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Murderers and Other Friends: Another Part of Life

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In CLINGING TO THE WRECKAGE, John Mortimer covered his childhood and young adulthood, marriage to his first wife Penelope and the family of six children, and his entry into British Law as a Queen's Counsel (QC). He only tangentially wrote about his literary accomplishments including his books SUMMER'S LEASE, the RUMPOLE series, and the Titmuss Trilogy, and his work as a screen writer on various plays including BRIDESHEAD REVISITED.

In MURDERERS AND OTHER FRIENDS Mortimer continues the saga of his life with tales from his days as a QC defending an assortment of clients from Sex Pistols to serial killers, tales of his work with the Labor Party, anectdotes about his marriage to wife Penny (#2), and an in-depth look behind the scenes at the creative process that led to his various artistic triumps including the creation of Rumpole of the Bailey.

It doesn't take too much imagination to see that Mortimer is Rumpole (except for the kids, he acquires two more in this book bringing the total to eight). It seems those tales we've read in the Rumpole series are based on real stories. The problem Mortimer says, is that he has had to tone down the real tales to make them believable as fiction. For example, in one of the Rumpole tales, a man is accused of attacking his wife because she made him sit next to the taps when they took their bath together. In the real case, he did not merely attack her, he killed her.

Mortimer also shares "behind the scenes" stories about his other creative efforts. He tells of his first encounter with Lawrence Olivier and how Olivier came to play the father in two of his productions, TRAVELS ROUND MY FATHER and BRIDESHEAD REVISITED. He tells of seeing the fabulous John Gielgud on stage as a child, then having him play an aging journalist in SUMMER'S LEASE. He tells of his friendships with David Niven and Rex Harrison and their rivalry. He shares anectdotes about other famous friends and their children. Some of those famous children include Emma Thompson and Natasha Richardson.

As a playwright and author, Mortimer has mingled with the cream of the British artistic world, and but this is not an expose of his friends and acquaintences--unless they are conservative members of Parliament, murderers, or other degenerates.

All of Mortimer's tales are told with humor, but occasionally, a sad note creeps in. It is impossible to reach the age of 83 and not have had at least a few sad moments. What Mortimer is able to do however, is find a way to keep the reader smiling at the foibles of human beings including himself. This is a very funny book and I recommend it to anyone who is fan of BBC/PBS productions.

The second of British author John Mortimer's three autobiographies, this installment covers his life from the 1960s through 1980s, when he retired from the law following a case which took him to Singapore. The son of a barrister who specialized in divorces and contested wills, Mortimer, who was extremely close to his father, shared his father's practice, eventually taking over when his father, blind, retired from the bar. During all this time, Mortimer also wrote plays, novels, screenplays, and stories, and in 1963, he admits, he almost left the law, in favor of writing.

When he became a QC, he began accepting cases which were not purely domestic, and he tried his first murder case, a case which found its way into his immensely popular Rumpole of the Bailey series, which he began writing in 1975. He had already written A Voyage Round My Father, which had become a successful stage play, and he memorialized his father once again as the model for Rumpole, the irascible and iconoclastic barrister who delights in challenging the status quo. According to Mortimer, the two characters are so similar that he has difficulty remembering which of Rumpole's characteristics, if any, are purely Rumpole's and which are his father's.

A supporter of the Socialists and Labor, and an atheist who says he nevertheless respects Christianity as the basis of British culture, Mortimer devotes considerable time here to describing political movements and Thatcherism during this period. His friendships with David Niven, Sir John Gielgud, Harold Pinter, and other literary and theatrical lights are fully described, and his experiences in Russia, when he and a group tried to film Shakespeare there are memorable. The final section of the book involves an extended trip to South Africa to meet his father's family and explore his roots.

Lovers of Mortimer's novels and of the Rumpole series will find Mortimer's own life fascinating, especially when real cases are described and the reader recognizes how these are used in the Rumpole series. The book is like a travelogue, however, moving from point to point with no real sense of thematic unity or direction. Mortimer himself addresses this issue in his conclusion, saying that to impose a theme, which would provide unity and coherence, would be the equivalent of inventing a myth to impose order on life. While this is a fine sentiment, it does lead to a somewhat disjointed book--amusing and interesting, but lacking conclusions which might make it more meaningful for the reader. Mary Whipple

The Summer of a Dormouse
Rumpole and the Penge Bungalow Murders
Rumpole Misbehaves: A Novel (Rumpole Novels)

I finally got around to read about the creator of that lovable Old Bailey hack - Rumpole. I was not disappointed.

The second autobiography wasn't as good as the first. Much repetition of the first but with much weaker writing. He tries too hard in this book to look more admirable than he probably is.