The Cake - Autumn 2021

ANGELS
of MUD
An Italian Memory
FEATURE
flap = 90mm
Author Vanessa Nicolson talks to The Cake about her first novel
Coming from a
renowned literary
dynasty it is not
surprising that
Vanessa Nicolson
has received glowing reviews for
her books.
But it was somewhat
disconcerting to discover that,
unlike her forebears who lived
at Sissinghurst Castle, she is
not keen on gardening! Their
beautiful garden on the estate
is the domain of her husband
Andrew to whom her latest book
is dedicated.
The granddaughter of
Vita Sackville-West and
Harold Nicolson has lived for
many years in what was the
gamekeeper’s house, but was
not born there having spent
much of her life in Italy.
Her father Ben, who loved
Sissinghurst but “was far
more comfortable in an urban
environment” married the
renowned Italian art historian
Luisa Vertova. But the marriage
was, said Vanessa “a disaster”
from the start, and they
divorced in 1962. Their only
child found herself having to
adjust to a new life in Italy,
visiting her father in England
once a year.
Vanessa, 65, has used a
memory from her childhood
Vanessa Nicolson was brought up in
Florence and London with an Italian
mother and British father. She has
worked as an art historian, curator and
journalist. Her publications include
The Sculpture of Maurice Lambert,
commissioned by the Henry Moore
Foundation, and two memoirs, Have
You Been Good? and The Truth Game.
She lives in Sissinghurst and London.
width = 1318mm spine = tbc
width = 138mm flap = 90mm
“The strange title
of the book, refers
to the devastation
wrought when
the Arno burst its
banks in 1966”
‘Nicolson is a startlingly skilful writer’
Evening Standard
‘… (her) writing scrapes away the skin
of everyday life, exposing raw
vulnerabilities and passions underneath.’
Times Literary Supplement
as one of the threads in her
intriguing and emotional
new book, Angels of Mud.
Her first novel, following her
two autobiographical works,
Have you Been Good? and the
Truth Game, jumps between
Clerkenwell in London and
Florence.
The strange title of the
book, refers to the devastation
wrought when the Arno burst
its banks in 1966. It ended in
the death of 101 people and
damaged or destroyed millions
of masterpieces of art and rare
books; the worst flood in the
city’s history since 1557.
The book tells of Cara, who
has spent the early part of her
life in Clerkenwell – known as
Little Italy – who finds herself
in the midst of the horror
and volunteers to become
one of the thousands of Mud
Angels who helped to save
ANGELS of MUD
VA N E S SA
NICOLSON
VANESSA NICOLSON
ANGELS
of
MUD
A Novel
damaged treasures. The story
also includes the separation of
mother and daughter, mirroring
a situation Vanessa experienced
as a child during the Florence
flood. Vanessa’s mother died
this summer at the age of 100.
The novel was three years in
the making and, as in her other
books, reveals the happiness
and pain in her finely-drawn
characters. TF
A
novel of secrets and misunderstandings,
a story of mothers and daughters –
and what happens when, unwittingly, you
follow in a parent’s footsteps.
1959. At a school in Clerkenwell, young
Cara sets eyes on the boy who will
come to obsess her. Years earlier her
mother, stuck in a sterile marriage, had
fallen for her neighbour’s son, a man so
different from her unassuming husband.
These stories of yearning intertwine
in London’s ‘Little Italy’ until, in 1966,
broken-hearted Cara escapes to Florence.
Then the river Arno floods, leaving a
trail of devastation in its wake. Cara
volunteers to help, becoming one of
the Mud Angels who recover damaged
masterpieces and rare artefacts – their
work a symbol of the world’s desire to
unite and rebuild. The two love stories, of
mother and daughter, are pieced together
by Cara’s daughter Laura.
Vanessa Nicolson writes about raw
emotion but also with an acute historical
sensitivity about the two cities, both of
which she knows well. The novel is as
rich in topographical detail as it is in
emotional truth.
Front jacket image: Swietlan N Kraczyna
Back jacket image: La Nazione
Author photograph: Carla Danella
Cover by e-Digital Design
www.harbourbooks.co.uk £12
ISBN 978-1-90512-834-1
9 781905 128341
JUST
RELEASED
Angels of Mud is
published by
Harbour Books at
£12.00
height = 216mm
The Cake • Autumn 2021 33