Why it’s permissible to betray family secrets
Blake Morrison is the quintessential man of letters. More exactly, he’s a man of genres – poet, novelist, playwright, essayist, librettist and, most notably, memoirist. (Four memoirs so far, each a prize winner and/or bestseller). Although in the introduction to On Memoir he refutes the notion that he established the genre of life writing in the UK (he was professor of creative and life writing at Goldsmiths University, London for 20 years) or that he has ‘encouraged its growth’, he has somehow become its guru, the critic every literary editor turns to on the publication of yet another raw family story or celebrity revelation. He may have popularised memoir, but
