Paradoxes of Peace, or The Presence of Infinity

This slim yet largely torturous memoir covers Whitbread winner Mosley's two marriages totaling almost 60 years, several love affairs, a religious crisis and much else. Now wheelchair-bound and in his 80s, the novelist and screenwriter delves into his dysfunctional family background, which includes his father, Oswald Mosley, who gave his life to the Fascist cause, plus a mother, Oswald Mosley's first wife, who gave her short life to this man. Mosley had a stammer, which he several times attributes to a mechanism of self-defense, and ultimately found himself in analysis.The childhood pattern of self-service as a means of survival continues into maturity: when one wife dies, the next organizes her funeral.The title refers to Mosley's lifelong acceptance of paradox within a Christian setting. His meeting with a charismatic Anglican minister proves essential in setting Mosley on a path to editing a monthly called Prism and to come to grips with his extramarital loves: “the proper working-out of difficult fate or chance does not seem to favour persons who keep to rules so much as those who trust and are ready to take off and fly.” (Mar. 26)