Artemis Cooper on Elizabeth Jane Howard

Elizabeth Jane Howard wrote brilliant novels about what love can do to people, but in her own life the lasting relationship she sought so ardently always eluded her. Following her divorce from her first husband,  naturalist Peter Scott, Jane embarked on a string of high-profile relationships with Cecil Day-Lewis, Arthur Koestler, Laurie Lee and Kingsley Amis which turned her into a literary femme fatale. Yet the image of a sophisticated woman hid a romantic innocence which clouded her emotional judgement. She settled in Suffolk where she wrote and entertained friends, but her turbulent love life was not over yet. In her early seventies Jane fell for a conman. His unmasking was the final disillusion, and inspired one of her most powerful novels, Falling.

Artemis Cooper, brilliant biographer of Patrick Leigh Fermor and Elizabeth David  explores the life of a woman trying to make sense of her life through her writing, as well as illuminating the literary world in which she lived.