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The novelist Paul Bailey, who died in October aged 87, was acclaimed for his humorous talent, intense sympathy including for his most flawed characters, and a sharpness that was never clinical. His fiction often explored the power of memory on human existence, propelled by sharp, rhythmic dialogue. Apart from fiction, he was also an autobiographer, verse writer, and other capacities—here is a guide to the books he left behind.

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The Ones to Keep You Company

The author appeared as a gregarious individual, an excellent talker fond of casual small talk, in the words of a creation. He and friend author Beryl Bainbridge used to view Coronation Street and debrief by phone. This pleasure in gossipy exchanges is evident in his novels Trespasses (published in 1970) along with Peter Smart’s Confessions (dating to 1977). The two present a leading man surrounded by comic, maddening, theatrical individuals, often close relatives whose gravitational pull is unavoidable. “Why would anyone desire normality?” Ralph’s mum questions in Trespasses when he reveals he is gay. Like an evening with your most clever, daring companion.

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Works That Evoke Laughter and Tears

The novelist penned excellently regarding elderly life, early and late in his career. His initial fiction the novel At the Jerusalem (1967) traces the life of Faith Gadny as she adjusts to a nursing home, where other occupants provide kindness absent in employees, who show interest through questions “Why aren’t you ladies watching the television?”. In the novel before his final Chapman’s Odyssey (from 2011), an elderly hospitalized man switches between disputing with medics (“I consume only fine wines”, he insists following criticism of his liver) and experiencing a rush of recollections of his mother, lovers, literary figures like Dickens’s Pip to Austen’s Emma. The two works are filled with funny exchanges but marked by approaching finality. In Bailey’s fiction, smiles are deceptive. In that book, “the matron grinned, then ended it abruptly”; The character giggles with unease when confronted about her behavior. In that novel, Harry warns that “my laughter is not genuine”. The audience’s grins, though, are real.

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To Understand the Truth Beneath the Tales

Apart from his stories, The author excelled as a skilled autobiographer, releasing two self-written volumes. An Immaculate Mistake (published in 1990) serves as a classic of memory, its name coming from his parent’s remark labeling him an “accident” and questioning his presence. (“She was old now, and letting go of her secrets,” he comments. “This one, she knew, would be of particular interest to me.”) Here we see the origins of flawed, caring, annoying mothers and fathers in his novels. Additionally, it depicts an evocative portrait of a gay youth in the 1940s–50s, during a time of anti-gay laws, and his relatives considered it strange that a son would purchase flowers for his mum; and of an aspiring actor (Paul Bailey performed preceding his literary career) who learned Hamlet by age fifteen. His follow-up autobiography A Dog’s Life (2004) centers on days with his pet Circe, his previous lover David, his affection for Romania—which motivated subsequent books such as Kitty and Virgil, Uncle Rudolf, as well as the book The Prince’s Boy—and plenty of gossip, including a tale involving author Iris Murdoch labeling a listener an “idiot”.

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If You’re Pressed for Time

Bailey’s novels tend to be short—the notable Old Soldiers (from 1980) is barely 100 pages—yet for an even briefer option, try his poetry from later years. The pair of volumes Inheritance (published in 2019) and the title Joie de Vivre (from 2022) exhibit Bailey’s wit, empathy, precision in brief format. These poems are rich with death and life. Two love themes recur: about his parent (“Now I’m closer—/ I have to say—/ than in life”) and for his civil partner Jeremy Trevathan. In Amazement, he writes of the joy of viewing “a silly TV show” as a couple, ending with: “It’s amazing, somehow, to eat cheese and sip wine while the world darkens.”

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When Choosing Just One

There is little debate that Paul Bailey’s boldest work was Gabriel’s Lament, nominated for the Booker in 1986. (He was a Booker judge in 1982, a task he hated.) This work Bailey felt proudest of, despite the fact “it drained me. It took everything out of me”. It tells Gabriel Harvey’s story, with a missing mother and a father who becomes an unbearable snob upon receiving money, with possible connections. It serves as a portrait of 20th-century London, a story of mental breakdown, and as funny and sad similar to his entire output. For more, it inspired a subsequent book, Sugar Cane (1993), which Bailey researched by going to such places to watch.