Shared Lives (Paperback, New ed)

Lyndall Gordon, the acclaimed biographer of T. S. Eliot and Virginia Woolf, grew up in Cape Town, South Africa, in the 1950s. This intimate and moving memoir is the story of Rosie, Ellie, and Romy - her closest friends from childhood until their early deaths. Daughters of Jewish immigrants, these girls grew into adulthood together, shaped by their parents' and grandparents' Eastern European heritages, the stifling atmosphere of their proper girls' school, South Africa's politics, and the intense pressure within their bourgeois milieu for early marriage. We meet and follow Rosie, whose career plans vanish into marriage and motherhood; Ellie, who became a psychologist but struggled with her own depressions; Romy, the exuberant rebel who, resisting marriage, enraged the men who loved her; and Lyndall Gordon herself, struggling to adjust to the power games of big-time academia. Yet, though miles distanced them as they grew older and went off to New York, Oxford, and Paris, their bonds of friendship remained strong, separated only by their untimely deaths. This heartfelt tribute to three obscure women who left nothing but their stories, letters, and memories reveals the significance of their lives, their hidden possibilities, and, most importantly, the redemptive power of friendship between women.