Mr Mac and Me (34 page)
Authors: Esther Freud
And there it is: just as Mac dreamt it, a great ocean liner brought in to land, and when I take hold of my courage, and step through from the dark interior of the hall into the white light of the music room, I see the three words written there, on every wall.
I’d like to thank Richard Scott, who, many years ago now, whispered the story of Mackintosh in Suffolk into my ear. Sarah Lawrence for providing me with a silent and inspiring place to work while I was in the village. Bill Ungless for handing over some invaluable books. Richard Reeves for the brilliant research work that startled me into an entire re-write. Barry Tolfree for his generous help and the uncovering of two wonderful memoirs: one, unpublished, by Cyril Steley, and the other,
People at War 1914–18
, edited by Michael Moynihan, which contains the experiences of Ernest Read Cooper, solicitor and Town Clerk of Southwold. Also for introducing me to Ronnie Waters, now in his 90s, whose research inspired the local history website southwoldandson.co.uk
Of the many books I read, these were the most helpful:
Can Your Mother Skin a Rabbit?
by Bert Allard;
ABC of Boat Bits
by James Dodds;
Ferryknoll
by Carol Christie;
Colourful Characters of East Anglia
by H. Mills West;
Remembering Charles Rennie Mackintosh
by Alistair Moffat;
Glasgow Girls
, edited by Jude Burkhauser;
The Chronycle: The Letters of Charles Rennie Mackintosh to Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh, 1927,
published by the Hunterian Art Gallery;
Charles Rennie Mackintosh
by Alan Crawford;
The Quest for Charles Rennie Mackintosh
by John Cairney; and
Charles Rennie Mackintosh: Art is the Flower
by Pamela Robertson. I am indebted to Pamela Robertson for meeting me on one of my trips to Glasgow, for her invaluable help with facts and information, and for her close reading of the manuscript.
Thanks also to my agent Clare Conville for her enthusiasm and insightful notes, and to my editor Alexandra Pringle for her gentle guidance and her passion. To Harry Ritchie – Scottish accent coach extraordinaire – Kitty Aldridge for her continuous support, Manuela Stoica for her patience and loyalty, and David Morrissey who makes so much possible. But above all thank you to the village – for making me feel at home, right from the start.
I would also like to add my own heartfelt appreciation of the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service for the skill, courage and determination they showed in overcoming the blaze that raged through the Glasgow School of Art just as this book was going to press.
Esther Freud trained as an actress before writing her first novel
Hideous Kinky
, published in 1992.
Hideous Kinky
was shortlisted for the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and made into a film starring Kate Winslet. In 1993 Esther was named a Granta Best of Young British Novelist. She has since written seven other novels, including
The Sea House
,
Love Falls
and
Lucky Break
. She also writes stories, articles and travel pieces for newspapers and magazines, and teaches creative writing at the Faber Academy. Esther lives in London and Suffolk.
@estherfreudrite
Hideous Kinky
Peerless Flats
Summer at Gaglow
The Wild
The Sea House
Love Falls
Lucky Break
Love Falls
‘A vividly rendered portrait of a young girl’s journey towards self discovery and maturity’
Daily Mail
‘Her most subtle and most affecting book yet’
Independent on Sunday
‘
Love Falls
captures the delicious uncertainty and electrifying beginnings of first love’
Glamour
It is July, three months after Lara’s seventeenth birthday, and a week before Charles and Diana’s Royal Wedding. When Lara’s father, a man she barely knows, invites her to accompany him on holiday, she finds herself far away from the fumes of London’s Holloway Road in the sun-scorched hillsides of Tuscany.
There she meets the Willoughby family, rife with illicit alliances and vendettas. The more embroiled Lara becomes with them, and with the carelessly beautiful Kip, the more consumed she is with doubt, curiosity and dread.
And so begins her intoxicating, troubled journey into self discovery and across the very fine line between childhood and what lies beyond …
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The Wild
‘Wonderful ... Freud has a precious and remarkable gift for creating fictional children. She is infinitely patient with the subtle differences between the worlds of children and adults, and her descriptions of the collisions between them are hauntingly beautiful’
The Times
‘Ranks alongside
Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha
as one of the very few great contemporary novels about childhood’ William Sutcliffe,
Independent on Sunday
Nine-year-old Tess has never seen anything like The Wild. An old bakery, converted into a home, it has a fireplace big enough to sit in, a garden with a badminton net and another one for vegetables. And then there's William, its owner. Single father of three, he cooks homemade ravioli, cuts trees down with a chainsaw and plays the guitar. When her mother, Francine, rents two rooms from him, Tess can hardly believe her luck. Her brother Jake, however, proves harder to convince. As the two grown-ups begin to fall for each other, Tess struggles to please the adults as well as win Jake round. But she finds that good intentions don't always bring happiness and that adults are disturbingly capable of making mistakes...
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Summer at Gaglow
‘A perfectly paced piece of high-calibre storytelling’
Observer
‘Evocative and intriguing’
Elle
Summer, 1914. It is Emanuel's twenty-first birthday, and eleven-year-old Eva and her sisters are helping transform Gaglow for a glorious party. But their brother's arrival is overshadowed by the talk of war that comes with him from Hamburg, and when he is wrenched from the family to serve his country, Eva knows that nothing will be the same again. Seventy-five years later, with the fall of the Berlin Wall, Sarah's father begins to tell her about Gaglow, the grand East German country estate that will now come back to them. Alternating between Sarah's bohemian life in London and her grandmother's childhood during the First World War,
Summer at Gaglow
unites four generations of an extraordinary family in a tale of loss and love.
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Peerless Flats
‘She describes monumental life events simply, which makes them more powerful’ Sophie Dahl
‘A delightful read’
The Times
Sixteen-year-old Lisa has high hopes for her first year in London. But squeezed into a temporary council flat with her bohemian mother and a little brother obsessed with foxes, she is not off to the best start. Ambitious to be more like her elusive, glamorous sister, Ruby, who lives life to the full, Lisa trails through the city, dabbling with drugs and romance, and refusing to lose faith in her belief that something fantastic will happen to mark the rest of her life.
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Lucky Break
‘A warm, sharp read’
Guardian
‘Full of pitch-perfect observation, spiced with wry humour. It is also a terrifically absorbing book, as authentic an evocation of the acting experience as you're ever likely to read’
Observer