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A Bite of the Apple by Lennie Goodings – essential literary memoir

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/feb/23/a-bite-of-the-apple-by-lennie-goodings-review

The Virago publisher is eloquent and inspiring on writing – but her memoir lacks grit and gossip

Lennie Goodings has had a long and highly respected career in publishing. She is chair of Virago Press, the pioneering publishing house that champions women’s writing. She’s been with Virago since the 1980s and A Bite of the Apple is an account of the company’s journey from punkish upstart to literary stalwart. It’s also – more juicily – about her experiences as an editor working with authors including Sarah Waters, Maya Angelou, Margaret Atwood and Sarah Dunant.

For the historical lead-in, Goodings maintains a careful, stately tone, like the voiceover in a prestigious BBC period drama about ladies: The House of Elliot, but for books. The story is one of artistry, ambition, activism and a fierce desire to marry the three. Putting women’s lives, women’s stories and women’s words back into history requires work. A Bite of the Apple is about the women who did this work from the 1970s onwards, a time of huge activism around race, class and sex, when “women wanted a voice, women wanted to understand their history, women wanted to see themselves on the page… women wanted their share”.

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