Waugh, Teresa 1940–

(Teresa Lorraine Waugh)

PERSONAL: Born February 26, 1940, in London, England; daughter of the 6th Earl of Onslow and Pamela Dillon; married Auberon Waugh, July 1, 1961 (deceased); children: two sons, two daughters. Education: Exeter University, B.A. (first class honors), 1978. Religion: Church of England.

ADDRESSES: Office—Combe Florey House, Taunton, Somerset, England TA4 3JD.

CAREER: Writer and translator.

WRITINGS:

NOVELS; EXCEPT AS NOTED

Painting Water, Hamilton (London, England), 1984.

Waterloo, Waterloo, Hamilton (London, England), 1986.

(With husband, Auberon Waugh) The Entertaining Book (nonfiction), illustrated by Glynn Boyd Harte, Hamilton (London, England), 1986.

An Intolerable Burden, Hamilton (London, England), 1988.

A Song at Twilight, Hamilton (London, England), 1989.

Sylvia's Lot, Sinclair-Stevenson (London, England), 1994.

The Gossips, Sinclair-Stevenson (London, England), 1995.

A Perfect Day, Travelman Publishing, 1999.

A Friend like Harvey, Gollancz (London, England), 1999.

The House, Weidenfeld & Nicolson (London, England), 2002.

TRANSLATOR

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, The Shah's Story, M. Joseph (London, England), 1980.

Jean Gimpel, The Cathedral Builders, Michael Russel (Salisbury, Wiltshire, England), 1983.

Maria Bellonci, The Travels of Marco Polo: A Modern Translation, Facts on File (New York, NY), 1984.

Jean Tulard, Napoleon: The Myth of the Saviour, Weidenfeld & Nicolson (London, England), 1984.

Benedictine Craveri, Madame du Deffand and Her World, Godine (Boston, MA), 1994.

Anka Muhlstein, A Taste for Freedom: The Life of Astolphe de Custine, Helen Marx Books, 1999.

Benedetta Craveri, The Age of Conversation, New York Review of Books (New York, NY), 2005.

SIDELIGHTS: Teresa Waugh is the author of several novels that lambaste both middle-class morals and the modern family. Critics have often commended the well-rounded, sometimes comical characters from all walks of life that appear in her works. Waugh's first novel, Painting Water, was published in 1984. Its protagonist is Alice Taylor, a woman whose life spans the book's chapters. At the onset, she is a girl during World War II at the boarding school her father heads; later, she marries, has children, and is diagnosed with cancer. Looking back, Alice reflects upon her life and its meaning, and whether or not it was a fulfilling one. Caroline Moorehead, writing for the Spectator, lauded it as "a dry, crisp novel."

Waterloo, Waterloo is the title of Waugh's second novel, which won much praise upon its 1986 debut. The novel charts a dozen or so of the early retirement years of Jack, a former military officer, and his dysfunctional family. The "Waterloo" of the title refers to Jack's obsession with toy soldiers, reconstructing battle scenes, and Napoleonic history—the battle at Waterloo began the French emperor's downfall. With his second wife, Peggy, Jack has moved to Devon and opened a small shop and post office. Peggy, however, emerges as a less-than-ideal wife, a fanatical shopper who eventually begins an affair with a driving school owner. Their daughter Josephine remains mostly away at school but sometimes returns for a visit, during which she steals from her parents' store. Peggy has a grown son, Nigel, who also comes to Devon to escape an unhappy relationship, but the reader learns that his real problem involves unlawful perversion.

Spectator writer Cressida Connolly praised the "unremitting pathos" through which Waugh characterizes Jack, who is eventually shipped off to a nursing home. The author, asserted Connolly, "has a fine ear which enables her to sustain the cliched speech of her characters without appearing tongue-in-cheek." Bill Greenwell, reviewing Waterloo, Waterloo for the New Statesman, pointed out that Waugh "has an eye for silent bickering, [and] an ear for the grinding absurdity of petty argument." A Times Literary Supplement critic was equally laudatory. "How Waugh manages to make a comedy out of all this is a small miracle," noted Kirsty Milne, who concluded that "on one level, Waterloo, Waterloo is delightfully ludicrous; on another, it's a counsel of despair, and Teresa Waugh treads a fine line between the two."

Waugh's third novel, An Intolerable Burden, again tells of a highly dysfunctional family. Its events revolve around a social worker, Claire, and her shiftless boyfriend, Francis. Afflicted with asthma, Francis lies in bed smoking and watching television most of the day, entertaining schemes like constructing a model of Buckingham Palace out of match sticks. Claire's mother worries about her when she is not living in a fantasy world of her own or fretting about her other grown child, Roddy. The latter's troubles with the law and Claire's leave-taking of Francis form the core of the novel's climax.

Lindsay Duguid, writing for the Times Literary Supplement, pointed out some usage errors and "the rather hasty rounding off of the plot" as signs that An Intolerable Burden may have been too quickly published. Duguid did comment, however, that "Waugh's mastery of the family horror-story has been coming along nicely since Painting on Water and Waterloo, Waterloo." In his review of An Intolerable Burden, Spectator writer David Profumo declared that the author "spins a yarn of social realism shot through with … humour…. The result is both entertaining and pathetic, and it is a finely modulated achievement."

In A Song at Twilight Waugh reconstructs the life of another unremarkable character. Prudence Fishbourne is a retired, never-married schoolteacher in the process of writing her memoirs. In other waking moments, she finds herself attracted to her neighbor Eric, a widower, and recounts the rebelliousness of her niece Laurel. This teenager favors nudity, which has so incensed her father that he wears blinders in the house, which in turn causes Laurel to shave her head. She also invents a new religion. Meanwhile, Prudence's memoirs recount her dalliance with an unhappy student long ago, whom she introduced to her nephew; the nephew then began an affair with the student's mother. "All of these comic details enliven a not very striking narrative in which little is resolved and nearly every strand simply peters out," wrote Times Literary Supplement critic Patricia Craig. An Observer critic gave A Song at Twilight a mixed review, but concluded that Waugh's protagonist is "one of this year's most endearing heroines."

The title character of Sylvia's Lot is a middle-aged divorcee with two alienated, grown children. The son is a computer consultant; the daughter is a squatter with punk hair. Their father was a cleric who drank and gambled; their grandmother is simply a terror. Sylvia makes ends meet by serving as a housekeeper for Percy Hardcastle, another alcoholic. He pines for his daughter Jocelyn, a sophisticated type who runs a lampshade shop, but it appears that she has good reason to despise her father. Sylvia's most redeeming relationship comes with the handyman on Percy's estate, Wilf. "Sylvia's Lot is indeed a desperate one," noted Spectator reviewer Janet Barron, "but the novel is entertaining and touching, and ultimately optimistic." Times Literary Supplement reviewer Nicholas Clee called the grandmother "the most memorable character in the book, preposterously mendacious and self-aggrandizing, by turns vituperative and demanding." Clee found some fault with Waugh's unadorned prose, but granted that "she is perceptive about the atavistic pulls and revulsions of familial relationships."

In The Gossips Waugh chronicles the lives of another hapless family headed by a beleaguered, middle-aged divorcee. Annie receives no genuine help from her friends, the "gossips" of the title, who detail her family's increasing dysfunction in transcripts of telephone conversations Waugh inserts into the narrative. Annie's daughter Tamsin—from her annulled marriage to Henry, an apparently devout Catholic—gets into trouble after becoming a telephone sex operator. Will, Annie's boyfriend, provides little support; his job as a journalist lands him in the war-torn former Yugoslavia. Annie eventually finds an unlikely companionship with her neighbor Walter. The hearsay surrounding these characters and events reaches a point where the reader suspects that little of the gossip may be reality. The thrust of The Gossips, noted Times Literary Supplement reviewer Alex Clark, seems to be that such talk reduces "all human emotion to the status of information to be exchanged on the open market." With this in mind, Clark concluded that "Waugh's keen ear for dialogue and obvious proficiency at handling character and plot make The Gossips enjoyable to read, even if, as a cautionary tale, it falls short of its apparent goal."

The House, Waugh's 2002 offering, begins in 1940s England. The owner of Cranfield, the house of the title, is Lord Otterton, father to Georgina, who is five as the story opens. Cranfield is in disrepair, and it is difficult for the family to carry on in the genteel manner of better times. Food is scarce, requiring them to eat whatever is available, primarily wild rabbit, and the once-beautiful manor leaks and is surrounded by weeds. The story is told through the diaries and letters of four people, the lord and his daughter; Annie, the companion and maid; and Zbigniew Rakowski, a historian who is documenting the family history. The other main characters are the two ladies of the house, Lord Otterton's mother and wife. Lord Otterton's mistress plays a role, as do his caged birds, and they hold his attention more than does his own wife, who is loved by the Polish historian. Spectator reviewer Clayre Percy observed: "Each voice is differentiated in their conversations with themselves in their diaries, each character illuminated by the light one throws on the other. It's a compulsive read and very funny."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

New Statesman and Society, March 21, 1986, Bill Greenwell, review of Waterloo, Waterloo, p. 28.

Observer (London, England), November 12, 1989, review of A Song at Twilight, p. 47.

Spectator, January 28, 1984, Caroline Moorehead, review of Painting Water, pp. 24-25; March 1, 1986, Cressida Connolly, review of Waterloo, Waterloo, p. 29; February 27, 1988, David Profumo, review of An Intolerable Burden, pp. 28-29; July 16, 1994, Janet Barron, review of Sylvia's Lot, p. 30; July 20, 2002, Clayre Percy, review of The House, p. 34.

Times Literary Supplement, March 7, 1986, Kirsty Milne, review of Waterloo, Waterloo, p. 257; January 15, 1988, Lindsay Duguid, review of An Intolerable Burden, p. 69; November 17, 1989, Patricia Craig, review of A Song at Twilight, p. 1271; July 22, 1994, Nicholas Clee, review of Sylvia's Lot, p. 20; November 3, 1995, Alex Clark, review of The Gossips, p. 23.