🔗 Share this article

Esteemed author Paul Bailey, whose life ended last autumn at 87, was renowned for his comic brilliance, deep empathy even for his deeply imperfect creations, and a cleverness that avoided being sterile. His fiction often explored the power of memory within personal journeys, driven by sharp, rhythmic dialogue. Apart from fiction, he worked as a poet, memoir writer, and additional roles—here is a guide to the books he left behind.

---

Works That Offer Solace

Bailey was an outgoing person, an excellent talker who adored casual small talk, according to a fictional persona. Together with companion fellow writer Beryl Bainbridge used to view the serial drama Coronation Street and discuss it over calls. This pleasure in gossipy exchanges shines through in his books the novel Trespasses (1970) along with the title Peter Smart’s Confessions (1977). Both feature a main male protagonist encircled by humorous, irritating, exaggerated personalities, frequently family members whose gravitational pull is unavoidable. “Why would anyone desire normality?” Ralph’s mum questions in the book Trespasses upon his coming out. Like an evening with your most clever, daring companion.

---

Works That Evoke Laughter and Tears

Paul Bailey authored brilliantly about aging, throughout his literary path. His debut novel At the Jerusalem (published in 1967) follows Faith Gadny’s experiences during her transition to a nursing home, where other occupants supply compassion absent in employees, who show interest by asking “Aren’t you watching television?”. In the novel before his final Chapman’s Odyssey (released in 2011), an elderly hospitalized man alternates between clashing with physicians (“I consume only fine wines”, he affirms when scolded for liver results) and experiencing a rush of recollections of his mother, lovers, literary figures such as Pip from Dickens or Emma from Austen. Both books are filled with comic interactions yet shadowed by approaching finality. In his stories, smiles are deceptive. In that book, “the matron beamed, then stopped suddenly”; The character giggles with unease when confronted about her behavior. In that novel, Harry warns that “my smiles aren’t what they seem”. The audience’s grins, though, are real.

---

To Understand the Truth Beneath the Tales

In addition to fiction, Paul Bailey served as a talented life writer, publishing two autobiographies. An Immaculate Mistake (1990) is a masterwork of memory, its title derived from his mother’s words labeling him an “accident” and questioning his presence. (“Aged, she was releasing her confidences,” he adds. “She understood this would captivate me.”) Within these pages appear the sources of misguided, loving, frustrating parents throughout his books. Additionally, it depicts a moving picture of a gay youth in that era, during a time of anti-gay laws, and his family found it odd if a male child gifted blooms to his parent; and of a hopeful performer (Paul Bailey performed preceding his literary career) who could recite Hamlet as a teen. His follow-up autobiography the book A Dog’s Life (from 2004) focuses on days with his pet Circe, his previous lover David, his fondness for Romania—that influenced later novels like the novel Kitty and Virgil, Uncle Rudolf, as well as The Prince’s Boy—and heaps of rumors, featuring an anecdote involving author Iris Murdoch dubbing a participant a “foolish person”.

---

When Time Is Limited

The author’s fiction are mostly concise—the powerful Old Soldiers (from 1980) is under 100 pages—but for something shorter, explore his poems from his later career. The pair of volumes Inheritance (from 2019) and the title Joie de Vivre (2022) showcase Bailey’s wit, empathy, precision in brief format. These writings are rich with death and life. Two romantic motifs repeat: regarding his mum (“Now I’m closer—/ I have to say—/ than in life”) and for his partner Jeremy Trevathan. Within the poem Amazement, he depicts the pleasure in enjoying “foolish television” side by side, finishing with: “It’s awesome, in its way, this act of eating cheese / and drinking wine, as the world keeps darkening.”

---

If You Only Read One

There is little debate that Paul Bailey’s boldest work is the novel Gabriel’s Lament, a Booker Prize finalist in 1986. (He also judged the prize in 1982, a role he disliked.) This novel the author was most proud of, even though “it drained me. It took everything out of me”. It relates the narrative of Gabriel Harvey, whose mum disappears and whose father turns into an unbearable snob after inheriting wealth, with possible connections. It’s a depiction of 20th-century London, a story of mental breakdown, and both comic and tragic like his other works. For more, it inspired a follow-up, Sugar Cane (1993), that he investigated by going to such places to watch.