by Clancy Sigal
First published 2019
Clancy Sigal steps off the 88 bus in 1957 London with no money, no home, and an FBI file marking him as dangerous. The American writer finds himself on Doris Lessing's doorstep, beginning a passionate relationship that throws him into London's intellectual and political circles. Over three decades, Clancy wanders the city's grimy streets, dodging police while diving headfirst into everything postwar Britain offers. He witnesses the birth of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, undergoes therapy with psychiatrist R.D. Laing, and navigates a world that seems perpetually altered by drugs and social upheaval. Through affairs, political movements, and cultural revolutions spanning the fifties, sixties, and seventies, Clancy remains a bundle of contradictions: honest yet scheming, loyal yet lustful, hapless yet irresistible. His adventures reveal a man whose lack of good sense becomes his greatest asset, allowing him to stumble into extraordinary experiences across a transforming London.
Genres: american-fiction, 20th-century, biography-memoir, activism
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, found-family
Setting: London
Period: 1950s, 1960s, 1970s
288 pages · paperback · Bloomsbury Publishing