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Paul Bailey, who died in October aged 87, was celebrated for a humorous talent, intense sympathy even for his most flawed characters, and an intelligence that was never clinical. His fiction often explored the power of memory on human existence, fueled by witty, staccato exchanges. Beyond novels, he was also a memoirist, poet, and more—here is a guide to his enduring literary legacy.

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The Ones to Keep You Company

Paul Bailey proved an outgoing person, an excellent talker who adored “trivial chit-chat”, according to a fictional persona. Alongside pal Beryl Bainbridge used to view the serial drama Coronation Street and debrief by phone. This enjoyment of chatty conversations shines through in his books Trespasses (1970) along with the title Peter Smart’s Confessions (dating to 1977). Each includes a main male protagonist surrounded by comic, maddening, theatrical individuals, usually kin whose influence is inescapable. “Who wants to be normal anyway?” asks the mother of Ralph within Trespasses when he reveals he is gay. Like an evening with your smartest, cheekiest pal.

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The Ones to Make You Laugh and Cry

Paul Bailey authored brilliantly about aging, at both ends of his writing journey. His debut novel At the Jerusalem (1967) details Faith Gadny’s experiences while she adapts to a nursing home, where other occupants offer warmth absent in employees, whose engagement through questions “Why aren’t you ladies watching the television?”. Within his second-last book Chapman’s Odyssey (2011), a senior in hospital switches between arguing with doctors (“My wine selection is exclusive”, he states following criticism of his liver) and being flooded by memories from his parent, romances, fictional icons including Pip by Dickens and Emma by Austen. The two works include funny exchanges yet shadowed by impending endings. In Bailey’s fiction, grins are unreliable. In that book, “the matron beamed, then stopped suddenly”; Faith Gadny chuckles anxiously when confronted about her behavior. Within Chapman’s Odyssey, Harry warns that “my laughter is not genuine”. The audience’s grins, though, are real.

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To Understand the Truth Beneath the Tales

Apart from his stories, Bailey was a skilled autobiographer, releasing two self-written volumes. the memoir An Immaculate Mistake (published in 1990) stands as a masterpiece of recollection, its name coming from his mother’s words that “You were our mistake. You ought not to be here, by rights.”. (“Elderly, she disclosed hidden truths,” he comments. “She understood this would captivate me.”) Within these pages appear the origins of flawed, caring, annoying mothers and fathers in his novels. Additionally, it depicts a moving picture of a boy discovering his sexuality in the 1940s–50s, during a time of anti-gay laws, and his family found it odd that a son would purchase flowers for his mum; and of a hopeful performer (Bailey acted preceding his literary career) who could recite Hamlet as a teen. His subsequent life story A Dog’s Life (2004) centers on existence alongside his mixed-breed dog Circe, his ex-partner David, his affection for Romania—which inspired later novels like Kitty and Virgil, Uncle Rudolf, as well as The Prince’s Boy—and heaps of rumors, featuring an anecdote involving author Iris Murdoch calling an audience member a “foolish person”.

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For Those Short on Time

Bailey’s novels tend to be short—the impactful Old Soldiers (1980) is just over 100 pages—however, for a more condensed choice, try his poetry from his later career. The pair of volumes Inheritance (from 2019) and also Joie de Vivre (released in 2022) exhibit Bailey’s wit, empathy, precision in condensed form. These poems contain death and life. Two affectionate topics reappear: regarding his mum (“Now I’m closer—/ I have to say—/ than in life”) and for his partner Jeremy Trevathan. Within the poem Amazement, he depicts the pleasure in enjoying “foolish television” side by side, finishing with: “It’s amazing, somehow, to eat cheese and sip wine while the world darkens.”

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When Choosing Just One

There is little debate that Paul Bailey’s boldest work is Gabriel’s Lament, nominated for the Booker in 1986. (He was a Booker judge in 1982, a role he disliked.) This was the book the author was most proud of, although “it exhausted him completely”. It tells Gabriel Harvey’s story, with a missing mother and whose father turns into an unbearable snob upon receiving money, with possible connections. It’s a depiction of 20th-century London, an account of psychological collapse, and equally humorous and sorrowful similar to his entire output. For more, it inspired a follow-up, Sugar Cane (from 1993), which the author studied by attending brothels to observe.