Seasonal Suicide Notes
For some years, the biographer Roger Lewis has been entertaining his friends with an annual letter, in which he records details of the joys and frustrations of his life as it is actually lived.
Updated with a new section for spring, this ‘cult classic’, a hilarious collection of diaries and memoirs – highlights of which include a trip up the Amazon River with countless ants and Maureen Lipman; his eldest son Tristan training to be a juggler at Zippos Circus (“Frankly, where did Magdalen College, Oxford, ever get me, eh?”); the mystery of the stolen kettle at Age Concern; the humiliation of not being invited to the premiere of his very own movie at Cannes; and the way the Dell call-centre people in Bombay keep thinking he’s a woman....
With his sharp eye for folly, his malice – and the unexpected shafts of humanity in spite of his chronic ill temper – Roger Lewis is the Evelyn Waugh of the 21st century. These addictive and paradoxically life-enhancing Seasonal Suicide Notes have the makings of a lasting comic masterpiece.
These sulphurous annual round robins are not just
cry-makingly funny and profane... there are also arresting
insights into art, literature and life and flashes of
beautiful seriousness. The comedy is exquisitely
well observed.’ The Telegraph
‘If they ever award medals for comic genius Lewis will be
a shoo-in for gold... Hilarious.’ The Mail on Sunday
‘Roger Lewis is a genius writer, and he knows it.’
Lynn Barber
‘I cannot think of anyone I love or admire who would
not enjoy reading this. It’s dark, savage, scabrous and
enraged. It is also the funniest, truest, most engaging
thing I’ve read all year.’ Michael Gove, The Times
‘This is one of the strangest books you will ever read. It is
also the funniest. And the most reckless ... If you like black
comedy, and bad taste, you will find yourself in
Narnia here...’ The Spectator
‘The funniest book of the year. This is comedy of a
rare quality.’ The Sunday Express
About the author
Roger Lewis is the author of books about Laurence Olivier, Charles Hawtrey and Anthony Burgess. His international bestselling biography The Life and D