My Life as a Wife: Love, Liquor and What to do About Other Women

Born in London during the Blitz, Elisabeth Luard - step-daughter of a British diplomat and reluctant debutante in her teens, fell for the 'King of Satire' Nicholas Luard - pioneer of Britain's satire movement, whilst working as an office typist at Private Eye. At just twenty-one years old, she married him. Nicholas was intelligent, handsome and charismatic, yet he was also unreliable, a philanderer and very often only just ahead of the bank. Their life together may not always have been easy, but it was certainly never dull.

Tracing the fascinating years they spent together in London to their years in Spain, France, the Hebrides and Wales with their four children, Luard's frank and bitter-sweet memoir takes us through the best and the worst of their marriage, and chronicles Nicholas's devastating descent into to alcoholism which eventually resulted in his tragic and untimely death.

Both honest and tender, it is account of a life shared and, above all, of a love story with flaws.