Posthuman Blues

Notorious 'outsider' has his say

"His crime, in case you were wondering, was to have a shattering success with his first book, The Outsider, published in 1956 when he was 24. A tour de force tracing a tradition of artistic savants from Rabelais (his original hero) to van Gogh and by implication himself, it sensationalized literary London. Like Byron, he woke up to find himself famous, but unlike Byron, he then blew it, even though on paper he seemed to have everything required to make it in the swinging sixties."

I think I might have to spring for this one in hardback.