The London Lover: My Weekend That Lasted Thirty Years

'An exuberant, breathless sprint through London in the fifties, sixties and seventies… It's bright, boisterous and extremely funny' Tatler 'Clancy's scapegrace adventures are described with so much vitality and scabrous wit you feel as charmed as one of his serial conquests … Marvellous' Spectator 'If you're searching for something to keep you on the edge of your sun lounger this summer, look no further' Daily Mail If Fielding's Tom Jones were alive in postwar England he might be Clancy Sigal, the American author of this restlessly curious memoir. Honest and devious, faithful and lustful, a mass of plucky contradictions, Clancy first arrived in London in 1957. He was broke, homeless and, according to his FBI file, a dangerous 'subversive'. Over the next three decades, Clancy was to wander the soot-stained streets of London, devouring as much as life could offer him. From the birth of the CND and his affair with Lessing, to therapy with R. D. Laing and wondering whether the entire world was on acid, Clancy details it all to illuminating effect. Underneath all of these encounters is the character of Clancy himself: funny, hapless, warm-hearted and a self-professed 'crazy American'. Call it luck, charm or sheer lack of good sense, he escaped with a cracking good story.

About the Author :
Clancy Sigal was a novelist, journalist, screenwriter and political activist. Chicago-born, he was an American G.I. in Occupied Germany. Working as a talent agent on the Sunset Strip in the mid-fifties, he was blacklisted, fled McCarthyism, and moved to the UK. Living in London for many years, he worked as a film critic, playwright and a BBC correspondent. He returned to Los Angeles in the late 1980s, and later became a professor emeritus at the University of Southern California Annenberg School of Journalism. He died in 2017.

Review :
An exuberant, breathless sprint through London in the Fifties, Sixties and Seventies… It's bright, boisterous and extremely funny [Clancy's] scapegrace adventures are described with so much vitality and scabrous wit you feel as charmed as one of his serial conquests … Marvellous Sigal is a terrific storyteller and The London Lover is a terrific story. If you're searching for something to keep you on the edge of your sun lounger this summer, look no further [Sigal] was a tummler of note, a real-life Zelig who found himself with astonishing frequency at the ringside of history, rubbing shoulders with many of its high rollers and low riders … The compulsion to be near the hot centre never left his restless heart Clancy Sigal lived twenty amazing lives and many of them are in this wonderful book Clancy Sigal's memoir has all the storytelling verve, arresting candour and personal fearlessness that made his reputation over half a century ago No one tells his story better than he does himself in this highly entertaining book