-The only dividend of the years- vanishing, as far as I can see, is that it makes aspects of the past appear more interesting or humorous than they felt at the time.-
In Fires Which Burned Brightly, Faulks, a reluctant memoirist, offers readers a series of detailed snapshots from a life in progress. They include a post-war rural childhood - -cold mutton and wet washing on a rack over the range- - the booze-sodden heyday of Fleet Street and a career as one of the country-s most acclaimed novelists.
There are not one, but two daring escapes from boarding school; the delirium of a jetlagged American book tour; the writing of Birdsong in his brother-s house in 1992; and memorable trips across the channel to France. Politics, psychiatry and frustrated ventures into the world of entertainment are analysed with patience and rueful humour.
The book is driven by a desire -to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.- It ends with
