The novelist Paul Bailey, who passed away last year at 87, was acclaimed for his comic brilliance, intense sympathy including for the worst personalities in his stories, and an intelligence that was never clinical. His fiction frequently delved into the power of memory in shaping lives, driven by clever, syncopated conversations. Beyond novels, he also excelled as an autobiographer, verse writer, and other capacities—here is a guide to his enduring literary legacy.
Paul Bailey proved a gregarious individual, a skilled communicator who adored lighthearted gossip, according to a fictional persona. Together with companion Beryl Bainbridge would watch the TV show Coronation Street and analyze it telephonically. This enjoyment of chatty conversations shines through in his books the novel Trespasses (from 1970) along with Peter Smart’s Confessions (released in 1977). Each includes a main male protagonist encircled by comic, maddening, theatrical individuals, usually kin whose impact cannot be avoided. “Who wants to be normal anyway?” Ralph’s mum questions in Trespasses when he reveals he is gay. Like an evening with your most clever, daring companion.
Bailey wrote brilliantly about aging, at both ends of his writing journey. His first book At the Jerusalem (published in 1967) details the journey of Faith Gadny as she adjusts to an old people’s residence, in which other inhabitants provide kindness absent in employees, who show interest by asking “Why not view the TV, ladies?”. Within his second-last book the title Chapman’s Odyssey (2011), a senior in hospital switches between disputing with medics (“My wine selection is exclusive”, he states when scolded for liver results) and being flooded by memories involving his mum, partners, classic characters including Pip by Dickens and Emma by Austen. Each volume contain humorous dialogues yet shadowed by approaching finality. In his stories, laughter is suspect. In At the Jerusalem, “the matron beamed, then stopped suddenly”; The character giggles with unease if her actions are questioned. In that novel, Harry advises that “my smiles aren’t what they seem”. The audience’s grins, though, are real.
Apart from his stories, Bailey was a gifted memoirist, releasing two self-written volumes. An Immaculate Mistake (published in 1990) serves as a classic of recollection, the heading taken from his mother’s words labeling him an “accident” and questioning his presence. (“She was old now, and letting go of her secrets,” he adds. “This secret, she realized, would intrigue me.”) Within these pages appear the roots of misguided, loving, frustrating parents throughout his books. It also paints a beautiful image of a homosexual young man in the 1940s–50s, when same-sex acts were criminal, and his family found it odd if a male child gifted blooms to his parent; and of an aspiring actor (Paul Bailey performed preceding his literary career) who memorized Hamlet at 15. His subsequent life story the book A Dog’s Life (2004) concentrates on life with his mongrel puppy Circe, his former partner David, his love for Romania—which inspired later novels like Kitty and Virgil, the title Uncle Rudolf, as well as The Prince’s Boy—and plenty of gossip, featuring an anecdote involving author Iris Murdoch calling an audience member a “foolish person”.
Paul Bailey’s books tend to be short—the impactful Old Soldiers (published in 1980) is under 100 pages—but for something shorter, sample his verse in his final phase. The pair of volumes the poetry collection Inheritance (published in 2019) and also Joie de Vivre (2022) showcase Bailey’s wit, empathy, precision in brief format. These verses contain death and life. Two romantic motifs repeat: for his mother (“I’m closer to you now – / I need to tell you – / than I ever was in life”) and for his civil partner Jeremy Trevathan. Within the poem Amazement, he writes of the happiness from viewing “a silly TV show” as a couple, concluding with: “It’s amazing, somehow, to eat cheese and sip wine while the world darkens.”
It is widely accepted that Bailey’s most ambitious novel remains Gabriel’s Lament, shortlisted for the Booker prize in 1986. (He also judged the prize in 1982, a role he disliked.) This novel Paul Bailey valued most, even though “it exhausted him completely”. It relates the narrative of Gabriel Harvey, whose mother vanishes and whose father turns into a intolerable pretentious person following a financial windfall, and the events may link. It acts as a representation of London in the 1900s, a story of mental breakdown, and equally humorous and sorrowful similar to his entire output. Additionally, it prompted a follow-up, Sugar Cane (from 1993), that he investigated by attending brothels to observe.
