The Bolter By Francis Osborne


Apr 27, 2010

bolterThe Bolter is a scandalous biography of Idina Sackville written by her great-granddaughter who is married to the finance minister of England. It begins in the flapper age and continues until World War II. Idina was a blue-eyed beauty, elegant and smart. She was born into a social class of irresponsible wealth, nightclubs, country clubs and weekends of wife-swapping, which was not unusual behavior for the aristocracy of England in the early twentieth century.
After the First World War, Osborne describes a world with too much money, too much death and too many parties. By 1922 nudity and transparent dresses were the uncontrolled fad of the time. Idina married into one of the richest families in England. Not only was her husband rich, but he was also handsome and young.
She divorced the millionaire after bearing two sons of which she saw little of until the latter part of her life and then only briefly. Idina spent the majority of her life with four other husbands on two separate ranches in the upper highlands of Kenya. Interestingly, at the end of her tragic and broken life of wealth, grandeur and dangerous parties, she most desired to have her first husband and her two sons with her. However, fate was unkind and dictated otherwise. Only a few objects were found after her death; one, A portrait of her first husband beside her bed.

Reviewed by Library Staff