Susie Boyt
Susie Boyt is a British novelist and journalist. She has published seven novels, and a memoir about her obsession with Judy Garland. Boyt was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2022.
Life
Boyt is the youngest of five daughters of Suzy Boyt and artist Lucian Freud, and great-granddaughter of Sigmund Freud. Boyt was educated at Channing and at Camden School for Girls and read English at St Catherine's College, Oxford, graduating in 1992. As a student her boyfriend died in a climbing accident. She later trained as a bereavement counsellor, and bereavement features as a theme in her novels.Working variously at a PR agency, and a literary agency, she completed her first novel, The Normal Man, which was published in 1995 by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. She returned to university to do a Masters in Anglo American Literary Relations at University College London, studying the works of Henry James and the poet John Berryman.
, Boyt has published seven novels, the most recent being Loved and Missed. In 2008, she published My Judy Garland Life, a layering of biography, hero-worship and self-help. The book was serialised on Radio 4, shortlisted for the PEN Ackerley prize and adapted as a musical by Amanda Whittington. In 2018 she edited The Turn of the Screw and Other Ghost Stories for Penguin.
Boyt's journalism includes a column in the weekend Life & Arts section of the Financial Times. She is married to Tom Astor, a film producer. They live with their two daughters in London. Boyt is a director at the Hampstead Theatre.
Boyt was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2022.