The House of Lambert

A familial tale of English culture

George Lambert was a celebrated Australian painter who immigrated to England around the turn of the century and made a name for himself in the London art world. His son Constant was a prominent composer who collaborated with Diaghilev, conducted, wrote journalism, and was the musical director of the Sadler's Wells Ballet. His son, Kit, discovered and managed the Who. Artistic talent ran in the family. So did a talent for self-destructiveness. George and Constant, both dead in middle age, were heavy drinkers; Kit supplemented drink with drugs, and died at forty-five.

Andrew Motion's The Lamberts: George, Constant & Kit (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) is more than a collective biography—it's a book about twentieth-century English culture. The Lamberts knew everyone. George was clubbable, a society painter, a man-abouttown; Constant, who figures (as Moreland) in Anthony Powell's "A Dance to the Music of Time," was part of the chic Fitzrovia London of Nancy Cunard and Evelyn Waugh— "the vertiginous twenties," as Constant referred to that rambunctious era. The sixties, Kit's decade, were even more vertiginous. Motion's chronicle of coke inhaled and hotel rooms torn apart is drearily familiar, but his erudition is everywhere evident; an accomplished poet, he knows as much about classical music and art as he does about rock music. The Lamberts is a highbrow tour of low life, the portrait of a bohemian dynasty.

JAMES ATLAS