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Dear Lupin: Letters to a Wayward Son
Author:
Mortimer, Roger
CoAuthor:
Mortimer, Charlie
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Class:
306.8742
Age: Adult
Language: English
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LC: PR6063.O
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ISBN-13: 9781250038517
LCCN: 2013017973
Imprint: Thomas Dunne Books
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
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Pub Date: 10/01/2013
Availability: Out of Print Confirmed
List: $22.99
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Hardcover
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Physical Description:
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xvi, 187 pages ; 22 cm
H 8.5",
W 6.14",
D 0.81",
0.67 lbs.
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TIPS Subjects:
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Family Life
Men's Studies
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BISAC Subjects: |
BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Memoirs
FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS / Parenting / Fatherhood
HUMOR / Marriage & Family
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LC Subjects:
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Fathers and sons
Mortimer, Charlie,, 1952-, Correspondence
Mortimer, Roger,, 1909-1991, Correspondence
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| Annotations |
| ONIX annotations | 07/20/2017 |
| "Among the funniest [letters] ever dispatched in the vain hope of steering a black sheep onto something like the straight and narrow." -The Wall Street Journal Nostalgic, witty, and original, Dear Lupin by Roger Mortimer and Charlie Mortimer tracks the entire correspondence between a father and his only son. When the book begins, Charlie, the son, is studying at Eton, although the studying itself is not a priority, much to his father's chagrin. After Charlie graduates and moves from South America to Africa and eventually back to London, Roger continues to write regularly, offering advice (which is rarely heeded) as well as humorous updates from home ("Your mother has had the flu. Her little plan to give up spirits for Lent lasted three and a half days"). Roger's letters range from reproachful ("You may think it mildly amusing to be caught poaching in the park; I would consider it more hilarious if you were not living on the knife edge") to resigned ("I am very fond of you, but you do drive me round the bend"), but his correspondence is always filled with warmth, humor, and wisdom that offers unique insight into the relationship between father and son. |
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| Journal Reviews |
| Kirkus Reviews | 08/15/2013 |
| Epistolary commentary from a father to his son. Starting in 1967 and covering a span of more than 20 years, Mortimer reproduces the correspondence his father, Roger, sent to him throughout his life. These letters, along with brief explanations of the circumstances or context of each letter by the son, provide "humorous insight into the life of a mildly dysfunctional English middle-class family in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980." There's the mother, aka Nidnod, who loves to fox hunt, drink and entertain; the author's older sister, Jane, aka Miss Cod-Cutlet; the younger sister, Louise, aka Lumpy Lou; and a host of other characters who ramble in and out of Mortimer's letters. The father frequently reflects on his son's inability to hold a steady job and ponders when he will ever amount to anything; the son even admits his "endless shortcomings, failures, disasters and general inability to live up to the high hopes and aspirations" his parents had for him. Dogs and horses abound, in the field and underfoot, as well as commentary on the latest horrible accident to occur in the neighborhood. Typical letters include reflections on the weather, and other themes include the lack of money, the exorbitant amount on the phone bill and the high cost of eating out. Droll humor abounds, as when the father describes one woman's work on the index of his forthcoming book: "[N]o sober individual could have done such a lamentable job. I have just sent in a note of protest that will ruffle a few feathers (I hope)." The author makes many references to British people in high society, which American readers may find difficult to follow. A brief glossary of British terms for an American edition would have been useful. Entertaining letters that reflect genuine concern and love despite the rarely taken advice. 192pg. KIRKUS MEDIA LLC, c2013. |
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| Publishers Weekly | 07/01/2013 |
| From 1967 to 1991, Charles Mortimer saved all of the letters written to him by his father, Roger, racing correspondent for the Sunday Times who wrote a classic book on horse racing, The History of the Derby. Collected here (in what was a bestseller in England) the letters successfully present what Charles calls "a humorous insight into the life of a mildly dysfunctional English middle-class family in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s." With his father living in the English countryside, and Charles bouncing from career to career after a failed stint at Eton College, the letters also chart a relationship between father and son that perseveres through thick and thin, including Charles's drug problems. (His father affectionately nicknames him Lupin after the disreputable son in the 19th-century British comic novel The Diary of a Nobody.) None of Charles's responses exist, but he provides short comments after almost every letter, which actually makes the book more compulsively readable, since it allows readers to more fully enjoy Roger's articulate, eccentric, and always deeply British sense of humor. In 1974, advising Charles on job possibilities, he writes, "Have you considered the Church? There is much to be said for the quiet life of a country curate. Fortunately in the Church of England an ordained priest is not committed to any but the vaguest beliefs." (Oct.). 192p. PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, c2013. |
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