Red badge of courage

The author describes this book as an ‘auto- biographical novel’, but since it would be quite beyond me to distinguish fact from fiction in this hair-raising account of his childhood years, I propose to treat it as if it were all true, especially as I can’t imagine anyone making any of it up.

The author describes this book as an ‘auto- biographical novel’, but since it would be quite beyond me to distinguish fact from fiction in this hair-raising account of his childhood years, I propose to treat it as if it were all true, especially as I can’t imagine anyone making any of it up. The autobiography is of the stammering, sensitive figure of Roy Kerridge, the victim as a child of horrifying domestic circumstances. But the central character is really his mother, Thea, a misguided, naive but heroic figure who clings desperately to her ideals and her faith in humanity despite repeated disappointments and betrayals.