Unreliable Memoirs

by Clive James, C. James

Overview

A best-selling classic around the world, Clive James’s hilarious memoir has long been unavailable in the United States.

Before James Frey famously fabricated his memoir, Clive James wrote a refreshingly candid book that made no claims to be accurate, precise, or entirely truthful, only to entertain. In an exercise of literary exorcism, James set out to put his childhood in Australia behind him by rendering it as part novel, part memoir. Now, nearly thirty years after it first came out in England, Unreliable Memoirs is again available to American readers and sure to attract a whole new generation that has, through his essays and poetry, come to love James’s inimitable voice.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393336085
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	05/18/2009
Pages:	224
Sales rank:	942,363
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.10(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Clive James (1939—2019), author of the best-selling Cultural Amnesia and Poetry Notebook, was an Officer of the Order of Australia and a Commander of the Order of the British Empire. His writing appeared in the New York Times Book Review, The New Yorker, and The Atlantic.

Table of Contents

Like America, Only Different: Preface to the American Edition 13

Preface 19

1 The Kid from Kogarah 23

2 Valley of the Killer Snakes 33

3 Billycart Hill 45

4 The Force of Destruction 59

5 Enter the Flash of Lightning 67

6 Dib, Dib, Dib, Dib 77

7 Eros and the Angel 93

8 The Imitation of Christ 103

9 Milo the Magnificent 115

10 The Sound of Mucus 129

11 A Prong in Peril 137

12 All Dressed Up 145

13 Let Us Rejoice, Therefore 161

14 Basic Training 181

15 Very Well: Alone 193

16 Fidgety Feet 203

17 That He Should Leave His House 215

Editorial Reviews

"Do not read this book in public. You will risk severe internal injuries from trying to suppress your laughter. . . . What’s worse, you can’t put it down once started. Its addictive powers stun all normal decent resistance within seconds. Not to be missed."

Sunday Times