Book description
Though born into privilege and inheriting a fortune, Willie Donaldson
ended up dying alone in a seedy rented flat, his computer still logged
on to a lesbian porn site. To some, he had been one of the great,
under-rated comic writers of our time, and to others, a dangerous
force of corruption and decadence.
His achievements were significant - he published Sylvia Plath while
still at Cambridge, as a producer in the Sixties he staged Beyond
the Fringe, and he was later to write the celebrated Henry
Root Letters - but not as impressive as his reckless talent for
self-destruction. The impresario became a serial bankrupt. The man
about town, who had lived with Sarah Miles and been engaged to Carly
Simon, ended up as a ponce in a Chelsea brothel. Success as a writer
quickly led him into a dark underworld of crack addiction, fraud and
sexual obsession. Now friend and collaborator, Terence Blacker
unravels the intimate truth of Willie Donaldson's strange story in all
its glamour, hilarity and pain.
'What a young fool I was. But how I adored him' Carly Simon
'A slimy crook' Private Eye
'For the skill and wit of his writing he deserves to be hailed as
the English Nabokov' Auberon Waugh
'I am someone who always answers the phone at 1. 00 am, because I
know it isn't going to be my bank manager or the Inland Revenue, but
probably a crack dealer or a prostitute' Willie Donaldson
Terence Blacker read English at Cambridge and worked in publishing
before becoming a full-time writer during the 1980s. He has written four
novels, including the acclaimed
Kill Your Darlings
, and is a successful writer of children's fiction. He currently writes
a twice-weekly column for the
Independent
and is a regular broadcaster. He lives in Norfolk, where he plays the
guitar and grows trees.
