Love Affair
by Leslie Kenton Vermilion, Random House, $39.99
Despite the title, this is not the memoir of a love affair in the accepted sense. Indeed, love hardly enters it. Obsession, yes. Lust, yes. Anger, cruelty, jealously, loneliness - all of these, but no affection in the way usually felt and
understood.
Leslie Kenton, now in her 70s was the only child of a "Hitchcock blonde", Violet (whom her daughter says was still adolescent in her mid-20s), and Stanley Kenton, a jazz musician/composer whose work has been variously described as "brilliant" or "pretentious", but who longed to compose great music and when disappointed or discouraged, resorted to alcohol and drugs, to which he became addicted.
Leslie's babyhood was spent with her maternal grandmother, a martinet if ever there was one. When her parents reclaimed her she was to travel with them through a hedonistic world of one-night stands in jazz clubs, dance halls and the like. Her formal schooling was intermittent, though she could read from an early age. Her father's mother was also to play a huge and damaging role in her childhood.
She was only 11 when Stanley, by then divorced by Violet, first raped her. He denied it. In fact he blamed her. It is only later he claimed to "love her, but maybe in the wrong way", which didn't mean it stopped.
For three years father and daughter had a relationship which she describes as a forbidden honeymoon.
The book gives reasons and excuses, perceptions and explanations. Nowhere is there any sense of wrongdoing although both participants knew they must keep their coupling a secret.
The author tries hard to convince readers their love for each other was normal and valuable. Given her background and upbringing, one can appreciate her stance, although her later life, her three marriages and several children, rather belie it.
This is not a book for every reader. Many will be repelled. Others offended - perhaps scandalised.
It would be less difficult to feel sorry for the child Leslie, if the adult one didn't strive so hard to justify the situation. Perhaps a case of "walking a mile in someone else's shoes".
