Book Review - My Father’s Places

About the Book

While Dylan Thomas is globally recognized for his moving contributions to literature and his nightly pub crawls, little is known about his family life. Thomas and his wife Caitlin had only one daughter, Aeronwy, who passed away in 2009. Before she died, she completed My Father’s Places, a memoir that vividly describes her life growing up with Dylan Thomas as her father. Now being released in the United States for the first time, Aeronwy’s story adds new detail to a literary life that continues to fascinate.

 

When Aeronwy Thomas was six, her parents moved to the boathouse at the edge of the small Welsh village of Laugharne. Through a child’s eye, she recalls the chaos and joy of living with Dylan Thomas while the poet was at the height of his creative powers, composing Under Milk Wood. Through a series of beautifully evocative episodes, village and family life are explored. Some of the exciting and humorous accounts provided are:

• Encounters with personalities like Augustus John and A.J.P Taylor
• Descriptions of the villagers who would eventually be transformed into the characters from Llareggub
• Never-before-seen photos of Dylan Thomas and his family
• And comical, detailed stories of Aeronwy’s childhood and relationship with her father

 

With a lyricism resonant of her father’s poetry, this is a heartrending and deeply moving portrait of growing up in Laugharne and of the lasting legacy of Dylan Thomas’s writing.

 

About the Author:

Aeronwy Thomas was the only daughter of Dylan Thomas and his wife, Caitlin, and was her father's literary executor. A writer and a poet in her own right, she was also president of the Dylan Thomas Society, patron of the Dylan Thomas Award, president of the Association of Literary Societies, and president of Swansea Little Theatre. She regularly lectured and attended readings around the world up until her sad death in 2009, just before the British publication of My Father's Places.

 

My Take on the Book

This book was a treasure trove of information about Dylan Thomas. The author provides a intimate look at her father for what he was, a man, with faults and issues to be dealt with. The reader is given an unprecedented look at the man that Dylan Thomas was and you can see that chaos and crises that his daughter went through in her formative years.

Though the story paints a picture of Dylan Thomas that is not always positive, it still shows the genius of his writing as well as what inspired what he wrote.

For anyone who appreciated Dylan Thomas' writing, this book will provide you with a much better understanding of who he was and what made him who he was. You will not be disappointed!

If this book sounds like something you would like in your own library you can find it on Amazon!

 

All opinions expressed in this review are my own and not influenced in any way by the company.  Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer or provider. Please refer to this site's Terms of Use  for more information. I have been compensated or given a product free of charge, but that does not impact my views or opinions.

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