“... sea, but he had other horizons too: Catholicism (he attended the Convent School of Jesus and Mary in Ipswich and his confirmation name was St Jean-Baptiste de la Salle); imported American music (hymn-like doo-wop, carnal R’n’B); and the spare modernism of Piet Mondrian, to which he was introduced by his uncle Carl (Mondrian, notice, not Picasso or ...”

“... this Hollywood dreck, Ben?’ Roth wanted to know, ‘And why are you gay men so beguiled by Bette Davis?’ Yeah, Ben, what gives? Roth: ‘You don’t look twice at Ava Gardner, who was, to put it mildly, more attractive. She had an enduring sexiness, even in London. In the 1980s. When I had her.’ When I had her: how the phrase just rolls off the ...”

“... position in the city changed somewhat in 1864 when Oscar was nine. A patient of William’s called Mary Travers claimed that the doctor had given her chloroform and raped her. When Lady Wilde wrote a letter vilifying her, Mary Travers sued for libel. She won a farthing damages; and while the legal costs were high, Wilde won ...”

“... don’t.I remember Jennifer with about the same clarity that I remember the young Jane Eyre, Mary from The Secret Garden, Peter Pan and Alice. Rather less clarity, in fact, since the last four are readily available on my bookshelves and I have reacquainted myself with them quite regularly. Jennifer, I’ve merely remembered from time to time over an ...”

“... photographic artist, lived in Flat 173 in the same part of the building with her mother, Mary Mendy. Khadija was born in Hammersmith and went to school in Ladbroke Grove but her family was originally from Gambia. Their flat was a shrine, of a sort, to all their combined memories and passions. It was a home not a house: the large framed mirror on the ...”