Maeve Brennan, Philip Larkin’s library assistant at Hull, joined the Barbara Pym Society a little over a year before her death, and it was she who suggested a joint meeting between the BPS & Philip Larkin Societies. Her book, "The Philip Larkin I Knew" was reviewed in Green Leaves; in it Deirdre Bryan-Brown detected resemblance between Brennan and Pym heroines.
Now she makes frequent appearance in this new biography of her rival for Larkin’s affections, Monica Jones, Lecturer at Leicester University. Maeve is described as: “Monica’s great rival for seventeen years, a woman trapped in aspic, Potter-named mouse, devoutly Catholic, daughterly, soft-spoken, unthreatening, the nicest of women”. Nonetheless, she provoked a seven-page diatribe from Monica in a letter to Philip.
Barbara Pym gets only one reference: in the appendix, about Larkin's will giving her letters to the Bodleian.
It’s a fascinating book to read, showing a new side to Larkin’s story. ( )

Monica Jones was Philip Larkin's girlfriend for many years, though they only lived together for a few years before his death in 1985 from cancer of the oesophagus, when both were affected by the years of heavy drinking and smoking. This is a biographical memoir by a former student/colleague/friend, now a retired professor and well known literary critic. This is an interesting hybrid of a thoroughly researched biography with the personal reminiscences, which is a juggling act but it works quite well here,

Previous portrayals I've heard/watched/read of Monica Jones have portrayed her as a rather unpleasant, racist alcoholic, and someone who distracted Larkin from his poetic callings, rather sexist perspectives often assisted by Philip Larkin's other friends such as Kingsley Amis, who satirised Monica in his novel Lucky Jim.

Sutherland uses letters etc to build a portrait of a real woman, very intelligent and funny as well as often lonely, contradictory and difficult. She was appointed as a lecturer in English Literature at Leicester University within a few years of graduating, but refused to write and publish or play the various games required of anyone wanting a glowing academic career. Sutherland's viewpoint suggests she was a really good lecturer/tutor who was given a very high load of lectures, students to tutor and supervise etc. She got on well with her original boss but not with his replacement. There are lots of academics in my family and among my parents' friends etc so I find all this very believable. Then there are lots of anecdotes about drinking and the periods when she had a more fun social life apart from Larkin. Despite being quite racist and reactionary, one of her good friends and proteges for some time was a young Indian Marxist academic called Dipak Nandy, who went on to found the Runnymede Trust and have a daughter from his second marriage who is now a Labour MP (Lisa Nandy).

Sutherland does try to take on the less attractive aspects of Monica Jones' character such as her quite explicit racism, alongside the misanthropy her lover is famed for, and says that he now feels ashamed that as a young man he didn't question some of her more obnoxious comments. He doesn't say it but I got the impression that the troubled couple at the centre of this story rather brought out the worst in each other. Larkin was never faithful to her and had two long running significant relationships, one with his librarian colleague and subordinate Maeve Brennan, and one with his secretary Betty. One of Sutherland's journalist/writer friends Rachel Cooke apparently suggested that Larkin's treatment of Monica Jones at times amounted to coercive control.

Overall, a really interesting and thoughtful read. ( )