This is a highly enjoyable read, probably the most enjoyable biography I’ve read in recent times. It’s also hugely poignant, a somewhat crazy tale of lost love, people marrying too young and in changing and changeable times (WW1 followed by the wild 1920s and then the Great Depression). Idina created a scandal by bringing into the open what was hidden and yet tacitly approved of, as long as it wasn’t allowed to become public - the mad bed-hopping that seemed to be the norm amongst a certain section of high-society English couples in the 20s and 30s. At the same time she deeply yearned for a stable and fulfilling love and seemed to move from husband to husband trying to find one who would love her for her, be with her always, but not “fence her in” (the reality was she strayed from her husbands as much as they strayed from her).
This book does an excellent job of conveying the feeling and atmosphere of the times and places it describes – Paris and London in WW1, Kenya in early colonial days. In fact the descriptions of the Kenyan landscape and early colonial farms are captivating to the extreme – it is one of only a few books that have aroused in me an interest in actually seeing Africa.
A highly recommended read from me, and if you’re a Nancy Mitford or Evelyn Waugh fan a MUST-read!
