Family Secrets
Published on 6. March 2003
Book
Hardback
224 pages
978-0-09-179420-0 (ISBN)
Description
Hidden under some papers in his father's bureau, the sixteen-year-old Derek Malcolm finds a book by the famous criminologist, Edgar Lustgarten called "The Judges and the Damned". Browsing through the Contents pages Derek reads, 'Mr. Justice McCardie tries Lieutenant Malcolm - page 33.' But there is no page 33. The whole chapter has been ripped out of the book. Derek's father, it emerges, shot his wife's lover and was acquitted at a famous trial at the Old Bailey. The trial was unique in British legal history as the first case of a crime passionel, where a guilty man is set free, on the grounds of self-defence. Husband and wife lived together unhappily ever after. After his father's death, Derek received an open postcard from his Aunt Phyllis, which baldly informed him that his real father was the Italian Ambassador to London...By turns laconic and affectionate, Derek Malcolm has written a richly evocative memoir of a family sinking into hopeless disrepair.
Reviews / Votes
'Some people's secrets should never be told. The secret, though, that surrounded my parents' unhappy life together, was divulged to me by accident...'More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Cornerstone
Product notice
Paper over boards
Weight
432 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-09-179420-0 (9780091794200)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
Derek Malcolm was chief film critic of the Guardian for thirty years and still writes for the paper. Educated at Eton and Merton College, Oxford, he became first a steeplechase rider and then an actor after leaving university. He became a journalist in the sixties joining the Guardian, where he was a features sub-editor and writer, racing correspondent and finally film critic. He directed the London Film Festival for a spell in the 80s and is now President of both the International Film Critics Association and the British Federation of Film Societies. He is a frequent broadcaster on radio and television and a veteran of film festival juries all over the world. His most recent book was A Century of Cinema (2000). He lives in Deal, Kent, with his wife but also has a flat in London.