The Riviera Set 1920-1960: The Golden Years of Glamour and Excess by Mary Lovell

Little, Brown 2016; Abacus 2017

Why?

Topical reading in advance of a weekend in Nice.

And because Mary Lovell is a phenomenal storyteller, with a pronounced ability to explore historical characters in a fresh way, and examine characters on the fringes of the worlds of better known ones.

Her biography of Bess of Hardwick is one of my favourite biographies of all time, restoring Bess to her rightful place as one of the UK's greatest entrepreneurs, not just a privileged woman who "had five rich husbands" - so I was curious to know who she would focus on here.

Enjoyment factor

Great storytelling, bringing yet more lenses on the lives of the Churchill / Chips Channon / Duke of Windsor social set. Most other biographies of these familiar characters gloss over their (considerable) time spent on the Riviera, so this book fills quite a few gaps.

Group biographies are always tricky in that they require a "way in" and this one does feel forced structurally. Focusing on one villa, the Chateau de l'Horizon, a good quarter of the book is essentially a biography of the early years of American actor Maxine Elliot, who eventually builds the villa, but not until 1930. After her death - and the war - the narrative switches its focus to the villa's next owner, Prince Aly Khan, giving him a similar cradle-to-grave overview.

The one constant is Winston Churchill. This is interesting in that other biographies of Churchill don't give credence to the influence of his downtime on the Riviera on his thinking and creativity - he spent much more time there than I had realised, staying with Maxine Elliott (who rarely features in other Churchill bios) until her death.

This over-emphasis on one of many famous characters who formed the set is explained in the author's note, when Lovell admits that The Riviera Set was conceived as a separate project as a result of her research for her collective biography of the Churchills.

It left me thinking ...

How I should move on from reading endless biographies and novels set in the interwar period. But, conversely, how there is always something new to say about historical characters and circumstances.

And, what a magical place the Riviera is. The depth of its culture underneath the bling - which has its own particular charm - is unique, and very much lives on today.