In 1966, Alan Bennett was just beginning the career that would endear him to his native England as one of the country's most prolific and acclaimed playwrights. But, surveying his own life at the time, he was conscious of something lacking: He could not claim any of the things some writers suffer through and later mine for material — a miserable childhood, maybe, or a backdrop of political upheaval. Or, at the very least, eccentric parents. In his memoir, "A Life Like Other People's," Bennett writes that, at that early point, "I … had already given up on my own background because the material seemed so thin.". Even World War II — which, as a world-historical event of considerable sweep and import, would seem to qualify — passed over the family: His father's work as a butcher exempted him from military service. So much for that. Bennett, like other writers of reasonably good fortune, would have to look elsewhere.
Read the LA Times feature here.
, 
, 
, 