Iris and Her Friends : A Memoir of Memory and Desire

The last month or so of the life of novelist Iris Murdoch, the wife of the author, provides the framework for this biography.

Within this structure the author enters into extensive memories of the past.

It brings to life the author's own childhood, from his birth in colonial India to his epiphanic holidays in the seaside town Littlestone-on-Sea, where he first discovered the power of literature. It looks too at Iris's early years to explain how they came together and how they were "right" for each other.

So in this book the author explains much more about himself and describes in much more detail how he managed to cope with the ordeal of seeing his wife become terminally ill and lose her faculties.

In this he quotes a considerable amount from literature, which is his own field of study.