Joining John and Andy to discuss Penelops Mortimer's fearless and pioneering autobiographical novel, Daddy's Gone A-Hunting (1958) along with Saturday Lunch With The Brownings (1960) and The Pumpkin Eater (1962), plus the latter's subsequent film adaptation, are critic and broadcaster Lucy Scholes and New York Times daily books editor John Williams.

Lucy Scholes writes about books, film and art for a variety of publications including The Financial Times, the DailyTelegraph, NYR Daily and Granta. She is the Managing Editor of the literary magazine The Second Shelf: Rare Books and Words by Women, and hosts Ourshelves, a podcast from the legendary feminist publishing house Virago. She also writes ‘Re-Covered’, a monthly column for the Paris Review about out-of-print and forgotten books that shouldn't be. She previously appeared on Backlisted  episode no. 14 to discuss The Vet’s Daughter by Barbara Comyns; Backlisted no. 49 on Look at Me by Anita Brookner and most recently, episode no 88 on Human Voices by Penelope Fitzgerald.

 John Williams is the daily books editor and a staff writer at the New York Times, where he has worked since 2011. Before that, he spent several years on the editorial side of book publishing and founded and ran the literary website The Second Pass. John’s previous appearance on Backlisted was on episode no 117 on William James’s The Varieties of Religious Experience.

Also in this episode John is moved by Brown Baby, the new memoir by Nikesh Shukla; and Andy takes a break with Always A Welcome: The Glove Compartment History Of The Motorway Service Area by David Lawrence.

Books mentioned:

Penelope Mortimer - Daddy's Gone A-HuntingI; Saturday Lunch With The Brownings; The Pumpkin Eater; About Time;: An Aspect of Autobiography; About Time Too: 1948 - 1979
Nikesh Shukla - Brown Baby: A Memoir of Race, Family & Home; The Good Immigrant
David Lawrence - Always a Welcome: The Glove Compartment History of the Motorway Service Area
Elizabeth Jenkins - The Tortoise and the Hare
Margaret Drabble - The Millstone

Other links:

James Mason reads the menu at the Regent's Park Zoo cafeteria, from The Pumpkin Eater:
Yootha Joyce invents Twitter at the hairdressing salon, from The Pumpkin Eater:
The Pumpkin Easter (Jack Clayton, 1964)
Bunny Lake is Missing (Otto Preminger, 1965)
Gustav Mahler: ‘Ich bin die welt abhanden gekommen’ Soprano Janet Baker, conductor Sir John Barbirolli.