Maggie and Me by Damian Barr review

Adam Mars-Jones on a shrewd, sharp memoir of Thatcher-inspired escape

The death of Margaret Thatcher has put wind in the sails of Maggie and Me, but Damian Barr's memoir would have managed perfectly well on its own. This memoir of deprivation and survival is shrewdly constructed and written with a winning dry humour.

Barr's starting point is the night in October 1984 when Mrs Thatcher's escape from the bombs planted in her Brighton hotel dominated the television news ("this blonde woman rises from rubble again and again like a Cyberman off Dr Who"). It was the first night that Barr, then aged eight, spent in an unfamiliar flat after his mother left the marital home to live with her boyfriend Logan.