An Immaculate Mistake

Library Journal

Bailey is an English novelist with a gift for the interior power of small talk, the dialog line of a few words casually spoken, filled with great emotional history and meaning. Here, he gives us a wryly funny account of growing up in wartime Britain as the third and last child of an already elderly street sweeper and a domestic servant to the royal family. Precocious and intellectual as a child, Bailey seems to have spent most of his youth engaged in verbal sparring matches with his cantankerously strong-willed mother. In fact, this book tells us as much about her as it does about the author; thank goodness she was such an interesting character. About Bailey, we get the picture of a sensitive young man of a dramatic disposition (he memorizes all of Hamlet , knowing that one day he will act in the play), growing up as a gay youth in the working-class neighborhoods of London in the 1940s. Bravely hopscotching through formative years of poverty and discouragement, this memoir of an author making peace with the ghosts of his past is recommended for all collections.-- Jeffery Ingram, Newport P.L., Ore.