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Esteemed author Paul Bailey, who passed away last year at 87, was celebrated for possessing a humorous talent, intense sympathy extending to his deeply imperfect creations, and an intelligence that never felt cold. His literary works often explored the influence of recollections within personal journeys, propelled by clever, syncopated conversations. Beyond novels, he was also an autobiographer, verse writer, and other capacities—this serves as a roadmap to the books he left behind.

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Books for Companionship

Bailey was a gregarious individual, an excellent talker who adored “trivial chit-chat”, in the words of a creation. Together with companion author Beryl Bainbridge used to view Coronation Street and debrief by phone. This fondness for gossipy exchanges shines through in his fictional works the book Trespasses (1970) as well as the title Peter Smart’s Confessions (dating to 1977). The two present a leading man surrounded by comic, maddening, theatrical individuals, usually kin whose influence is inescapable. “What’s so great about being normal?” Ralph’s mum questions in the book Trespasses when he reveals he is gay. Comparable to hanging out with your wittiest, boldest friend.

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Works That Evoke Laughter and Tears

The novelist penned brilliantly about aging, at both ends of his writing journey. His initial fiction At the Jerusalem (1967) details the journey of Faith Gadny while she adapts to an old people’s residence, where fellow residents provide kindness missing from caregivers, who show interest by asking “Aren’t you watching television?”. In the novel before his final Chapman’s Odyssey (from 2011), an aged patient switches between arguing with doctors (“I consume only fine wines”, he affirms following criticism of his liver) and being flooded by memories of his mother, lovers, literary figures such as Pip from Dickens or Emma from Austen. Both books include humorous dialogues yet shadowed by approaching finality. Throughout his novels, laughter is suspect. Within At the Jerusalem, “the matron smiled, shut the smile off quickly”; Faith Gadny chuckles anxiously upon challenge to her conduct. In that novel, Harry cautions that “my grins are misleading”. Readers’ smiles, however, are authentic.

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If You Want the Facts Behind the Fiction

In addition to fiction, The author excelled as a gifted memoirist, releasing two self-written volumes. An Immaculate Mistake (published in 1990) is a masterwork of reminiscence, the heading taken from his mum’s statement calling him “our error” and saying he shouldn’t exist. (“Elderly, she disclosed hidden truths,” he notes. “This secret, she realized, would intrigue me.”) Here we see the sources of flawed, caring, annoying mothers and fathers throughout his books. It likewise portrays an evocative portrait of a gay youth in the 1940s–50s, during a time of anti-gay laws, and his kin viewed it as suspicious for a boy to buy his mother flowers; and of a would-be thespian (Bailey acted before writing) who could recite Hamlet as a teen. His follow-up autobiography the book A Dog’s Life (published in 2004) focuses on life with his mongrel puppy Circe, his former partner David, his fondness for Romania—which motivated later novels like Kitty and Virgil, Uncle Rudolf, as well as The Prince’s Boy—and plenty of gossip, with a story about Iris Murdoch dubbing a participant a “stupid cow”.

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For Those Short on Time

The author’s fiction tend to be short—the notable Old Soldiers (published in 1980) is just over 100 pages—but for something shorter, sample his verse from his later career. The pair of volumes the poetry collection Inheritance (2019) and Joie de Vivre (released in 2022) exhibit his cleverness, sympathy, exactness in brief format. These poems contain death and life. Two love themes recur: for his mother (“I’m closer to you now – / I need to tell you – / than I ever was in life”) and for his spouse Jeremy Trevathan. In that piece, he writes of the happiness from “watching an idiotic TV entertainment” together, concluding with: “It’s amazing, somehow, to eat cheese and sip wine while the world darkens.”

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If You Only Read One

Most agree that Bailey’s most ambitious novel was the novel Gabriel’s Lament, nominated for the Booker in 1986. (He was a Booker judge in 1982, an experience he despised.) This work Paul Bailey valued most, despite the fact “it consumed all his energy”. It follows Gabriel Harvey’s story, whose mum disappears and whose father turns into an unbearable snob following a financial windfall, and the events may link. It serves as a portrait of 20th-century London, a tale of emotional unraveling, and both comic and tragic similar to his entire output. For more, it inspired a follow-up, Sugar Cane (from 1993), which the author studied by attending brothels to observe.