She spurned Cecil Day-Lewis, divorced Kingsley Amis and was duped by a conman lover. But it was as a single woman that Elizabeth Jane Howard flourished as a novelist. And now she has written part five of her revered Cazalet series…
'Penetrating stare': Elizabeth Jane Howard, photographed for the Observer New Review at her home in Bungay, Suffolk. Photograph: Richard Saker for the Observer
Last month, Elizabeth Jane Howard turned 90. At an age when most of us might celebrate with a warm whisky and warmer slippers, Howard was handing in the manuscript of her 15th novel to her publishers. The next day, she was at her computer promptly at 10.30am, writing a new one.
"Well, it's the thing that makes me get up in the morning," she says when I express surprise at her work rate. "Otherwise, there's not really an awful lot of point to my life any more – except very nice friends and things."
We are talking in the study of Howard's lovely, sprawling house in Suffolk. Outside, the walls are painted a surprising turquoise. Inside, the shelves are filled with books, all neatly alphabetised, including copies of the Cazalet novels for which she remains most famous. An Apple MacBook is propped up on the desk.
"I hate it," Howard says, looking at the computer and sounding like a 1950s nanny telling off a naughty child. "We don't get on at all."
The four Cazalet books form a tightly constructed and beautifully written narrative charting the shifting fortunes of an upper-middle-class English family during and after the second world war. Since their publication in the 1990s, they have sold more than a million copies. Howard has just written a new instalment due to be published in November, much to the excitement of diehard Cazalet fans, and Radio 4 is currently running a 45-episode dramatisation of the saga.
Howard is mildly astonished by the resurgence of interest in her work. Any talk of how her reputation as a writer is undergoing a long overdue re-evaluation is greeted with a startled glare. "Gosh, I'm feeling really inflated today, watch out," she says. "My head is swollen and empty."
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"Well, it's the thing that makes me get up in the morning," she says when I express surprise at her work rate. "Otherwise, there's not really an awful lot of point to my life any more – except very nice friends and things."
We are talking in the study of Howard's lovely, sprawling house in Suffolk. Outside, the walls are painted a surprising turquoise. Inside, the shelves are filled with books, all neatly alphabetised, including copies of the Cazalet novels for which she remains most famous. An Apple MacBook is propped up on the desk.
"I hate it," Howard says, looking at the computer and sounding like a 1950s nanny telling off a naughty child. "We don't get on at all."
The four Cazalet books form a tightly constructed and beautifully written narrative charting the shifting fortunes of an upper-middle-class English family during and after the second world war. Since their publication in the 1990s, they have sold more than a million copies. Howard has just written a new instalment due to be published in November, much to the excitement of diehard Cazalet fans, and Radio 4 is currently running a 45-episode dramatisation of the saga.
Howard is mildly astonished by the resurgence of interest in her work. Any talk of how her reputation as a writer is undergoing a long overdue re-evaluation is greeted with a startled glare. "Gosh, I'm feeling really inflated today, watch out," she says. "My head is swollen and empty."
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