Judith (British Literature) - Softcover

Born in London, Mosley was educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford and served in Italy during the Second World War, winning the Military Cross for bravery. He succeeded as 3rd Baron Ravensdale in 1966 and, on the death of his father on 3 December 1980, he also succeeded to the Baronetcy. His father, Sir Oswald Mosley, founded the British Union of Fascists in 1932 and was a supporter of Benito Mussolini. Sir Oswald was arrested in 1940 for his antiwar campaigning, and spent the majority of World War II in prison. As an adult, Nicholas was a harsh critic of his father in "Beyond the Pale: Sir Oswald Mosley and Family 1933-1980" (1983), calling into question his father's motives and understanding of politics. Nicholas' work contributed to the 1998 Channel 4 television programme titled 'Mosley' based on his father's life. At the end of the mini-series, Nicholas is portrayed meeting his father in prison to ask him about his national allegiance. Mosley began to stammer as a young boy, and attended weekly sessions with speech therapist Lionel Logue in order to help him overcome the speech disorder. Mosley says his father claimed never really to have noticed his stammer, but feels Sir Oswald may have been less aggressive when speaking to him than he was towards other people as a result.

The narrative, in the form of several very long letters from Judith to men in her life, conveys in sensible, straightforward, matter-of-fact prose the profound disorientation and exaltation that follow from taking nothing for granted.

(New Yorker)

Mosley is one of the few to swim against this current [of trends in contemporary writing] successfully by combining the best features of modernism with the accessibility of earlier conventions.... [Judith has] the funniest nervous breakdown since Bruce Jay Friedman's Stern.... [Mosley uses a] deft and witty combination of new and old ways to tell a riveting story.

(Joseph Coates, Chicago Tribune)

In [Mosley's] series of interconnected tales... he continues to push hard against the novelistic envelope, working to change the whole form and 'frame' of the language in which he writes. Engaging his reader from instant to instant with the questioning intensity of the dedicated progressive formalist, Mosley... consistently makes the mental and emotional experience of his books something special.

(Tom Clark San Francisco Chronicle)