Mail critic attacks Osborne’s book

Frances Osborne (pictured), the wife of the Tory shadow chancellor, has received close to universal adulation for her latest book, The Bolter, a biography of her racy great grandmother. Even the celebrated historian Antony Beevor called it a "deeply moving tale". However, Craig Brown, writing in yesterday's Mail on Sunday, begged to differ, questioning not just the point of the book ­- "if you want a definitive biography of this silly woman, then you need look no further" ­ - but also the research behind it, parts of which he dismissed as "pretty flimsy".

As reported on The First Post two weeks ago, Osborne's book covers the story of Idina Sackville, a racy old bird who married five times and was a prominent member of Kenya's bed-hopping and alcohol-fuelled Happy Valley set. As a subject it could be fascinating, but not for Brown, who calls Idina "one of the greatest slags of her day" and compares her with the glamour model Jordan.

"The basic story can be told in a brief sentence," writes Brown. "She was born; she drank; she had sex; she painted her fingernails; she had more sex; she went back and forth to Kenya; she drank; she died."

Brown went on to query Osborne's assertion that Idina was the inspiration for two famous fictional characters, 'The Bolter' in Nancy Mitford's Love in a Cold Climate, and Irish Storm in the 1920s bestseller The Green Hat by Michael Arlen - a theory, wrote Brown, that sought to give the book some "literary sheen".

"She offers no proof that either author ever met Idina Sackville, although she argues that Arlen seals the link between fiction and reality with the use of Idina's initials, I.S... at one time a common way of identifying the real individuals on whom fictional characters were based."

To this, the critic responds: "What she doesn't let on is the fact that the character in The Green Hat is in fact born Iris March..." Craig Brown
concludes: "Incidentally, if sharing your initials with a fictional character means you inspired them, then that means I was the original behind Charles Bovary and Charlie Brown."