The Three of Us by Julia Blackburn

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Julia Blackburn's father, Thomas, was an alcoholic. Her mother, Rosalie, was obsessed with sex. Thomas was addicted to barbiturates. He kept having affairs. He even had an affair with the painter Francis Bacon. Julia Blackburn tells us about these things in a compelling authorial voice which is by turns numb and incredibly sensitive. But wait until you read about her teenage life, when she lived with her mother and a succession of male lodgers. The story turns towards sex, and then death, and then more death.

Synopsis by Foyles.co.uk

This is the story of three people: Julia Blackburn, her father Thomas and her mother Rosalie. Thomas was a poet and an alcoholic, who for many years was addicted to barbiturates, which would often make him violent. Rosalie, a painter, was sociable and flirtatious; she treated Julia as her sister, her confidante, and eventually as her deadly sexual rival. For after her parents were divorced, Julia's mother took in lodgers, always men, on the understanding that each should become her lover. When one of the lodgers started an affair with Julia, Rosalie was devastated; when he later committed suicide the relationship between mother and daughter was shattered irrevocably. Or so it seemed until the spring of 1999, when Rosalie, diagnosed with leukaemia, came to live with Julia for the last month of her life. At last the spell was broken, and they were able to talk with an ease they had never known before. When she was very near the end, Rosalie said to Julia, 'Now you will be able to write about me, won't you?' The Three of Us is a memoir like no other you have read.The writing is magical, and the story is extraordinary not only for its honesty but also for its humour and its lack of blame. Ultimately, this is a tale of redemption, a love story. It will surely become one of the classics of the genre.