 |
|
|
|
 |
 |
|
|
Amanda Brookfield was born in 1960, 30 minutes before her twin brother, to diplomat parents living in a tiny flat in St. Johns Wood, London. The twins joined two elder sisters and in 1964, the family was posted to Shanghai where their father was Consular General. For two years they lived in a large house in a compound with servants and a driver. All four children were educated by their mother and a governess and for a brief while, Amanda lived the life of a princess. In 1966, the family was posted to Bad Godesberg in Germany and the children all attended international preparatory school where among other things Amanda learnt to play the piano and sing (a passion) and to ski - Amanda's family still take their children to the original resort for an annual get-together. In 1969, the family was posted back to London and Amanda's siblings were sent away to boarding school while she became an only - and unhappy - child attending South Hampstead High School, both missing and envying her siblings. |
|
|
 |
|
|
In 1972, Amanda was deemed old enough to join her sister as a boarder at Godolphin School, Salisbury, where her mother had been before her and where stockings and suspenders were still compulsory for church on Sundays. With high Enid Blyton-style expectations the extent of her homesickness was a huge shock, but eventually she settled in and loved it. After trying and failing to copy everyone else during her 1st year exams, Amanda experienced her first defining moment when she realised that her own brain was a more reliable source of information. She went on to excel at work, sport and music, though somewhat in the shadow of her starry elder sister. At age twelve, Amanda experienced her first literary success when she wrote a rather unusual ghost story that was read out to the class. Her passion for English was born and was fired by a sixth form love of E. M. Forster's Howard's End; she went on to do an optional thesis on his work at Oxford.
The next family posting to Stockholm in Sweden saw the siblings grow much closer. The happiness of holiday partying, ice-hockey and skiing was tempered by their mother missing them terribly during term-time and in 1976, her parents purchased their first house thus ending the family's peripatetic life. With the death of their grandfather, they then moved into the 200-year-old family home; the building that would become the template for Ashley House in Relative Love and The Simple Rules of Love. In 1979, Amanda went up to University College, Oxford, to read English. |
|
|
|
|
|
Amanda's university years were lived in a constant state of terror of being found inadequate, but also one of bliss: she sang in the chapel choir, captained the women's university lacrosse team, sang and acted in various plays, worked and partied hard and met her husband. She also achieved a First - the only one in her year to do so. Everyone was shocked - none more so than Amanda - and although invited to do research at All Souls she decided her personality was more suited to the heady world of '80s advertising. Stimulating but stressful, Amanda found the world of advertising essentially pointless and after too many dinner parties spent defending her career and with work stress causing her hair to fall out, she found solace in writing funny stories in her spare time. In 1985, Amanda married (in the same church her parents were married in, in West Sussex) and her husband, having been an economics academic for nine years, joined the Foreign Office. When her husband was posted to Buenos Aires for three years, she found her life suddenly mirroring that of her parents and their start to married life 30 years before. |
|
|
|
|
|
With tension born from the Falklands War, spouses were not allowed to work and Amanda embarked on a 'secret' career as a freelance journalist working under various pseudonyms. Writing mainly travel pieces and human interest stories for UK papers and magazines including She magazine, the Sunday Express, Mail on Sunday and The Spectator(though they never actually published anything she wrote!), she also became a regular contributor to The Buenos Aires Herald. During this time she entered the Shiva Naipaul writing prize and came runner-up. Spurred on by this success, she started writing a short story about a 51-year-old woman called Alice which gradually evolved into her first novel. |
|
|
|
|
|
On home leave in 1988, Amanda mentioned her creative efforts to a friend at a dinner party and three months later she had secured an agent and sold Alice Alone to Weidenfeld & Nicolson for £2000. After overwhelmingly good reviews in all the mainstream press, Amanda felt she had found her metier and embarked on her second novel, A Cast of Smiles. In this time, her son was born by emergency caesarean in downtown Buenos Aries - an experience that made her realise she wanted to go back to the UK and the familiarity and support of her family.
In 1989, the family returned to London and moved into their first house in Earlsfield. With the birth of her second son, Amanda found it increasingly difficult to write and in 1990, the family moved again - this time to Washington DC where Amanda's husband was working for the IMF. With a nanny in tow, Amanda continued to write, aware that she wasn't writing well but too afraid to stop in case she never had the nerve to return. She wrote a bad manuscript called Sweet Jane which never saw the light of day and joined an artists' salon started up by a successful artist/writer couple; there - and only there i.e. once every 3 months - did she feel like an author.
|
|
|
|
|
|
With increasingly infrequent contact from her agent and with the lingering death of her literary career seemingly underway, the family returned to the UK and life in Dulwich. Amanda decided she needed to get a 'proper' job and started applying for everything from working for the BBC to teaching and press officer jobs. With over 50 applications sent out she was invited for two interviews - both of which rejected her! Full-time motherhood beckoned - not such a bad thing - but then, another dinner party provided a new agent's name scribbled on the back of an envelope and, empowered by fresh self-belief, she started to write fluently again; by the end of the year she had a new deal with Hodder & Stoughton. |
|
|
|
|
|
In 1993 tragedy hit the family when Amanda's niece died; the desperate experience hit the entire family severely. This was followed, in 1997, by the death of Amanda's much-loved father just two days before her launch for The Godmother and just after an incredible family holiday in Mexico where everything seemed perfect (an experience that is mirrored in the Harrison's family holiday to Tuscany in The Simple Rules of Love).
Between 1994 and 2002, Amanda wrote a novel a year but it was while writing Relative Love that she realised she had come into her own. With her two sons taking less of her time, Amanda decided she could focus more on her own literary ambitions and a few months later Penguin sought her out and The Simple Rules of Love was born. |
|
|
|
|
|
In 2000, after suffering a lifetime of back problems exacerbated by her sedentary career, Amanda discovered Pilates and physiotherapy and, after years as a keep-fit freak, she now limits herself to jogging two or three times a week; often having her best ideas while running. The year was also marked by her 40th birthday and the discovery of a lump in her breast - thankfully benign but none the less traumatic.
Still happily ensconced in Dulwich with her husband and beloved sons - one now at boarding school by his own volition - Amanda's own life and close family ties are reflected in her writing and her emotionally intelligent, poignant and perceptive voice resonates throughout The Simple Rules of Love.
Amanda Brookfield is a unique and distinctive author who excels at beautifully written and intelligent storytelling. With an innate talent for tapping into the tangled web of emotions, insecurities and passion contained in families, and the individuals within them, Amanda is a writer of contemporary fiction of the highest calibre. For the author to watch in 2006, you need look no further than AMANDA BROOKFIELD.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
