The front cover of my book, I think shows a picture of Teruel, but Lee's writing far outweighs the cover photo:

Lee, on the other hand, comes across as a bit of a fibber. He crosses the snowbound Pyrenees in the middle of winter on his own without hiking gear. He is immediately arrested on suspicion of being a spy and kept in a dungeon for two weeks without food. He is threatened with execution. Then he is released and joins the International Brigades and bonks a beautiful woman within minutes of meeting her. Then he is sent to Madrid to play the violin on the radio because he is such a great musician. Then he is sent to the front again and takes part in the fighting for Teruel where he kills Nationalist soldiers. Then he is threatened with execution again but escapes to bonk a beautiful woman again. He is always vague with details. His memoir was written 53 years after his departure from Spain. There has been some doubt about the historical accuracy of the book. Lee himself wrote that his diaries had been stolen and so he relied on memory for what is presented as an eyewitness account. Powell, Tom (15 June 2014). "When Laurie Lee walked out". The Olive Press. Archived from the original on 18 April 2019 . Retrieved 2 September 2020.I won’t write too much for this review, largely because all the issues I had with ‘When I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning’ still stand here and I don’t want to overly repeat myself from a review I’ve just written. There are a few reasons I’ve downgraded ‘A Moment of War’ even further. Firstly, there are very few sections where Lee’s prose gets a chance to shine here due to the subject of this book, so while the previous in the trilogy was slightly dull, it always had this going for it, which is much more (but not entirely) absent here and so isn’t able to carry the book’s weaker components. I am repeating myself, since what I wrote earlier disappeared all of a sudden. I had heard that sometimes people adorned their own biography, claiming participation in historical events in which they had no pat at all. This 'autobiographical' memoir of the war is a good example of that sort of deception. I would argue that Mr. Lee had absolutely no participation in the Spanish Civil War. The inconsistencies and contradictions are all too obvious. Let's look at the narrative: A Moment of War is the powerful and harrowing final book in Laurie Lee's acclaimed trilogy that began with Cider with Rosie

He works in clear, precise statements slowly building the panorama and action, so that you can see, feel and hear what he sees and feels; stark, vivid, pictures of scenes, events and people, a country destroyed by war. Lee's writing is so honest and skilled that I read this book for his writing, and only later realized there was an understated narrative. It's only as I complete the book that I stop to consider a couple of facts. Lee wrote this in 1991, almost 54 years after his experiences in this war. It is considered the third book in his autobiographical series which began with "Cider with Rosie", and then "As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning". In "A Moment Of War", he barely touches on his personal feelings and yet the experience was deeply etched in his memory - he wrote it so much later. Lee met Lorna Wishart (sister of Mary) in Cornwall in 1937, and they had an affair (Lorna was married) lasting until she left him for Lucian Freud in 1943. They had a daughter, Yasmin David, together. Wishart's husband Ernest agreed to raise the girl as his own; she later became an artist. [11] [12] [6] I fell in love with Laurie Lee's writing a few years ago, reading 'Cider with Rosie'. I begun reading Lee because he was from a village close to where I live, in Gloucestershire. Cider with Rosie, did not disappoint my want for nostalgia for my beloved Stroud(ish), however I stopped here for a while before reading 'As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning', which I knew would have very little to say about the rolling hills of Slad. However I started seeing a Spanish guy, and so, with a little more relevance to my life again, the literary journey continued. In the chapter entitled - 'Death Cell: Albacete' this is the second time where Lee, is singled out and held in confinement. His passport is the cause of the problem; a year previously he had travelled to Morocco, visiting the exact places where Franco and his generals were plotting.a b c d e Barker, Juliet (2004). "Lee, Laurence Edward Alan". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (article) (onlineed.). Oxford University Press. doi: 10.1093/ref:odnb/66180. Archived from the original on 2 September 2020 . Retrieved 2 May 2017. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.) The success of the autobiographical novel Cider with Rosie in 1959 allowed Lee to become a full-time independent writer. It continues to be one of the UK's most popular books, and is often used as a set English literature text for schoolchildren. The work depicts the hardships, pleasures and simplicity of rural life in the time of Lee's youth; readers continue to find the author's portrayal of his early life vivid and evocative. Lee said that the creation of the book took him two years, and that it was written three times. With the proceeds Lee was able to buy a cottage in Slad, the village of his childhood. [14] Poetry [ edit ]