A moving and humane book about a great cinematic hero, James Whale, director of Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, The Old Dark House and Showboat. This book, which formed the basis for the movie Gods and Monsters, gives us a wonderful, somewhat vain and irascible character wrestling with his own declining powers. Though having a clear gay perspective, it treats all it's personalities, whatever their sexuality, weaknesses or proclivities, with the dignity that allows them to be difficult and troublesome but profoundly human. Ultimately it beautifully captures both the joy and sadness of being alive on the Earth as both a creative and an inevitably corporeal being.