When Evelyn Waugh died in 1966, his son Auberon felt that a 'great brooding presence' had been lifted 'not only from the house but from the whole of existence'. Auberon was in his twenties then, and - as he tells it in his book of memoirs - he had long ago got used to living in the shadow of his famously unpleasant dad. 'It was many years before I could break the habit of viewing every event with half an eye to the bulletin I would send to my father.' 'The strain of living two lives, one on my own, and the other through his eyes, was greatly relieved by his sudden death.'

LRB 12 March 1992 | PDF Download