12 OCTOBER 1991, page 39

Another Good Read From The Slums

Caroline Moorehead THE RAG NYMPH by Catherine Cookson Bantam, £14.99, pp.351 hen Catherine Cookson put an appallingly difficult early life, a nervous breakdown, and recurrent......

Memoirs Are Made Of This

Patrick Skene Catling A GIRL IN PARIS by Shusha Guppy Heinemann, £14.99, pp. 278 I f everyone, as they say, has a novel in them (an awful thought), think how full they must be......

Wresting Tragic Grandeur From The Ordinary

Francis King SCUM by Isaac Bashevis Singer Cape, £14.99, pp. 218 A writer shows his true worth when he takes some incident familiar from countless other novels and then makes of......