My Animal Life

About the Book

Maggie Gee’s journey starts a long way from the literary world in a small family in post-war Britain.

At seventeen, Maggie, goes, a lamb to the slaughter, to university.  From the 1960s onwards she lives the defining events of her generation: the coming of the Pill and sexual freedom, tremors in the British layer-cake of class and race.

In the 1980s, Maggie finally gets published, falls in love, marries and has a daughter – but for the next three decades and beyond, she survives, and sometimes thrives, by writing. This frank, bold memoir dares to explore the big questions: success and failure, sex, death and parenthood – our animal life.

About the Author

Maggie Gee is the author of seventeen critically acclaimed books, which have been translated into more than fifteen languages. These include the novels The Red Children, My Cleaner and The White Family (shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction and International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award), and a memoir, My Animal Life. Gee is a Fellow and Vice-President of the Royal Society of Literature and Professor of Creative Writing at Bath Spa University. She was awarded an OBE in 2012 for her services to literature.

Reviews

'Highly recommended for all aspiring writers.'
Bernardine Evaristo

'Exceptionally interesting and brave ... a wonderful book.'
Claire Tomalin

'Read this vivid, minutely observed memoir.'
Sinclairr McKay, Telegraph

'Fresh and funny ... with a zest for living that bounces off the page.'
Psychologies

'A wise and beautiful book about what it feels to be alive – I really loved it.'
Zadie Smith, Guardian