Synopsis
B.S. Johnson, one of Britain's most controversial writers of the 1960s and 1970s, was an advocate of the avant-garde in both literature and film and attempted to reinvent the novel with each of his works. To do justice to his subject, Coe experiments with the biographical form, interspersing tape-recorded conversations, letters and extracts from Johnson's published and unpublished works throughout the text. The result is a moving and accurate portrait of this innovative author. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Michael Dirda
Let me say -- flat out and without any of the usual reviewer's cavils -- that this is a wonderful biography. Jonathan Coe has spent seven years working on this "story" of the writer he describes as "Britain's one-man literary avant-garde of the 1960s." He's studied B.S. Johnson's seven novels, watched the innovative films he made, read his poetry and polemics, talked to all of the important people in his life and gone through the 20 boxes of papers he left behind after his suicide at the age of 40. All this groundwork is important, but what finally matters is the sheer vitality of Coe's engagement with Bryan Stanley Johnson. He writes with passionate admiration but also with hesitation, uncertainty. How can anyone really know or explain another man's life?