View source for A Lot To Ask: A Life of Barbara Pym

{{Short description|1990 Barbara Pym biography by Hazel Holt}}
{{infobox book | <!-- See Wikipedia:WikiProject_Novels or Wikipedia:WikiProject_Books -->
| name         = A Lot to Ask
| title_orig   =
| translator   =
| image        = A Lot To Ask A Life of Barbara Pym.jpg
| author       = [[Hazel Holt]]
| caption      = First edition
| cover_artist =
| country      = United Kingdom
| language     = English
| series       =
| genre        =
| publisher    = [[Macmillan Publishers|Macmillan]]
| release_date = 1990
| media_type   = Print ([[Hardcover|Hardback]]
| pages        = 310
| isbn =
| preceded_by  =
| followed_by  =
}}
'''''A Lot To Ask: A Life of Barbara Pym''''' is a 1990 [[biography]] of the English novelist [[Barbara Pym]]. The author, [[Hazel Holt]], worked with Pym in the 1950s at the [[International African Institute]] in London before embarking on her own literary career. The pair remained friends, and Holt functioned as Pym's literary [[executor]] after the latter's death from [[breast cancer]] in 1980.
Holt had previously edited Pym's posthumous autobiography, ''[[A Very Private Eye]]'', which collected the novelist's diaries and notebooks. Holt deliberately opted to have ''A Lot to Ask'' function as a companion volume to ''A Very Private Eye''. As a result, some sections that are well-covered in that volume are not detailed here, and vice versa.<ref>{{cite book |last=Holt |first=Hazel |date=1990 |title=A Lot to Ask: A Life of Barbara Pym |location=London |publisher=Macmillan |page=ix |isbn=0525249370}}</ref>
==Critical reception==
The ''[[Los Angeles Times]]'' reviewed the book as being "touching" but felt that it suffered from Holt refraining from opinions and commentary, that there were too many unfiltered quotes from Pym herself.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-04-07-bk-59-story.html|title=The Small, Dark Pleasures of Barbara Pym : A LOT TO ASK; A Life of Barbara Pym  By Hazel Holt (Dutton: $19.95; 308 pp.)|date=April 7, 1991|website=Los Angeles Times}}</ref>  ''[[Publishers Weekly]]'' found the volume "well-written" but stressed that the close association of the editors with Pym's estate meant that there was still a need for "an objective look at the novelist's life".<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-525-24937-5|title=Nonfiction Book Review: A Lot to Ask: The Life of Barbara Pym by Hazel Holt, Author Dutton Books $19.95 (320p) ISBN 978-0-525-24937-5|date=March 1991|website=[[Publishers Weekly]]}}</ref> The ''[[New York Times]]'' review similarly complained that Holt treated her subject too reverently, without any critical analysis of the author's works.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1991/04/14/books/in-short-nonfiction-202491.html|title=In Short: Nonfiction|first=Patricia T.|last=O'Conner|date=April 14, 1991|work=The New York Times}}</ref>
==References==
{{reflist}}
{{Barbara Pym}}
[[Category:Macmillan Publishers books]]