Newspaper Article

Portrait: Daddy dearest: A year after the death of George Carman, his son Dominic has written a biography full of brutal revelations about the leading libel lawyer of his generation. Why did he do it? Emma Brockes finds out

Brockes, Emma

2002

Overview

At the age of 40, Dominic Carman did something his father had expected - had almost given up expecting - of him since his school days: he made the news. Carman senior was dead by then. He missed the launch of his son's book, the splash it made and the hackles it raised. The libel lawyer would have loved the belated entrance of his son into public life, but there his enchantment might have ended. Dominic's book is biographical; the subject is his father; the splash is drink, violence and confused sexual identity. It is not a portrait the esteemed QC ever presented of himself. Some say this is because it isn't true, but most accept it with the proviso: why on earth did Dominic write it? \"Not being great company\" is an understatement. After [George Carman]'s death, his first wife, Ursula, gave an interview to a newspaper and talked about her abusive marriage. Dominic's mother, Celia, told a similar story, as did his third wife, Frances. George, they said, drank and gambled and was frequently cruel. \"Often, I would curl up into a ball on the floor as he punched and kicked me,\" said Ursula. Dominic recalls in the book that, \"after one Sunday lunchtime drinking session, he came into the kitchen, threw out the cutlery drawer and pulled out two large carving knives, saying, 'which do you want first.'\" One of Dominic's key words is \"balance\". He mentions it seven times in the interview. Balance and honesty were the two thing he wanted to achieve in the book, the two things he identified as most lacking in his father. In an odd way, it is a generous piece of work because of it. Despite the book's detractors - not least George's former companion, Karen Phillipps, who calls Dominic's version of his father \"bitter and absurd\" - the tone is not vindictive but curious. An extraordinary animosity exists between Dominic and Phillipps, who is a barrister and was Carman's companion for more than 10 years. In his book, Dominic paints her as a gold-digger, implies that her relationship with his father was never consummated and that she treated him cruelly. She denies all this with some exasperation.

• Publisher: Guardian News & Media Limited
• Subject: Books-titles / Carman, Dominic / Carman, George / Life of George Carman, No Ordinary Man / Personal profiles / Writers