Valet of the Dolls 
Andrew O’Hagan
- Mr S.: The Last Word on Frank Sinatra by George Jacobs and William Stadiem
There was only one other person in the life of Samuel Johnson who stood a chance of writing a biography as entertaining as Boswell’s. Francis Barber was overqualified by modern standards, and too loyal for the job in any era, but for more than thirty years he was Johnson’s (black) manservant. There in the small hours – peeling oranges, brewing tea, mending stockings, lifting papers – Barber was considered to be all the disciples other than Judas, though one now wonders, naturally, what the servant could have offered the great moralist in the way of a horrific posthumous disservice.
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Andrew O’Hagan’s The Atlantic Ocean, a collection of essays on Britain and America, many of which were first published in the London Review, will be published in June. Be Near Me, his last novel, won the 2008 Los Angeles Times Book Prize award for fiction.
Other articles by this contributor:
The God Squad · Andrew O’Hagan in Bushland
Seventy Years in a Filthy Trade · Andrew O’Hagan meets E.S. Turner
At the Design Museum · Peter Saville
The Things We Throw Away · The Garbage of England
Still Reeling from My Loss · Lulu & Co
Iraq, 2 May 2005 · Two Soldiers
Disgrace under Pressure · Andrew O’Hagan reads some lad mags
The Nominee · With the Democrats
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