books
love child a memoir of family lost and found
when allegra huston was four years old her mother was killed in a car crash . soon afterward she was introduced to an intimidating man wreathed in cigar smoke the legendary film director john huston with the words this is your father . p so began an extraordinary odyssey from the magical huston estate in ireland to the long island suburbs to a hidden paradise in mexico and at the side of her older sister anjelica into the hilltop retreats of jack nicholson ryan oneal and marlon brando . allegras is the penetrating gaze of an outsider never quite sure if she belongs in this rarefied world and of a motherless child trying to make sense of her famous fragmented family . then at the age of twelve allegras precarious sense of self was shattered when she was once more introduced to her father her real one this time the british aristocrat and historian john julius norwich . p at the heart of love child is allegras search through the unreliable certainties of memory for the widely adored mother she never knew the ghost who shadowed her childhood and left her in a web of awkward and unwelcome truths . with clear eyed tenderness allegra tells of how she forged bonds with both her famous fathers transforming her mothers difficult legacy into a hard won blessing . beautifully written and forensically honest love child is a seductive insight into one of hollywoods great dynasties and the story of how in a family that defied convention one woman found her balance on the shifting sands of conflicting loyalties .
hardcover simon & schuster 2009 isbn13 9781416551577 isbn10 1416551573
abridged n isbn 13 9781416551577 number in series 1 number of pages 289 publisher simon & schuster release date 62135769600000