One of the most important books about life and death you will ever read.” Daily Telegraph review by Nicholas Lezard

Jeremy Clarke was one of the greatest writers in the history of The Spectator. For 23 years, he captured the beauty and absurdity of the everyday in his Low Life column.

This collection of his best columns from the final ten years of his life reveals a unique mind, a man able to magnify his own life in a way that made you reflect upon your own. From his days as a football hooligan to the hell of expat dinner parties, from his almighty drug and alcohol binges to his love of Great War poetry; from mixing morphine with Moscow Mules to fighting a losing battle with cancer – Jeremy chronicled it all with extraordinary frankness and brilliant wit.

‘I started telling everyone I had cancer — friends, strangers, even the barman. First I told it bitterly, then boastfully, then hilariously. Come the end I was using it as a chat-up line.’

About The Author:
Jeremy Clarke had an unconventional path to journalism. He initially trained as a psychiatric nurse and then worked as a binman for many years, among other menial jobs. A love of literature sparked an interest in writing. In his late twenties, he sat his A levels and went to university. His first job in journalism was with Prospect Magazine, followed by extensive travel writing in the Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph and Sunday Times. His dissolute lifestyle made him a natural fit for The Spectator’s ‘Low Life’ column when Jeffrey Bernard passed away.

Reviews:
“I was a lucky man to share part of his journey, for Jeremy was always up for a lark, except on Mondays which was the day when he had to write his Spectator column.  Then he disappeared into the hell of writing to a deadline, searching for a subject in his ever diminishing world. [But] he could write.  He knew how hard it is to write well, and boy, did he write well.  He could make a column about simply staggering home up the hill. In the end his subject was Death for, after all, in the end what else is there to write about?  I know there were hundreds of readers like me captivated by his honesty and his fearless gaze as he struggled with the monsters invading his body.”
Eric Idle, actor, writer and ex-Python.

“Jeremy was, as you sense from his column, much more than a peerless columnist. He was fearless, kind and sharp. Indestructible, I thought. You’d get smashed intellectually and physically with Jeremy when he was in the mood. Riotous but, no matter what the hour, able to zero in with precision on a sloppy or half-baked comment and continue the interrogation until you understood what you meant to say, although he’d have hated for me to call him an intellectual,”
Professor Brian Cox