Behind the Mask
The Life of Vita Sackville-West
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
Matthew Dennison creates a revealing portrait of the brave and charismatic Vita, in the first biography of her to be written for thirty years.
Vita Sackville-West was a woman who defied categorisation. She was the dispossessed girl whose lonely childhood at Knole inspired enduring feats of imagination, the celebrated author and poet, the adored and affectionate wife whose marriage included passionate homosexual affairs (most famously with Virginia Woolf ), and the recluse who found in nature and her garden at Sissinghurst Castle solace from the contradictions of her extraordinary life. In this dazzling new biography, Matthew Dennison traces these complexities, depicting a prolific, radical, sensitive and uncompromising figure in all her depth.
Reviews
BOOK OF THE YEAR as chosen by:
The Times
Independent
Observer
'Dennison captures both Vita’s irresistible charm and her selfishness. Like his subject, he is a natural storyteller, and his impeccable scholarship never weighs down his lively narrative' Independent
‘Brave man to take on the biography of Vita, and he has brought it off superbly … It studies and reveals this extraordinary woman as well as could possibly be. A fine achievement’ Spectator, Susan Hill
‘Astute and engaging, Dennison looks again at Vita’s extraordinary life and makes a new sort of sense of it … fascinating … an insightful book. The connections between Vita’s childhood, her dispossessions, her sexuality and her writing are compellingly explored. Vita emerges as a complex and interesting character, and far more than a gay icon’ Literary Review
‘Dennison emphasises the desire for solitude that existed in tension with her joyous sensuality and need for love’ Guardian
‘Detailed and fascinating … Dennison shows true admiration for his latest subject … freshly chronicled here for the first time in more than 30 years’ Daily Express
‘Intimate … A splendid biography of a splendid character’ The Lady
'This astute and engaging book looks again at Vita's extraordinary life and makes a new sort of sense of it … Fascinating … Insightful … The connections between Vita's childhood, her dispossession, her sexuality and her writing are compellingly explored. Vita emerges as a complex and interesting character, and far more than a gay icon' Literary Review
‘Comprehensively documents her literary … with evocative portraits of her husband [and lovers] … Dennison’s Vita is convincingly ambivalent and inflammatory, a product of her age’ New Statesman
'This carefully researched book is intelligently and elegantly written … balanced, oratical and confident’ Spectator
‘Brilliant … thorough and engaging’ Daily Mail
About the author
Matthew Dennison is the author of seven critically acclaimed works of non-fiction, including ‘Behind the Mask: The Life of Vita Sackville-West’, a Book of the Year in The Times, Spectator, Independent and Observer. His most recent book is ‘Over the Hills and Far Away: The Life of Beatrix Potter’. He is a contributor to Country Life and Telegraph.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Biographer Dennison (The Last Princess) offers a dense and tedious portrait of British writer Vita Sackville-West (1892-1962) that begins in 1910 with the legal troubles of Victoria, the author's mother, who acquired a scandalous reputation for her out-of-wedlock birth and (possibly platonic) relationship with an older man who bequeathed his estate to her husband. These events thrust the aristocratic Sackville-Wests into the spotlight for the first time. Dennison then backtracks to Sackville-West's birth and privileged upbringing that laid the groundwork for Sackville-West's complicated nature, including her need for role play, her tendency toward drama and cruelty, and the contradictions between her actions and work. Her long engagement to diplomat Harold Nicolson and their eventual marriage are explored, as are her affairs with her childhood friend Rosamund, novelist Violet Keppel, and Virginia Woolf. The book then moves onto the final decades of Vita's life, when creating the famous Sissinghurst Castle Gardens became her priority, and when, perhaps for the first time, she was rejected by a potential lover. Dennison has plenty of information to offer but unfortunately little focus. Fans of Sackville-West's, or of Woolf's novel Orlando (inspired by Sackville-West), will be interested nonetheless, but they'll have to wade through a great deal of undigested information to get to the story.
