🔗 Share this article

The novelist Paul Bailey, whose life ended last autumn at 87, was acclaimed for possessing a humorous talent, intense sympathy even for his deeply imperfect creations, and an intelligence that was never clinical. His literary works repeatedly investigated the influence of recollections in shaping lives, propelled by sharp, rhythmic dialogue. Apart from fiction, he was also an autobiographer, verse writer, and other capacities—here is a guide to his enduring literary legacy.

---

The Ones to Keep You Company

Paul Bailey proved a social being, a master conversationalist who adored “trivial chit-chat”, in the words of a creation. He and friend author Beryl Bainbridge used to view the TV show Coronation Street and discuss it over calls. This fondness for chatty conversations is evident in his novels the book Trespasses (from 1970) as well as Peter Smart’s Confessions (1977). Both feature a leading man besieged by humorous, irritating, exaggerated personalities, usually kin whose gravitational pull is unavoidable. “Why would anyone desire normality?” asks the mother of Ralph in the book Trespasses upon his coming out. Similar to spending time with your smartest, cheekiest pal.

---

Works That Evoke Laughter and Tears

Paul Bailey authored brilliantly about aging, early and late in his career. His initial fiction the novel At the Jerusalem (1967) follows Faith Gadny’s experiences as she adjusts to an old people’s residence, where fellow residents offer warmth missing from caregivers, whose concern through questions “Aren’t you watching television?”. In his penultimate novel the title Chapman’s Odyssey (from 2011), a senior in hospital alternates between arguing with doctors (“I consume only fine wines”, he insists following criticism of his liver) and confronting past remembrances involving his mum, partners, classic characters including Pip by Dickens and Emma by Austen. Each volume contain humorous dialogues however tinged with approaching finality. In Bailey’s fiction, grins are unreliable. In that book, “the matron beamed, then stopped suddenly”; Faith Gadny chuckles anxiously if her actions are questioned. In that novel, Harry warns that “my grins are misleading”. Readers’ smiles, however, are authentic.

---

For the Reality Behind the Stories

Besides novels, Bailey was a talented life writer, issuing two personal accounts. the memoir An Immaculate Mistake (1990) is a masterwork of recollection, its name coming from his mother’s words that “You were our mistake. You ought not to be here, by rights.”. (“Aged, she was releasing her confidences,” he notes. “She understood this would captivate me.”) Within these pages appear the sources of misguided, loving, frustrating parents in his novels. It likewise portrays a beautiful image of a homosexual young man during the mid-20th century, when same-sex acts were criminal, and his kin viewed it as suspicious for a boy to buy his mother flowers; and of an aspiring actor (Bailey acted prior to authoring) who learned Hamlet by age fifteen. His second memoir A Dog’s Life (published in 2004) centers on life with his mongrel puppy Circe, his previous lover David, his fondness for Romania—that influenced later novels like the novel Kitty and Virgil, Uncle Rudolf, plus the book The Prince’s Boy—and loads of chatter, featuring an anecdote about Iris Murdoch labeling a listener an “idiot”.

---

When Time Is Limited

Paul Bailey’s books are mostly concise—the powerful Old Soldiers (from 1980) is barely 100 pages—but for something shorter, sample his verse in his final phase. The two collections Inheritance (2019) along with Joie de Vivre (released in 2022) showcase Bailey’s wit, empathy, precision in condensed form. These verses are full of mortality and existence. Two love themes recur: for his mother (“Now I’m closer—/ I have to say—/ than in life”) and for his civil partner Jeremy Trevathan. Within the poem Amazement, he depicts the happiness from viewing “a silly TV show” as a couple, ending with: “It’s amazing, somehow, to eat cheese and sip wine while the world darkens.”

---

If You Only Read One

There is little debate that Paul Bailey’s boldest work was Gabriel’s Lament, shortlisted for the Booker prize in 1986. (He served as a judge for the award in 1982, a task he hated.) This novel Paul Bailey valued most, even though “it drained me. It took everything out of me”. It relates Gabriel Harvey’s story, whose mother vanishes and a father who becomes an insufferable elitist upon receiving money, and the two might be related. It serves as a portrait of London in the 1900s, an account of psychological collapse, and as funny and sad like his other works. To continue, it led to a subsequent book, Sugar Cane (1993), that he investigated by visiting brothels as an observer.