Susie Boyt

Boyt is the youngest of five daughters of Suzy Boyt and artist Lucian Freud, and great-granddaughter of Sigmund Freud.^[1] Boyt was educated at Channing and at Camden School for Girls and read English at St Catherine's College, Oxford, graduating in 1992.^[1] 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.^[2][1]

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.^[1]

As of January 2025^[update], Boyt has published seven novels, the most recent being Loved and Missed (2021). 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.^[3][4] In 2018, she edited The Turn of the Screw and Other Ghost Stories for Penguin.^[5]

Boyt's journalism includes a column in the weekend Life & Arts section of the Financial Times.^[6] She is married to Tom Astor, a film producer. They live with their two daughters in London.^[1] Boyt is a director at the Hampstead Theatre.^[7]

Boyt was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2022.^[8]

• The Normal Man, 1995
• The Characters of Love, 1996
• The Last Hope of Girls, 2001
• Only Human, 2004
• The Small Hours, 2012^[9]
• Love & Fame, 2017^[10]
• Loved and Missed, 2021

• My Judy Garland Life, 2008

• The Last Hope of Girls was shortlisted for the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize^[1]
• Only Human was shortlisted for the Mind Book of the Year Award
• My Judy Garland Life was shortlisted for the PEN Ackerley Prize^[7]

• Freud family