The Senecans: Four Men and Margaret Thatcher

Description

A year after the death of Margaret Thatcher, a young woman arrives to ask Peter Stothard, former Editor of The Times, some sharp questions about his memories of the Thatcher era. During her interview the offices from where he has long observed British politics are being flattened by wrecking balls. Forgotten stories return. From the destruction of a collapsing newspaper plant emerge portraits of `the Senecans': a Hollywood screenwriter who wrote Thatcher's speeches, a socialite former socialist who comforted her with flattery, a comic political columnist whom she admired but rarely read and a multi-millionaire film-producer whom she consulted but never acknowledged. The Senecans took their name from their taste for the work of Seneca, a philosopher, courtier and acquirer of massive wealth during the age of Emperor Nero. Blending memoir with ancient and modern politics in the manner of his acclaimed diaries On the Spartacus Road and Alexandria, Stothard sheds a sideways light on recent history. In finally identifying his interviewer he answers questions about his own literary and political journey.

Peter Stothard was Editor of The Times from 1992 to 2002, the period of its greatest commercial success for a century, and until recently was the Editor of the Times Literary Supplement. He was knighted for his services to newspapers in 2003. He has written extensively on politics and literature.

An artful blend of fact and fiction... poetically written, supremely stylish * The Guardian * A brilliant, haunting work from a modern master of memoir -- Mary Beard A blend of classical learning and political recollection [which] seeks to capture the mood and moment of the Thatcherite Eighties * Evening Standard * Underscores the evanescence of journalism and of strivings for fame... Finely descriptive [in the] grace of its reflections * Financial Times * Full of juicy little Thatcher anecdotes... the picture that unfolds of Thatcher is neither cloyingly sycophantic nor nastily aggressive. Instead, she emerges as an unusually insecure figure * Daily Mail * An education in the random brutalities and routine betrayals of political life * TLS *