Confessions

A Life of Failed Promises

By: A. N. Wilson

Narrated by: A. N. Wilson

Bloomsbury presents Confessions written and read by A. N. Wilson.

Known for his journalism, biographies and novels, A. N. Wilson turns a merciless searchlight on his own early life, his experience of sexual abuse, his catastrophic mistakes in love (sacred and profane) and his life in Grub Street – as a prolific writer.

Before he came to London, as one of the “Best of Young British” novelists, and Literary Editor of the Spectator, we meet another A. N. Wilson. We meet his father, the Managing Director of Wedgwood, the grotesque teachers at his first boarding school, and the dons of Oxford – one of whom, at the age of just 20, he married, Katherine Duncan-Jones, the renowned Shakespearean scholar.

The book begins with his heart-torn present-day visits to Katherine, now for decades his ex-wife, who has slithered into the torments of dementia.

At every turn of this reminiscence, Wilson is baffled by his earlier self – whether he is flirting with unsuitable lovers or with the idea of the priesthood. His chapter on the High Camp seminary which he attended in Oxford is among the funniest in the book.

We follow his unsuccessful attempts to become an academic, his aspirations to be a Man of Letters, and his eventual encounters with the famous, including some memorable meetings with royalty.

The princesses, dons, paedophiles and journos who cross the pages are as sharply drawn as figures in Wilson’s early comic fiction. But there is also a tenderness here, in his evocation of those whom he has loved, and hurt, the most.

©2022 A. N. Wilson (P)2022 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Critic reviews

When you combine the deepest learning and the highest readability with the most plumptious story-telling, the result is A. N. Wilson. (Stephen Fry)

A. N. Wilson is the most enjoyably readable writer I know. (Antonia Fraser)

A. N. Wilson is the supreme man of letters. He has conquered every field: journalism, novels, biography, history – and now memoir. He is planet-brained and very funny – a vanishingly rare combination. (Harry Mount)

I am stunned, as I always am, by Wilson's humanity and brilliance and hard honesty. (Deirdre McCloskey)

A. N. Wilson

- I wish it had continued. I’m looking forward to the sequel
- perfect that he narrated it

Atomic bomb and other gems

He has great descriptions of people and events. He makes you feel like it must be raining and foggy during his long stretches of a failed marriage and sheltered time in academia.
He converted to Catholicism with the help of a World War II veteran, who was on a plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Japan. This veteran spent 25 years of contemplation with a monastic order. He emerged after 25 years to interact again with society as a priest. He could have saved these 25 years by talking to a person who stated that his father would have definitely died in a Japanese prisoner of war camp without the atomic bomb. His father immediately receiving adequate nutrition the day after the bomb was dropped. So many vicious crimes by the Japanese Empire that the war had to end as rapidly as possible. The rape of Nanjing. The Baaan death march. The hell ships moving prisoners to the Japanese islands.
The book “Flags of Our Fathers” describes the genital mutilation of a United States Marine, on one of the Pacific Island campaigns by the Japanese soldiers when he was dragged into a tunnel. This was a time when we did not tolerate the death of any American soldier. Now we bomb storage facilities as retaliation for soldiers brain damaged from missile concussions on over 70 attacks by Iranian proxies. Important to keep things in historical context when you discuss the use of the atomic bomb on Japan.
The English boarding school description of Physical abuse matches with the most horrific description I have ever read during Winston Churchill’s time at a boarding school.
I have a friend whose daughter’s life was saved by the superior environment of a boarding school compared to the public school in a more remote part of the island of Great Britain.
This is definitely not a book I would have put on a reading list. Perfect as an audiobook. There are times that I feel he tolerates depressing situations for such long stretches of time that you wish someone would administer psychiatric treatment of ECT – – – electroconvulsive therapy.