Tag Archives: Esther Freud

Mr Mac and Me by Esther Freud – 20 Books of Summer 2024

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Mr Mac and Me by Esther Freud was first published in 2014, by Bloomsbury. I had meant to read this book when it first came out, not ten years later. It’s one of my 20 Books of Summer.

It’s well known I think that Charles Rennie Mackintosh and his wife Margaret MacDonald Mackintosh moved from Glasgow to Suffolk when his career in architecture had ground to a halt.  As World War One progressed they got into trouble with the authorities as some of the locals decided that the strange couple with the odd accent (Scottish) must be spies. Esther Freud has woven a story around them, embroidering what had happened to them there and how it impacted on them, as seen through the eyes of Thomas Maggs, a young boy with a damaged foot, something that he has in common with CRM.

Thomas lives on the Suffolk coast, his father is a publican, he’s abusive as a father and husband, and of course he has a drink problem, so Thomas doesn’t have a good relationship with him. When Mackintosh and his wife arrive in the area Thomas is attracted to the couple who show an interest in his own drawings and befriend him.

The Mackintoshes have money problems and Mac can’t even sell his exquisitely painted botanical art, never mind get architecture commissions, to make matters worse there are problems within Margaret’s family so she has to be away in Glasgow at times.

I enjoyed this one although it is tinged with sadness as the war takes its toll of the locals. There’s some lovely writing, descriptions of flowers, scenery and seascapes.  But as you would expect The Glasgow School of Art also features and in the author’s acknowledgements at the end of the book she adds her own ‘heartfelt appreciation of the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service for the skill, courage and determination they showed in overcoming the blaze that raged through the Glasgow School of Art just as this book was going to press.’

Of course fire came back again for a second bite of that building, such a tragedy. The remains, just a shell, are still wrapped in plastic, waiting for some sort of decision. It’s a deeply depressing sight.

 

 

From the Guardian

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In this Saturday’s Guardian Review section the author of Madame Doubtfire, Anne Fine, talks about her hero Robin Williams, you can read the article here.

Elsewhere, in the Guardian Weekend magazine there’s an article by the author Esther Freud. I haven’t read anything by her and after reading the article I doubt if I ever will. Her new book is called Mac and Me and the ‘Mac’ is actually Charles Rennie Mackintosh. I can’t help thinking that this book must have been put together in tearing haste to take advantage of Mackintosh having been in the news recently.

Freud briefly owned a cottage in Suffolk which she discovered had been an inn which Mackintosh had stayed in at some point, talk about tenuous links!

I have no idea what Esther Freud’s writing is like but given that she states towards the end of the Guardian article that the Glasgow School of Art was Mackintosh’s one and only project, I certainly don’t think anything of her research skills. Mackintosh may not have been a prolific architect but he definitely designed more than one building. There’s the Scotland Street School in Glasgow and Hill House in Helensburgh as well as a few houses in England and of course House for an Art Lover was built posthumously in Glasgow’s Bellahouston Park.

Such glaring mistakes make me wonder if Freud’s success in writing is solely because of that name ‘Freud’ with so many well known Freud relatives it certainly can’t be a disadvantage anyway. Not so much standing on the shoulders of giants as scrambling up the ankles of your ancestors. It makes me wonder why her editor didn’t point out just how wrong she was or do the editors at Bloomsbury not actually do any editing?