There is an element of the double-edged sword about biographies penned by friends and family of the subject. On the one hand the biographer can claim with real foundation to know the subject. On the other hand objectivity is rather harder to demonstrate. And there in lies the rub.

The strength of Nikolai Tolstoy’s biography is that Tolstoy (Patrick O’Brian’s stepson) can claim personal knowledge of O’Brian’s character and personality that others simply cannot. This coupled with his publishing credits to date (as a historian) lends the book a certain instant credibility that is perhaps lacking in other attempts.

Patrick O’Brian was well documented as loathing publicity and so the task of piecing together his life is not an easy one. Tolstoy is aided in his own attempt by access to O’Brian’s library, papers and family connections.

What results is a fascinating glimpse of the dying days of the Empire and a part of British life seldom explored in popular history. I found the sections dealing with O’Brian’s childhood particularly interesting not just for the tragic elements but for the glimpses of the what the First World War meant to people at home in Britain and London. The scars of the Second World War have all but obliterated those of the First World War’s and the image of German Zeppelin raids on the capital carries with it a bizarre air of unreality.

More troublesome are the elements of the book that deal with O’Brian’s relationship with his first wife.

Tolstoy is at pains to try to be as unbiased and fair as possible throughout the book but inevitably some of his personal views start to creep in. That he is unflinching in his cataloguing of O’Brian’s faults as a husband, father and friend is to his credit. However, some of the inferences he makes towards O’Brian’s first wife, and indeed some of those made towards O’Brian himself, are founded on weak argument and poorly supported evidence. I don’t doubt the intentions were good but these sections leave the reader unsettled, as if privy to something O’Brian would clearly prefer to be private.

The other niggling issue these weaker sections give rise to is Tolstoy’s reliance on O’Brian’s more autobiographical fiction to fill in the gaps in O’Brian’s history. Many writers will tell you that the biographical elements embedded in any story are usually so distorted and distended, not to mention coloured by the reader’s own view, as to render them useless as a means of analysis, yet time and time again they are used.

In spite of its faults this is a fascinating look at an author who lived through a period of unparalleled social and political change. From that viewpoint it is well worth a read, and for the die-hard O’Brian fan it is of course a must.

Rating 3/5