Against the Stream

Against the Stream is the latest volume of Frederic Raphael’s acclaimed memoirs Personal Terms, an unrivalled parade of the author’s eventful and provocative life, opinions and times drawn from his living and breathing cahiers and journals. "Shrewd, funny, gossipy and elegantly written," as Jeremy Lewis said in the Literary Review, these writings are as unguarded, sardonic and tactless as they are candid. This seventh volume relives Margaret Thatcher’s first years in office. Raphael’s wide acquaintance in the world of politics, literature, journalism and the movies gives him rare access to the character of those, in England and America, who dominated the times. The unintended result is a Proustian parade of people, famous and otherwise forgotten, and events momentous and strictly personal, presented by an unabashedly partisan, unblinking eye-witness. There is nothing else quite like this unfolding project in English or American literature. "I am not a camera, but—as these carnets prove—I am a pen. The moving finger writes differently from the clicking keys."

Frederic Raphael was born in Chicago in 1931 and educated at Charterhouse and St John’s College, Cambridge. His novels include The Glittering Prizes (1976), A Double Life (1993), Coast to Coast (1998)and Fame and Fortune (2007); he has also written short stories and biographies of Somerset Maugham and Byron. Frederic Raphael is a leading screenwriter, whose work includes the Academy Award-winning Darling (1965), Two for the Road (1967), Far from the Madding Crowd (1967), and the screenplay for Stanley Kubrick’s last film, Eyes Wide Shut (1999). The first volume of Personal Terms was published by Carcanet in 2001, with subsequent volumes in 2004, 2006, 2008, 2011 and 2013. The Times Literary Supplement said, "Aphoristic, lapidary and sumptuously reflective by turns, Personal Terms is a joy to read both for Raphael’s prose and mental powers. It is a work of iridescent intelligence, seductive charm, urbane temper and unflagging delight…"