Valerie Grove's exploration of the life of a writer widely-known and loved in the UK for his novel-cum-memoir 'Cider with Rosie' holds some surprises, not all of them welcome. Lee's output was surprisingly small, and achieved only with much agonising; his reputation rests on a relatively modest handful of semi-autobiographical fiction and poetry. The portrait Grove presents is of a magnetic, spellbinding young man - a carefree Pied Piper figure - who became self-centred, morose and often tyrannical as youth, health and good looks deserted him, and whose interpretation of 'truth' in his memoirs became the subject of much debate amongst those who had shared his experiences, for example, in the Spanish Civil War. His lifelong attraction to very young girls, compulsive extra-marital activities and behaviour towards his lovers and long-suffering wife (who was very considerably his junior) casts a shadowy, and at times (for this reader, anyway) unappealing light on his character. Perhaps sometimes we're better off not knowing the facts behind the lives of writers - I came away from this book feeling that Laurie Lee was not someone I warmed to. For me, a fascinating but ultimately very saddening biography. ( )