Agatha Christie: An Autobiography by Agatha Christie: book review

Agatha Christie: AnAutobiography (1977, this edition 2010) is an updated edition, which includes photographs (both black and white, and colour) and a CD of Christie dictating the autobiography to her typist. It took 15 years to write (from the age of 60-75) because she was more focused on writing her well-known detective novels than writing about herself. This autobiography is a rambling 532 pages.

Born Mary Clarissa Agatha Miller (1890-1976) she commences, not with factual details, but with her childhood home, Ashfield, in the coastal town of Torquay in Devon, England, which remained one of her eight homes throughout her life. She was the youngest of three children, with sister Madge and brother Monty. The first hundred pages are rambling with no focus on chronological order – but what we do learn is that she was ‘painfully shy’ and socially awkward. The 10 pages describing her American father’s death when she was 11 years old, and how her devastated mother reacted, is a poignant well-documented account in which the tone of her writing changes drastically – for the better.

In 1911 at the age of 21 she dabbles in writing short stories to send to magazines. She seeks advice from her neighbour, the writer of the Dartmoor region, Eden Philpotts (1862-1960), but she is not interested in a career because ‘you were waiting for The Man, and when the man came, he would change your entire life.’ She married Archie Christie in 1914.

It is not until the chapter on ‘War’ that the writing becomes interesting, with the advent of World War I (1914-1918). She works in the local hospital and it is in the dispensary that she conceives the idea of a detective story – about poisoning. Madge lays down the challenge that Agatha can’t write a detective story because it would be too difficult, followed by the advice in a letter from Lord Louis Mountbatten (Prince Philip’s uncle) who suggested she use ‘a good formula.’ The publisher Bodley Head had her first manuscript of The Mysterious Affair at Styles – with detective Hercule Poirot – for two years before accepting it in 1920 with changes to the ending. So at 48% into the autobiography is the first mention of her novels and the writing process. She transferred to a new publisher and her first book with William Collins, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926), was ‘far and away my most successful’ due to a good formula. In 2013 it was voted the best crime novel ever by 600 writers of the Crime Writers’ Association.

The answer that most readers want to know is to the question – what happened during the 10 days she disappeared in 1926? It is not answered, but it is alluded to: ‘the next year of my life is one I hate recalling.’ Her mother died, and she decided to deal with the family home, Ashfield, instead of going to Spain with Archie. When he returned he was ‘quite simply, not Archie … he told me straight out’ about the woman he was in love with. He left that night and so did she – she was eventually found at a hotel and diagnosed with amnesia. ‘So, after illness, came sorrow, despair and heartbreak.’ She added, ‘from that time, I suppose, dates my revulsion against the Press, my dislike of journalists and of crowds … Life in England was unbearable.’

Archie’s brother, Campbell Christie, came to her aid, helping her to get another book underway to help her financial situation. In the chapter ‘The Land of Lost Content’ she says there was no joy in writing; it was just to make money: ‘that was the moment when I changed from an amateur to a professional.’ It wasn’t so much that marrying her husband changed her life, it was the divorce in 1928 that did. She travelled alone to Baghdad.

The chapter ‘Second Spring’ is one of her best in this autobiography, because Iraq is remembered with happiness, yet it is also interesting – especially for me as I lived there for a year. ‘Not until you travel by yourself do you realise how much the outside world will protect and befriend you.’ When an Iraqi recites poetry, she writes ‘I should never have envisaged myself, coming all the way to Iraq so as to have Shelley’s ‘Ode to a Skylark’ recited to me by an Iraqi policeman in an Eastern garden at midnight.’

She returned to Baghdad a year later and met archaeologist Max Mallowan, 14 years younger than her. They married. From then her output of a book a year, and her venture into other genres, such as poetry, songwriting, drama, and historical fiction, is recounted, although she can’t remember writing some of them.

To coincide with Agatha Christie’s 125th birthday on September 15, 2015, her novel And Then There Were None (1939) was voted the world’s favourite Christie novel, followed by Murder on the Orient Express (1934). So it was her books written before she turned 50 that were her best and most loved, even though she continued writing until two years before her death at 85.

Her autobiography is a long tale with really only a few interesting chapters. She is liberal in her writing, flowing where her thoughts take her – here and there, back and forth, and repeat. There are some references to her writing routine, her likes and dislikes, and her feelings about specific events – some quite honestly, but there are only a few gems in the gravel. Dates are rarely mentioned, and it is usually through world events that the reader can determine the time line. Nevertheless for the avid Christie fan it is yet another of her books to add to a vast and varied collection.