SOURCE: “Yes, There'll Always Be An England, or Two,” in New York Times, August 5, 1999, p. E10.

In the following review of Forever England, Lehmann-Haupt finds weakness in Bainbridge's generalizations, though interest in her autobiographic reminiscences.

Considering the differences between the North and the South in the United States, one might find it hard to believe that in relatively compact England similar disparities are thought to hold true. Yet that is the subject of Beryl Bainbridge's quirky new book, Forever England. As the author explains in her preface, the book is based on a television series “which, in an attempt to examine the roots of that evergreen assumption, the notion that England is two nations, focused on the expectations and attitudes of six families, three in the North and three in the South.” Much of the perceived difference is based on myth. Ms. Bainbridge, who grew up in Liverpool...