Telling Tales

Anita Leslie (1914-85), best known for the popular biographies of her extraordinary relatives, including Jennie Churchill (Winston's mother) and sculptor Clare Sheridan, was also a most unlikely war heroine. In 1940 Anita volunteered for active service, and by the end of the war she had been awarded the Croix de Guerre for outstanding bravery on the battlefield in France. While Anita always insisted that everything was "delightful and amusing," her life after the war was clouded by destructive love affairs, depression, and domestic and financial chaos. This revealing biography describes the complex character behind the sunny facade she was at pains to project. Drawing on copious correspondence, Penny Perrick brings to life Anita's true anguished self: the intense joy she took in her children, her passionate love of Ireland, her career as a writer and the dramatic family squabbling that resulted from the muddled management of the Castle Leslie. Telling Tales is a scintillating and poignant account of this fl