A Singular Man

This is another book that had a profound influence on me when I was younger.

Just out of interest I recently went back and read it again.

It is easy to read this book as just about the content, malarky, high jinks, sex and wealth. But there is a poetic melancholia that runs underneath everything in this book. I think it was the first book that resonated within me as in someone had given a name to something that I had felt at the core of me ever since I can remember.

I feel a bit different these days, not much though, more that I’ve had years to get used to it. Reading it really took me back to my earlier self.

There are 2 other books by him that you could almost put in a trilogy, The others are:

The Beastly Beatitudes of Balthazar B

A Fairy show more Tale of new York show less

"A Singular Man" is J.P. Donleavy's second novel, originally published in 1963. Unlike Sebastian Dangerfield, the hero of Donleavy's first novel "The Ginger Man," George Smith has a ton of money. He is a success in a business that is never revealed. Veiled and not-so-veiled threats frequently delivered by mail and courier have him in the grip of paranoia. He is building the largest masoleum possible, in which he apparently intends to live. He has a "behemoth" of an amored car as protection against possible attack. He can't have the woman he loves, Sally Tomson, also known as DIzzy Darling, a model and part-time actress. His wife and four cretinous children from which he is separated are no comfort. George Smith, described as show more "frond-like" is eccentric, funny, and something of a sexual dynamo. He leaves several women, including his housekeeper, in various states of satisfaction and anger around the city as he searches for Sally Tomson, finds her, and loses her. Sometimes described as Donleavy's favorite novel, "A Singular Man" is funny throughout, but with an underlying seriousness that elevates the story above mere humor. show less

A singular waste of paper.