Lead Review

• Book: The White Goddess: An Encounter
• Location: Deya (Deià), Madrid
• Author: Simon Gough

Impassioned, with all the intensive drama a youthful affair entails, this “autobifantasy” (as Gough calls it) is as much about a love of a place – the freedom and beauty of Deià contrasts with the brutality of Franco’s Madrid – as of a person. In fact, some of the finest parts of the book are not about Callas but the touching portrait of Graves and his wife Beryl; a tender, observant record both of their relationship and their real selves in their later years. Sophia Martelli, The Observer

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