🔗 Share this article Discovering the Literary Universe of Novelist Paul Bailey Paul Bailey, who passed away last year at 87, was acclaimed for his comic brilliance, intense sympathy including for his deeply imperfect creations, and a sharpness that never felt cold. His fiction often explored the role of remembrance in shaping lives, driven by sharp, rhythmic dialogue. Apart from fiction, he worked as a memoirist, poet, and more—here is a guide to the volumes he authored. Books for Companionship Paul Bailey proved a social being, an excellent talker who adored “trivial chit-chat”, as one character notes. He and friend Beryl Bainbridge would watch the TV show Coronation Street and debrief by phone. This fondness for informal dialogues shines through in his novels the novel Trespasses (from 1970) along with Peter Smart’s Confessions (1977). Each includes a leading man surrounded by funny, annoying, over-the-top characters, usually kin whose gravitational pull is unavoidable. “What’s so great about being normal?” asks the mother of Ralph within Trespasses upon his coming out. Comparable to hanging out with your wittiest, boldest friend. The Ones to Make You Laugh and Cry The novelist penned brilliantly about aging, early and late in his career. His initial fiction the novel At the Jerusalem (1967) follows Faith Gadny’s experiences during her transition to a nursing home, where fellow residents offer warmth absent in employees, whose engagement via queries “Why aren’t you ladies watching the television?”. In the novel before his final the title Chapman’s Odyssey (from 2011), a senior in hospital moves between disputing with medics (“I only drink superior wines”, he affirms after reprimands over liver tests) and experiencing a rush of recollections of his mother, lovers, literary figures including Pip by Dickens and Emma by Austen. The two works are filled with comic interactions yet shadowed by approaching finality. In Bailey’s fiction, smiles are deceptive. In that book, “the matron grinned, then ended it abruptly”; The character giggles with unease when confronted about her behavior. In that novel, Harry advises that “my smiles aren’t what they seem”. The audience’s grins, though, are real. For the Reality Behind the Stories Apart from his stories, Bailey was a skilled autobiographer, releasing two self-written volumes. the memoir An Immaculate Mistake (from 1990) stands as a masterpiece of memory, the heading taken from his parent’s remark labeling him an “accident” and questioning his presence. (“She was old now, and letting go of her secrets,” he notes. “She understood this would captivate me.”) Within these pages appear the roots for confused, affectionate, irritating parental figures throughout his books. It likewise portrays a moving picture of a gay youth during the mid-20th century, when homosexuality was illegal, and his relatives considered it strange that a son would purchase flowers for his mum; and of an aspiring actor (Bailey acted before writing) who learned Hamlet by age fifteen. His subsequent life story A Dog’s Life (2004) focuses on existence alongside his mixed-breed dog Circe, his previous lover David, his affection for Romania—which inspired future works including Kitty and Virgil, Uncle Rudolf, plus The Prince’s Boy—and plenty of gossip, including a tale about Iris Murdoch labeling a listener a “stupid cow”. For Those Short on Time Paul Bailey’s books are generally brief—the impactful Old Soldiers (1980) is just over 100 pages—however, for a more condensed choice, sample his verse from his later career. The two collections Inheritance (2019) along with Joie de Vivre (from 2022) display Bailey’s wit, empathy, precision in condensed form. These writings contain endings and beginnings. Two love themes recur: regarding his mum (“Now I’m closer—/ I have to say—/ than in life”) and for his spouse Jeremy Trevathan. In Amazement, he writes of the pleasure in “watching an idiotic TV entertainment” together, finishing with: “It’s remarkable, this simple act of consuming cheese and wine as darkness falls.” If You Only Read One There is little debate that the author’s most expansive book is Gabriel’s Lament, nominated for the Booker in 1986. (He was a Booker judge in 1982, a role he disliked.) This was the book Bailey felt proudest of, although “it drained me. It took everything out of me”. It relates Gabriel Harvey’s story, with a missing mother and whose father turns into a intolerable pretentious person after inheriting wealth, with possible connections. It serves as a portrait of London in the 1900s, an account of psychological collapse, and both comic and tragic similar to his entire output. To continue, it led to a follow-up, Sugar Cane (1993), that he investigated by attending brothels to observe.