, sprinkling in smarmy family anecdotes and his own color commentary. If this tome were merely an excuse to reprint some of Evelyn's hilarious jottings, it would be well worth the price, but it's also an absorbing study of how writers process their most painfully formative experiences. (May 29)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* The hearts of four generations of Waughs have pumped more ink than blood. This, after all, is a family that since 1888 has published nearly 200 titles in a half-dozen genres. Naturally, that means that when Alexander Waugh looks back at his family history, he surveys literary monuments, including his great-grandfather's "Gordon in Africa," his grandfather's Brideshead Revisited, his father's oxglove Saga, and his own Time. But Alexander concerns himself here chiefly not with the family's books but rather with the family's tangled emotional relationships. Again and again, his candid narrative exposes fathers who alienate their sons, who in turn attack their fathers. Readers thus learn how Arthur cruelly slighted his younger son, Evelyn, who subsequently vented his rage against his unjust father through condemnatory images of fictional fathers recognizably similar to his own. But as a real-life father, Evelyn failed in his own way, yielding to pathological depression and condemning his son Bron with unforgiving rigor for his imaginative lies. Yet in Bron, Alexander finally finds a Waugh father willing to break the pattern by giving his children a home life of love, loyalty, and happiness. Alternately scalding and tender, this group portrait deserves a place next to other Waugh masterpieces. Bryce Christensen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 480 pages
• Publisher: Nan A. Talese; Reprint edition (May 29, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385521502
• ISBN-13: 978-0385521505
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 6.1 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #679,816 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Waughs past and present, and maybe even Turgenev, would be satisfied with the job he has done., June 18, 2007

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Bookreporter (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fathers and Sons: The Autobiography of a Family (Hardcover)

It's no accident that the publication of this book coincides with Evelyn Waugh's centenary (and George Orwell's, too, by the way). British headline writers, over-stimulated by reading pieces about the various Waughs, have perpetrated a series of ghastly juvenile puns, including "In Waugh and Peace," "A Family at Waugh with Each Other," "My Life in the Waugh Zone," etc.

The title, FATHERS AND SONS, is perfect and evidently couldn't be resisted, even though that Russian fellow, Turgenev, had thought of it first. Mothers, and women in general, are of no consequence in this history of five generations of illustrious Waugh males. Of course, females played a role in bringing them into the world, but afterwards they receded quietly into the background and were heard from no more.

The progenitor of the most famous literary Waughs --- Evelyn and his son Auberon --- was Arthur Waugh, great-grandfather of Alexander, the author of this book. Arthur might have been the obvious starting point. But Alexander takes readers back one generation further --- to Dr. Alexander Waugh, FRCS, who is known to all of his descendants simply as "the Brute." He was a sadist "whose taste for flagellation never deserted him," who carried with him, wherever he went, an ivory-handled whip and an urge to use it. Stories of his brutish excesses continue to be passed down from generation to generation. A video made available on the Internet shows a Waugh toddler spitting on the Brute's headstone while an approving father or uncle stands in the background, beaming at his precocity.

The Brute's grandfather, Dr. [of Divinity] Alexander Waugh, known to the family as "The Great and Good," didn't make the cut for inclusion in this limited history. Nor did the Brute's father, another divine, the rector of Corsley. These omissions may only reflect an author's informed assessment of his prospective audience; no one ever read a Waugh for moral enlightenment or spiritual uplift.

Alexander's earlier books were TIME and GOD, their subjects calculated perhaps to put off the really challenging task of writing this "autobiography" of his family. If so, he needn't have worried. Although it's not true that you can't miss with good material, Alexander has fulfilled his obligations both to his family and his readers, and it seems likely that the Waughs past and present, and maybe even Turgenev, would be satisfied with the job he has done.

--- Reviewed by Harold Cordry

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wavian, June 13, 2007

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Christian Schlect (Yakima, Washington/USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Fathers and Sons: The Autobiography of a Family (Hardcover)

A well-written, dryly-humorous account of the male line of the famous English literary clan. Some bold accounts of womanizing and yet lower -- but still keen -- pleasures. Alexander Waugh is an apple that did not drop far from the family's vigorous tree.

(I rank the jacket's author photograph as one of my favorites.)

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fathers and Sons, June 11, 2008

By 

Uitlander (Upstate New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fathers and Sons: The Autobiography of a Family (Paperback)

You will find very few books that can match Fathers and Sons as a revealing family biography. The Waughs have been one of England's most literary families for four generations. This effort by Alexander is a fascinating study of their filial relations. Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966) is the best known of the family, though his father, brother, son and grandsons have all turned out well-crafted prose. What was not well-crafted was their relationships. Evelyn was an irritable being and he could suffer no foolishness. Since all the principals kept diaries and corresponded frequently, we have a shocking record of their foibles and failures as well as their obvious talents. (All the Waughs wrote entertainingly, even in casual notes.)

Is this biography by a family member to be judged unbiased? An adversarial opinion draws strength from the author's comment to his mother-in-law who had inquired what sex he hoped his in utero child would be. 'I don't particularly mind so long as it's a liar' he replied. And then, "a child is no good unless it is charged with fantasy and confidant enough to foist it upon others."

In many ways, this gives insight into what propelled the whole clan. While they thought they were acting justifiably in embroilments, they were primarily responding to what their circle expected of them. And that was to produce well-written and entertaining prose. Much of this book consists of long quotations from the authors' works, including diary entries and correspondence. The relationship between Evelyn and his father is the best developed and the old man's preference for Evelyn's less renoun brother Alec is deeply elaborated. Be assured that the author spares nothing for relations sake. At one point, he criticizes another contemporary biographer for describing a family member's genitals and concedes that this is beyond the pale. However, thanks to decades of journal-keeping and inter-generational speculation, the Waughs are presented more nakedly than any camera could reveal. I blushed for them repeatedly.

I don't know if this is a true picture of how things were, but I do know that I've read a thoroughly engrossing family tale that gives superb insight into the social and literary events of twentieth century England. Fathers and Sons is required reading for all future explorations of Waviana.