cover image D. H. Lawrence and Frieda: A Portrait of Love and Loyalty

D. H. Lawrence and Frieda: A Portrait of Love and Loyalty

Michael Squires. Andre Deutsch, $29.95 (210pp) ISBN 978-0-233-00232-3

In this lively, exhaustive account of their intense marriage, (in)famous author D.H. Lawrence and his uninhibited wife Frieda von Richthofen frolic through a life that was often sparse and ""always in motion,"" set in enchanting villas, borrowed cottages, seaside retreats and great Western ranches across England, Italy, Germany, America and elsewhere. Squires, a long-time Lawrence scholar, draws on previously unpublished letters from Frieda to craft a sensitive portrait of the dissimilar, individualistic and fiercely loyal lovers whose colorful renegade style could easily turn disagreeable (Frieda left her husband and three children to elope with Lawrence) and whose betrayals revealed the crushing insecurity that hid in each-partly revealed in Lady Chatterly's Lover, Lawrence's thinly-veiled account of the marriage. Friends (and hangers-on) were crucial to the couple, who were seldom alone; the book is graced with literary figures and exotic locales, as the couple's search for an earthly paradise (in part to relieve Lawrence's lifelong but unmentionable tuberculosis) takes them to exotic locales like Capri and Taos, New Mexico. Fans of the notorious novelist and early 20th century literature in general will find this account fresh and illuminating.