' The book of the year' SUNDAY TIMES ' One of the very best biographies I have
ever read' STEPHEN FRY ' A hot thunderstorm of a book' DAVID HARE ' Erotic
Vagrancy gave me a week of pure joy' CRAIG BROWN ' Unputdownable' TONY PALMER
' A genius writer' LYNN BARBER ' ABSOLUTE MASTERPIECE . . . ONE OF THE GREAT READING
EXPERIENCES OF MY LIFE' MARINA HYDE A TOP 25 BEST BOOK OF 2023 (INDEPENDENT) Thirteen
years in the writing Erotic Vagrancy doesn' t only surpass every other biography of
Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton yet to appear this rich vital and passionately
articulated book which is as extravagant and wayward as its two subjects is also about
celebrity creativity being flawed being brilliant sexuality the intermingling of a low and
a highbrow existence pride insecurity attraction and repulsion and devilry. We see Taylor
the child actress exchanging dogs and horses for husbands. We see Burton emerging from the
mists and brimstone of Wales to be the greatest theatrical animal of his generation. The pair
come together in Rome during the making of Cleopatra which gives Lewis the opportunity for a
major farcical set-piece. We then enter a world of jewels and private jets vodka yachts and
furs - the splendid vulgarity of the Sixties where the narrative of Taylor and Burton becomes
a Pop Art story. Then inevitably it all goes wrong with alcoholism violence
recrimination and divorce ( twice ) - with Burton whom Lewis depicts as a Faustus figure
damned by fame dead at fifty-eight. Stephen Fry has said ' It is one of the very best
biographies I have ever read. One of the best books about fame desire Hollywood and
mid-to-late twentieth century culture ever written. Inside which brilliant hilarious and
sensitive insights on all manner of subjects fizz and froth. Magnificent terrible tragic
triumphant.'
