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Lead book review

Dedicated to debauchery: the life of Thom Gunn

Even the most liberal-minded reader might be surprised by the amount of crack cocaine, LSD, alcohol and casual sex the poet indulged over the course of 50 years

13 July 2024

9:00 AM

13 July 2024

9:00 AM

Thom Gunn: A Cool Queer Life Michael Nott

Faber, pp.720, 25

In 1876, writing to his friend Gertrude Tennant, Gustave Flaubert set down a principle that artists and writers should live by: Soyez réglé dans votre vie et ordinaire comme un bourgeois, afin d’être violent et original dans vos œuvres. (Be regular in your life and ordinary as a bourgeois, in order to be violent and original in your work.

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