MUST YOU GO?

Must You Go? My Life with Harold Pinter by Antonia Fraser - This is a lovely 20th Century love story written by British writer and biographer Antonia Fraser about her 33 year relationship/love affair/marriage to the playwright Harold Pinter. The title refers to the beginning of it all, and Antonia tells the story right away on the third page of the book....there had been a dinner party to celebrate the first night of a Pinter play....

Wait a minute, I said, 'I must just say goodbye to Harold Pinter and tell him I enjoyed the play; I haven't said hello all evening.' .....I went over to where Harold was sitting. 'Wonderful play, marvellous acting, now I'm off.' He looked at me with those amazing, extremely bright black eyes. 'Must you go?' he said. I thought of home, my lift, taking the children to school the next morning, the exhausting past night in the sleeper from
Scotland, my projected biography of King Charles II . . . ' No, it's not absolutely essential,' I said.

Really now, is there anything more you need to hear about this book? Harold wrote the most beautiful and simple poems to Antonia, and they enjoyed the most wonderful, romantic, artistic life together. Not without its hardships, but she writes with eloquence and honesty. And she writes with that British voice about which I complained in The Glass Room. Here, the voice is original and true. I'm so happy to have read this. Must you go?