Stephen Herrick

And she befriends Charmian who lived above Erica's family in London, we soon discover.

And Charmian becomes a mother figure to Erica throughout the book.

Look, I love the writing in the book.

I thought it was fantastic.

And I could wander the alleyways of Hydra with Polly Sampson for a very long time.

She writes beautifully of the island.

And Erica is a

a very compassionate, strong narrator.

The thing that I kept coming back to though was that I was privy to these fictionalised conversations between all these well-known writers, which I think she does.

It's a wonderful job she does.

I don't admire having to try and make sense of it.

As a writer, I wouldn't like to have tried to do this, but she does it brilliantly, I've got to say.

Yeah, I guess it is because to me, if we look at Charmian and George, George is given the role in the novel of saying all the nasty stuff.

So he comes across as being very bitter, very selfish, and I'm not denying he probably was that, but you juxtapose that against Charmian's heroic multitasking.

She's a mother, a writer, an editor, a co-writer, a cook, a cleaner, and a confidant to Erica.

And she is a wonderful character, obviously.

And if anything, I hope this book gets lots of people to read Peel Me a Lotus and Mermaid Singing because it forced me to reread those books.

And they are just the most wonderful books ever.

You know, 50 years before A Year in Provence and Eat, Pray, Love and all those other living in a foreign country books, there was Charmian Clift on an island in Greece living with the locals and writing beautifully about that.

So I hope this book does that at least.