Can great writers ever become devoted parents?
Writer Dame Muriel Spark and playwright John Osborne both abandoned their children. Do they deserve special consideration because they were artists as well as parents? In Spark’s case, she dropped her son Robin when he was six because, says a family friend, he was ‘a financial and emotional burden’ while she was chasing fame and wealth. Osborne drove his daughter, Nolan, from his home to live with the parents of a school friend because he found the 17-year-old ‘ coldhearted’ with ‘no inner life whatsoever’. Spark, says her biographer Martin Stannard, had violent rows with her ex-husband, Sydney Spark, Robin’s father. ‘This is one reason why Muriel rejected her son – he reminded her of a man she loathed.’ Osborne hated his ex-wife, Penelope Gilliatt, Nolan’s mother, and may have persuaded himself he was not the girl’s biological father. Neither Spark nor Osborne can be excused for their actions. And I don’t suppose either would have sought to be acquitted of coldheartedness. Both were t
