Promotional Information

The new memoir from the author of Maidens' Trip and The Great Western Beach; a remarkable story of a young woman growing up against the backdrop of the Second World War, and postwar life in India, Paris and bohemian Chelsea

About the Author

Emma Smith was born Elspeth Hallsmith in 1923. Maidens' Trip was first published in 1948 and won the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize. The Far Cry, a novel, was published the following year and was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. In 1951 Emma Smith married and moved to Wales, where she published children's books, short stories and, in 1978, her novel The Opportunity of a Lifetime. In 2008 The Great Western Beach, her memoir of her Cornish childhood, was published. Since 1980 Emma Smith has lived in the London district of Putney.

Reviews

Smith tells the story of her teenage and adult years up to 1951 with her customary verve, precision and humour ... As Green as Grass, she says, is definitely her last book ... But there is a twinkle in her eye. I hope it’s not true. I’m desperate to know what happens next
*Observer*

A delight
*Spectator*

There are memoirs that barrel along happily, due to the swift clip of a life well lived, and there are those lifted by the vivacity of the voice. Emma Smith’s As Green As Grass exhibits a rare marriage of both virtues ... A wonderful journey beautifully told, and like all great memoirs, remains with the reader like the echo of friendship
*Independent on Sunday*

Evocative and arresting ... hugely engaging ... Told in three sections it is a clear-headed and engagingly candid account of the formative life of an intelligent young woman ...The afterword will break your heart
*Daily Express*

I loved Emma Smith’s evocative childhood memoir, The Great Western Beach, and am just as excited about As Green as Grass … A captivating coming of age
*Woman & Home*

Emma Smith has written a book that should - and I hope does - endure as a classic among memoirs of childhood. I savoured every page
*Miranda Seymour, on The Great Western Beach*

One envies Emma Smith's precise and sly humour in her portrait of life
*Michael Ondaatjie*

I've rarely come across a more gripping childhood memoir
*Diana Athill*

Wonderfully written, humorous and humane, and beautifully evocative of the time
*Independent, on Maidens' Trip*

Optimistic, generous and thoroughly enjoyable
*Sunday Express*

Emma Smith’s previous memoirs, Maidens’ Trip and The Great Western Beach were both highly regarded as modern classics. Smith’s final memoir in the trilogy will no doubt be given the same accolade
*The Lady*

An entrancing memoir, a dazzling evocation of what it is like to be young, quick-witted, hopeful and very slightly silly. It is much more than all right. And now, please, for the next volume
*New Statesman*

Irresistible ... With any luck she will give us a sequel to this captivating memoir
*Saga*

A cracking memoir
*Daily Mail*

A beguiling evocation of what it is to be young, talented, hopeful and very slightly silly
*New Statesman Books of the Year*

Delightful
*Oldie*