Book
The Fatal Englishman
Sebastian Faulks tells the lives of three gifted Englishmen whose careers ended young. Painter Christopher Wood moves through the modernist world of 1920s Paris before addiction and instability overwhelm him; RAF pilot and writer Richard Hillary survives terrible burns in the Battle of Britain, writes The Last Enemy and fights to return to flying.
The final life is Jeremy Wolfenden, an exceptional Oxford academic who abandons university life for journalism and is sent to Moscow at the height of the Cold War. His sexuality, drinking and contact with intelligence services leave him vulnerable to blackmail and manipulation. Together the three biographies form an oblique portrait of Britain across the middle decades of the twentieth century.
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