Memoir
Love Child
A Memoir of Family Lost and Found
When I was four years old, my mother was killed in a car crash. Soon afterward, I was introduced to an intimidating man wreathed in cigar smoke and told, “This is your father.” Seven years later, I was introduced to another man: my biological father.
Love Child is the story of a childhood fractured by tragedy, of a motherless girl who never quite feels she belongs, of a younger sister trying to find a sense of self in the shadow of beauty and fame. It is my search through the unreliable certainties of memory for the widely adored mother I never knew, and my quest to create a single family out of these odd-shaped pieces, a family which finally comes together at the christening of my son in the Rio Grande.
Bestseller in San Francisco Chronicle and Denver Post
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Shortlisted for Best First Biography by the Biographers’ Club, UK
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Number one memoir Book of the Year, Sunday Times (UK) and Irish Sunday Times
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Summer Reading Pick, Daily Telegraph and Sunday Times (UK)
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Christmas Book Pick, Sunday Times (UK)
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Bestseller in San Francisco Chronicle and Denver Post | Shortlisted for Best First Biography by the Biographers’ Club, UK | Number one memoir Book of the Year, Sunday Times (UK) and Irish Sunday Times | Summer Reading Pick, Daily Telegraph and Sunday Times (UK) | Christmas Book Pick, Sunday Times (UK) |
From reviews
“I was entranced by Love Child, Allegra Huston’s irresistible memoir … fluent, vivid and gripping.” Caryn James, Huffington Post [Read entire review »]
“A stunning and unusual memoir… this is simply a wonderful book – part mystery, part journey, part heartbreak.” Liz Smith, Variety
“You will not read anything so sublimely felt and exquisitely written in a good many years … It’s a highly satisfying moral tale and a surpassing delight to read.” Melik Kaylan, Forbes.com [Read entire review »]
“Extraordinary … [Huston] is an absolutely outstanding writer, incapable of writing a dull sentence.” Lynn Barber, Daily Telegraph [Read entire review »]
“[Huston] writes with such clarity and gentleness that, at times, the poignancy is almost unbearable … a beautifully crafted memoir, written with both tenderness and unsparing honesty.” Observer (UK) [Read entire review »]
“Excels at capturing a child’s-eye view of the chaotic adult world … scrupulously honest … wonderful.” Sunday Times [Read entire review »]
“Near-flawless.” Miranda Seymour, Daily Mail
From other writers
“I was so moved by Love Child. It reminded me of Faulkner, specifically The Sound and the Fury. It offers a remembrance that propelled me back to being a blank slate faced with a terribly specific world. So much that appears attractive, and yet so little you can actually have. Allegra Huston walked away from an empty dream, and found the treasure her mother gave her.” John Patrick Shanley, author of Doubt
“A masterpiece of astute and unshrinking compassion, an encouragement to all of us to face the turmoil and complexities of our past with forgiveness, humble self-knowledge and openness to the mysterious and often paradoxical rhythms of healing. Allegra Huston has written a book that will last and inspire, and I salute her for her art and her courage.” Andrew Harvey, author of The Hope: A Guide to Sacred Activism
“The most beautifully written book about identity and memory that I have read this year.” Antony Beevor, author of D-Day (Daily Telegraph summer reading pick)
“A touching glimpse of the pain and longing felt by a child who doesn’t quite belong to anyone, this unsentimental journey through the star-studded vacuum of her various families is unexpectedly tender and forgiving. She writes with an artist’s eye for detail, with the clear gaze of a small outsider, searching forever for love.” Joanna Lumley
“This extraordinary book reveals the all but unendurable sorrow of loss, and the difficulties of those unwilling to live in a world without love. Because Huston’s concerns are with what she has seen and learned, rather than with alienation and the affixing of blame, her memoir glimmers with triumphant wisdom.” Susanna Moore, author of The Big Girls and In the Cut
“So bravely written, so clear and intensely vivid, so unsentimentally honest, so deeply humane about the whole cast of characters … a magnificent achievement.” Simon Schama, author of Citizens and Landscape and Memory
“An exceptional telling of an extraordinary life. I loved it.” Salman Rushdie