Julia Blackburn

“They fuck you up, your mum and dad” is the famous opening line of a poem by Philip Larkin. Julia Blackburn can relate. Not because she would describe herself as “fucked up,” but because growing up “under the wings” of an addicted father and a completely self-absorbed mother left deep marks on her life. She wrote about it in Three of Us, a shocking and deeply moving book that rises far above the genre of the misery memoir.

Her father was the poet Thomas Blackburn, depressed and addicted to alcohol and to a barbiturate that made him violent. Her mother was the painter Rosalie de Meric, who found it difficult to reconcile motherhood with being an artist. She saw her daughter mainly as a sister, confidante, and later as a sexual rival. Her parents’ marriage was unhappy. Thomas constantly had affairs with other women (and on one occasion with a man: Francis Bacon), but Rosalie too had numerous lovers.

After the divorce — Julia was twelve at the time — her mother’s obsession with sex fully emerged. She took in one lodger after another, nearly all of whom ended up in her bed. When Rosalie believes she has found the man of her life in one particular lodger, only for him to become Julia’s lover as well, it marks the beginning of a triangular relationship with dramatic consequences.

Julia Blackburn is the author of The Book of Colour and The Leper’s Companions, both shortlisted for the Orange Prize. She has also written several works of non-fiction, including books about Francisco Goya and Billie Holiday. For Three of Us, she received the prestigious PEN/Ackerley Prize 2009 for best literary autobiography.

“An account of the author's complex relationship with her alcoholic father and sexually competitive mother, it is sometimes grim, but it is also a love story that makes one cry. Loudly. In great buckets.” – The Observer

“However unforgiving her detail, tout comprendre, c'est tout pardonner is the message of this extraordinary book.” – The Guardian

During BorderKitchen, Julia Blackburn will be interviewed by Maartje Somers (NRC Handelsblad).