The Durrells get new biography that 'they would enjoy' - The Guardian

Larry, Gerry and another member of the family.

The following is an excerpt from the article by Alison Flood in today's Guardian.  You can see the full article on The Guardian website by clicking here. 

A different light is due to be shed on the idyllic ramblings of Gerald Durrell and his eccentric family in Corfu in a new biography of the Durrells, due out next year.

Michael Haag, who knew Lawrence and Gerald Durrell and who is also currently writing a biography of Lawrence for Yale University Press, has been signed by Profile to write a biography of the Durrell family before, during and after their time in Corfu. Their sojourn on the island was covered in Gerald Durrell’s much-loved Corfu trilogy My Family and Other Animals, Birds, Beasts and Relatives and The Garden of the Gods, which chart his adventures and explorations there, as well as in Lawrence Durrell’s diary of life on the island, Prospero’s Cell. ...

Family lunch in Corfu.

The Corfu trilogy, said Haag, is a mixture “of reality and invention”, with the new television series adding “another layer to that … of invention but also adding realities, like Louisa’s drinking, that were not there in Gerry’s accounts. And so a palimpsest develops and that becomes what the public knows.

“I want to reveal what’s going on underneath,” he said, predicting that the Durrells themselves would have found the fresh looks at their lives, both his own and on television, amusing. “I think they would laugh,” he said. “There was a time when Larry and Gerry went back to Corfu and went on a tour by boat, north to where Larry lived. They went with a group of other people, wore funny hats and glasses – they became tourists and very much enjoyed being told all about the Durrells. So I think they would enjoy this very much.”