SOCIAL SCIENCES

A Daughter's Tale

The Memoir of Winston Churchill's Youngest Child
A Daughter's Tale: The Memoir of Winston Churchill's Youngest Child. Random. Jul. 2012. c.368p. photogs. bibliog. ISBN 9780812993332. $28. AUTOBIOG
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Winston Churchill's reputation as the indomitable prime minister who led Britain through World War II precedes him. Soames (Clementine Churchill: The Biography of a Marriage) is the youngest of Winston and Clementine Churchill's children (and the only one still living), and her recollections, supported by her journals, reveal a loving father whose triumphs and frustrations were regularly shared at the dinner table. She also tells the story of her own coming of age as an adolescent living through the London Blitz, desperate for normalcy in her debutante year. By 1943, two years before war's end, a more mature Mary had become her father's aide-de-camp, accompanying him to North America for the Quebec Conference, which resulted in the Allied invasion of France, the beginning of the end of the war. This memoir is a loving tribute to a famous father and a tale of the daughter who chose to be at his side.
VERDICT Soames's use of her own journals in filling out her memories results in a perspective on both herself and her father that few could match. Recommended for both memoir and popular Winston Churchill biography collections.
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