Falling Towards England

‘When we got off the ship in Southampton in that allegedly mild January of 1962 I had nothing to declare at customs except goose-pimples under my white nylon drip-dry shirt.’

In the first volume of Unreliable Memoirs, we said farewell to our hero as he set sail from Sydney Harbour, bound for London, fame and fortune. Finding the first of these proved relatively simple; the second two less so. Undaunted, Clive moved into a bed and breakfast in a Swiss Cottage where he practised the Twist, anticipated poetical masterpieces and worried about his wardrobe.

`A comic triumph, full of terrific jokes and brilliantly sustained setpieces` Ian Hamilton, London Review of Books

`It is something to do not merely with talent but with energy, chutzpah, appetite. Mr James has total mastery of his medium’ Anthony Burgess, Observer