As a lonely teenager, the novels of Nancy Mitford offered the Sorrow and Bliss author a lifeline - and an imaginary friend. She explores why reading can create a particularly intense bond with a favourite writer
In the summer before university, my mother gave me a copy of The Pursuit of Love. We’d moved countries at the beginning of my A-levels and those months in between had been defined by a level of loneliness I had never known in my life. The sort of loneliness so acute and pervasive it feels like panic, and on top of all that, so shaming to be 17 with nowhere to go and nothing to do on a Saturday night.
Growing up, my mother – a great reader – would say: “When you’ve got a book, you’ve got a friend,” which is why, presumably, I wasn’t a great reader. Then, I’d always had actual friends. And suddenly I didn’t and presumably that is why I accepted the Nancy Mitford paperback and started to read it.
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