![]() ![]() ![]() And yet the memoir is perfectly suited to his combined talents. Throughout a five-decade career that has spanned almost every possible literary form – plays ( Noises Off, Copenhagen), novels ( Spies, Headlong and the Fleet Street classic Towards the End of the Morning), journalism, screenplays, translations and works of philosophy – Frayn has never before dipped his toe into the waters of autobiography. Tom Frayn's life is not particularly exceptional and therein lies its charm – the story reflects the experiences of any number of men and women that it is told so well is testament to his son's talent. The couple have two children and settle down in suburban contentment in the village of Ewell in Surrey. ![]() He marries his childhood sweetheart Violet and becomes a travelling salesman, exempt from war service in 1939 because of his "reserved occupation" selling fireproof asbestos to government departments. So it is that we learn of Tom Frayn, a quick-witted boy born into impoverished circumstances, the youngest of four siblings, all of whom suffered from hereditary deafness. He does so with immense panache, writing in a way that evokes emotion without ever lapsing into bathos, threading sentences through with a gentle, touching humour. ![]() But with this slim, moving memoir, Frayn has finally managed to respond to the father he so clearly loved. ![]()
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