Reviews
Kirkus Reviews Journalist and novelist Raphael chronicles her daunting but ultimately rewarding stint living in London in 1968 as the abandoned wife and mother of three. An elegant, low-keyed memoir of a swinging time. Publishers Weekly Raphael's memoir encompasses her personal journey from early 1960s New York wife and actress to divorcée and single mom in swinging 1968 London....By 1971 she returns to New York a novelist, triumphantly a woman on her own. Raphael (They Got What They Wanted) offers stylish anecdotes for the historical record. Marie Claire TO SUM UP: Perennial good girl from Brooklyn discovers drugs, sex, and poetry in '60s London after her husband dumps her for an 18-year-old. WHY THIS MEMOIR'S NO SNOOZE: Sure, it has the old "search for self" theme going on, but what a journey! Raphael cavorts with everyone from tripping poets to Marlon Brando. BooklistMiriam Tuliano "...immensely appealing." Los Angeles Times Off the King's Roadis a memoir of a particular time in London: a time of psychiatrists pushing sex with strangers and acid trips, people crashing on your sofa, and children wondering who the adults are and who's in charge. Add the perspective of an entitled, totally dependent girl from Brooklyn via L.A. and you've got Alice through the looking glass.... [Raphael's] decision to stay in London with her children after [her husband] Bob leaves is the first she's made for herself in a long time and a turning point in this fascinating book. Her weeding through London's poseurs and hypochondriacs to find a good man is laugh-aloud funny. She emerges a full-fledged single woman, and the memoir ends with her departure for New York. East Hampton Star InOff the King's Road, Phyllis Raphael, an associate professor of creative writing at Columbia University and the winner of multiple prizes, takes us around the London of that time and gives some insight into what adversity on the one hand, and a rousing good time on the other, might have looked like there in the late '60s and early '70s. In doing so, she gives us insight into the nature of abandonment and crushed expectations. She also shows what pushing the boundaries of her expectations of herself can lead to. What follows is a spirited account that is equal parts participation and observation. At a time when liberation may well have been equal parts terrible and exalting, [Raphael] is thrust into a challenge she did not volunteer for. She shows the reader the process she went through, a process that included sexual adventure and recreational drug use and a fair amount of contemplation. She also watches her children undergo their own transformation as they become, in Ms. Raphael's eyes, if not English, then certainly less American. Her observations of her children are made with a mother's love. But more interestingly, she also seems to admire her children for adjusting to circumstances over which they have no control. It's refreshing to read a parent acknowledge that children in adverse emotional circumstances have a role in shaping their own world. Moreover, some of the book's best writing is not about London at all. She is quite eloquent on her Brooklyn childhood, where she was the "Spice King's Daughter" - her father sold spices to slaughterhouses and butchers - and grew up not far from the boxer Rocky Graziano and the Dodger Gil Hodges. But, as she makes clear, her sights were always set beyond her roots. "I was the first grandchild to move away," she writes, an act that set a precedent for subsequent family members eager to leave the confines of Brooklyn. Columbia Daily SpectatorGizem Orbey Off the King's Road: Lost and Found in Londonis at once a powerful coming-of-age memoir and a vivid study of London in the swinging '60s.
