In Must You Go?: My Life with Harold Pinter, Antonia Fraser draws on her diaries to create an intimate portrait of her 33-year union with one of the world’s most celebrated playwrights. Fraser and Pinter were both married with children when they connected at a party in the 1970s (they talked until 6 o’clock in the morning), and their coming together caused a sensation. Fraser’s husband, conservative MP Hugh Fraser, was Pinter’s antithesis—straitlaced, quiet and reserved. With the volatile playwright, Fraser experienced passion for the first time, and together they formed a formidable couple. Three years after Pinter won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2005, he succumbed to cancer. Even as Fraser comes to grips with her grief, she is delightful company. The book is a mix of moods—humorous and wistful and meditative—but Fraser’s story is ultimately uplifting, as her love for Pinter clearly endures. This is an intriguing look at a match made in literary heaven.
