The New Confessions, the extraordinary, candid story of John James Todd, a Scotsman born in 1899 and one of the great self appointed geniuses of the 20th century. His is an astonishingly rich and diverse career, with remarkable success and equally dramatic failures. Told from the vantage point of not-so-serene old age and self imposed exile. Todd lets us in on the secrets of his fraught and intriguing life.
Beginning with his bizarre boyhood and schooldays in Scotland we move on to his incredible experiences of the First World War , and from there we follow his fretful progress through the Berlin of the Twenties, Mexico in 1939 and the Allied invasion of St Tropez and Los Angeles of the McCarthy era.
John James Todd , charming and exasperating, shrewd and unbelievably foolish, vain and disarmingly straight forward.
This is a very good read, it takes us through interesting times with a man who may not always be telling us the truth, but the interest of the reader never drops off.
William Boyd in my opinion is at the very top of contemporary British novelists, always readable, always interesting.
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