Loving Monsters

First published in 2001, Loving Monsters begins with a British writer, now living in Italy, being propositioned to write the biography of a strange near-neighbour, a man named Jebb whose life has taken in 1920s London, wartime Egypt and modern Tuscany. 'I suppose the book is a reflection on the nature of biography', James Hamilton-Paterson has written, 'but it is also about how love can appear to make a life monstrous while explaining and even redeeming it.' 'Thoughtful, provocative and extremely well written.' Sunday Times 'Fresh with the imaginative vigour and moral urgency that make Hamilton-Paterson an important writer.' Spectator 'New readers will stumble across [Hamilton-Paterson] in a bookshop and go on turning the pages with the same sense of joyful bewilderment: 'How does he do that? How can something be this good?' Bella Bathurst, Sunday Herald