''Bad Blood'' is a 2000 work blending collective

biography A biography, or simply bio, is a detailed description of a person's life. It involves more than just the basic facts like education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays a person's experience of these life events. Unlike a profile or ...

and

memoir A memoir (; , ) is any nonfiction narrative writing based in the author's personal memories. The assertions made in the work are thus understood to be factual. While memoir has historically been defined as a subcategory of biography or autobi ...

by the Anglo-Welsh

literary critic Literary criticism (or literary studies) is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of literature's goals and methods. Th ...

and academic

Lorna Sage Lorna Sage (13 January 1943 – 11 January 2001) was an English academic, literary critic and author, remembered especially for contributing to consideration of women's writing and for a memoir of her early life, '' Bad Blood'' (2000).ODNB entry ...

. Set in post-war

North Wales , area_land_km2 = 6,172 , postal_code_type = Postcode , postal_code = LL, CH, SY , image_map1 = Wales North Wales locator map.svg , map_caption1 = Six principal areas of Wales common ...

, it reflects on the

dysfunctional Abnormality (or dysfunctional behavior) is a behavioral characteristic assigned to those with conditions that are regarded as rare or dysfunctional. Behavior is considered to be abnormal when it is atypical or out of the ordinary, consists of un ...

generations of a family, its problems, and their effect on Sage. It won the 2001 Whitbread Book Biography of the Year seven days before Sage died of

emphysema Emphysema, or pulmonary emphysema, is a lower respiratory tract disease, characterised by air-filled spaces ( pneumatoses) in the lungs, that can vary in size and may be very large. The spaces are caused by the breakdown of the walls of the alve ...

James Fenton James is a common English language surname and given name: *James (name), the typically masculine first name James * James (surname), various people with the last name James James or James City may also refer to: People * King James (disambiguat ...

wrote in ''

The New York Review of Books ''The New York Review of Books'' (or ''NYREV'' or ''NYRB'') is a semi-monthly magazine with articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs. Published in New York City, it is inspired by the idea that the discussion of i ...

'': "What makes the book remarkable is the individual story she has to tell, and which she delivers with such glee." ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' ranked ''Bad Blood'' at number 89 in its list of 100 Best Books of the 21st Century in September 2019.

Release details

*2001, UK, Fourth Estate (), Pub. date 10 July 2001, paperback (First edition)

References

External links

Review at ReadingGroupsGuides.com
2001 non-fiction books Costa Book Award-winning works British biographies Literary autobiographies {{lit-bio-book-stub