The private lives of Winston Churchill /

Pearson's grim but engrossing chronicle relates Churchill's unhappy relationships with his father, his wife and his children. Photos. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

These two biographies of one of the major figures of our century have little in common besides their subject. Like his previous works (notably Edward the Rake , LJ 9/1/75), Pearson's is a chatty, gossipy book written in an engaging style. It focuses on the family history of the Churchills over three centuries, from the first Duke of Marlborough to the present day, with Winston as the centerpiece. The history is presented in a casual and anecdotal fashion (no footnotes, bibliography, or index); the names of characters are consistently misspelled; and dates are bungled. Its strongest point is its illumination of Churchill's relationships with his children, none of whom found it possible to live up to their famous father. If a book on Churchill could ever be considered ideal beach-chair reading, this would be it. In contrast, Gilbert's one-volume distillation of the author's eight-volume biography is a more serious and distinguished effort, emphasizing Churchill's public career and his place in modern history. Although there is, inevitably, personal information, Gilbert avoids the expose style of the Pearson book. This is an official biography and, as such, is partial to its subject; at times it seems Churchill himself has taken over the narrative in order to express his views. The book is, however, very well written and includes the documentation lacking in the Pearson book. For libraries that have not purchased the eight-volume set (or even for those that have), Churchill: A Life is an important acquisition; Private Lives is not. Gilbert's book previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 6/1/91.--Ed.-- Linda Smith, Mobil Corp. Lib., Fairfax, Va. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

It may be hard to write anything new about Winston Churchill, but it is even harder to write anything dull about him, as Pearson (The Selling Of the Royal Family, 1986; The Serpent and the Stag, 1984, etc.) proves again here. Pearson's inquiry into Churchill's private life began with his interest in the tragic deaths of three of Churchill's four children: Diana, who killed herself, and Randolph and Sarah, whose drunken escapades became notorious. Mary, the wife of successful Tory politician Christopher Soames, was the only one of Churchill's children to lead a balanced, normal life. Why? Pearson has found some obvious answers, and some more unexpected. It is well known that Churchill's father, Lord Randolph, gave little attention to his son, whom he thought stupid, leaving Winston with an enduring need to prove himself. It is less well known that, as Pearson reveals, Churchill's wife, Clementine, was probably the daughter of one of her mother's lovers, perhaps even, by an irony, a man who was also a lover of Churchill's mother. Churchill's desire to provide a more loving family environment was negated by his ambitions and way of life, and by Clementine, whose energy and interest in her children were never very great. As a result, the children alternated between outrageous pampering, little discipline, and outright neglect. The love affair between Winston and Clementine, often portrayed as idyllic, appears to have been something less than that, with Clementine often overwhelmed by her husband's galvanic energies, deep depressions, boisterous friends, and reckless spending. The explanation for all this may be found more in the conventions of the Victorian era and in the selfishness of a man of towering ambition than in the ``cunning and ruthlessness of the egomaniacal genius'' depicted in the publisher's blurb, but Pearson offers solid insight into one of the most remarkable public men of the century. (Sixteen pages of b&w photographs--not seen.)