This is the true story of an American cultural pioneer and Soho Gentleman Bohemian. Born in St Louis, he was a trendsetter for the Beat movement of the 40s and 50s, publisher and editor in New York of the provocative Neurotica magazine and writer of the Broadway musical, The Nervous Set. Though he was ostensibly an antiques dealer by trade, he went on to become the founder and ringmaster of the Crystal Palace Theatre Bar in St Louis, where he inspired some of the best and most innovative cabaret in America.
Paperback, 168pp., 19 B&W illustrations, Tiger of the Stripe, £7.99
The perfect antidote to all those memoirs of serious writers who never experienced the pleasure of a mid-life crisis.
Hardback, Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 229 pp.
'A memoir by the man who can be accused of starting it all.'
NORMAN MAILER
'Funny, moving, heartening, tragic, outrageous. To read it is to be present at the invention of contemporary America. Of all the published reminiscences of Bohemian America in the 50s and 60s, this is the most revealing.
ROBERT STONE