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You Cannot Live as I Have Lived and Not End Up Like This
Though born into privilege and inheriting a fortune, Willie Donaldson ended up dying alone in a seedy rented flat, his computer still logged on to a lesbian porn site. To some, he had been one of the great, under-rated comic writers of our time, and to others, a dangerous force of corruption and decadence.
His achievements were significant - he published Sylvia Plath while still at Cambridge, as a producer in the Sixties he staged Beyond the Fringe, and he was later to write the celebrated Henry Root Letters - but not as impressive as his reckless talent for self-destruction. The impresario became a serial bankrupt. The man about town, who had lived with Sarah Miles and been engaged to Carly Simon, ended up as a ponce in a Chelsea brothel. Success as a writer quickly led him into a dark underworld of crack addiction, fraud and sexual obsession. Now friend and collaborator, Terence Blacker unravels the intimate truth of Willie Donaldson's strange story in all its glamour, hilarity and pain.
'What a young fool I was. But how I adored him' Carly Simon
'A slimy crook' Private Eye
'For the skill and wit of his writing he deserves to be hailed as the English Nabokov' Auberon Waugh
'I am someone who always answers the phone at 1.00 am, because I know it isn't going to be my bank manager or the Inland Revenue, but probably a crack dealer or a prostitute' Willie Donaldson
His achievements were significant - he published Sylvia Plath while still at Cambridge, as a producer in the Sixties he staged Beyond the Fringe, and he was later to write the celebrated Henry Root Letters - but not as impressive as his reckless talent for self-destruction. The impresario became a serial bankrupt. The man about town, who had lived with Sarah Miles and been engaged to Carly Simon, ended up as a ponce in a Chelsea brothel. Success as a writer quickly led him into a dark underworld of crack addiction, fraud and sexual obsession. Now friend and collaborator, Terence Blacker unravels the intimate truth of Willie Donaldson's strange story in all its glamour, hilarity and pain.
'What a young fool I was. But how I adored him' Carly Simon
'A slimy crook' Private Eye
'For the skill and wit of his writing he deserves to be hailed as the English Nabokov' Auberon Waugh
'I am someone who always answers the phone at 1.00 am, because I know it isn't going to be my bank manager or the Inland Revenue, but probably a crack dealer or a prostitute' Willie Donaldson
- GenresBiographyNonfiction
352 pages, Hardcover
First published March 22, 2007
About the author
Terence Blacker
119 books43 followersTerence Blacker wanted to be a jockey when he grew and up. In fact, he could ride before he could walk, and his childhood hero was the great steeplechaser Mill House (a horse). He lives in Norfolk, England.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
May 6, 2015
Meh. Interesting guy was Willie Donaldson. He was a complete individualist and iconoclast, whose books, collected into The complete Henry Root Letters were snorkingly funny. But this book, this memoir by a good friend of his, just didn't do it for me.
It was a mild-mannered look at an extreme personality. How can you write about a crack addict who mixed with royalty, lived in a brothel, screwed some of the most famous women of the age and was one of the UK's major satirists and make it meh? Perhaps the friendship between the author and the late Willie Donaldson should have been left at that, friendship and memories? Because to me this book was a bad match of author and subject.
3.5 stars.
It was a mild-mannered look at an extreme personality. How can you write about a crack addict who mixed with royalty, lived in a brothel, screwed some of the most famous women of the age and was one of the UK's major satirists and make it meh? Perhaps the friendship between the author and the late Willie Donaldson should have been left at that, friendship and memories? Because to me this book was a bad match of author and subject.
3.5 stars.
December 29, 2008
I interviewed Willie Donaldson when I was a young journalist. He was fascinating, and the single best recounter of scurrilous anecdotes I've ever met -- very few of which were printable.
The book is odd -- it seems haunted by the ghost of Terence Blacker, who wrote it and knew and worked with Willie, making it both more personal and less authoritative than I'm used to in biographies -- and I started to long for interviews with people who didn't think Willie was a harmless rogue or a genius -- the Richard Ingramses or Clive Jameses or whoever.
But the lop-sidedness, as with Willie Donaldson, is part of the charm.
The book is odd -- it seems haunted by the ghost of Terence Blacker, who wrote it and knew and worked with Willie, making it both more personal and less authoritative than I'm used to in biographies -- and I started to long for interviews with people who didn't think Willie was a harmless rogue or a genius -- the Richard Ingramses or Clive Jameses or whoever.
But the lop-sidedness, as with Willie Donaldson, is part of the charm.
May 1, 2012
The character of Willie Donaldson is someone I was only vaguely familiar with when embarking on this biography. As the writer of the Henry Root Letters, I was familiar with his work, humour and turn of phrase but unaware of his even fuller genius and eccentricities. On further checking (and I have), Wikipedia just doesn’t do him justice.
Whilst one is always right to question the authenticity of any biography or autobiography, Terence Blacker as a friend and ex-collaborator seems to encapsulate Donaldson’s character all too well as a hyper-intelligent man who lived somewhat at odds with the ‘normal’ world, with a preference for the arts, popular culture and subversion of any circumstance.
What transpires is an account of a well-lived life that renounces the heritage and high privilege of Donaldson’s birth right. Instead, his life choices embraced frivolity, booze, drugs, woman and a real rainbow life lived well but also in the gutter. Donaldson rightly comes across as one of life’s bohemians and also one of life’s ‘one-offs’ who refused to bend to protocol, duty and expectation in a variety of situations.
There are many choice quotes to be found in this book, many of them by the author and many by the protagonist and all lead to a great existential-like analysis of life. By the end of the book, Donaldson indeed seems to come across as a life-philosopher and Blacker’s collected potpourri of quotes from his subject’s newspaper articles depict a large quota of jaded yet hilarious and well-thought topical humour. I giggled a lot and even shed a couple of tears at some very honest and very poignant bits.
The reading of this biography seemed, at times, quite lengthy and even repetitive in places. This said, the character of Donaldson seemed so enlightening that I decided to stick with it. It was encouraging to experience the living of a somewhat ‘sub-culture’ life and empathise with a distinctive individual.
I wouldn’t say this book is mainstream enough for all tastes but for those passionate enough about quirky people, quirky lives and something a bit different from your average biography then this is worth it and extremely experiential.
Enjoy!
Whilst one is always right to question the authenticity of any biography or autobiography, Terence Blacker as a friend and ex-collaborator seems to encapsulate Donaldson’s character all too well as a hyper-intelligent man who lived somewhat at odds with the ‘normal’ world, with a preference for the arts, popular culture and subversion of any circumstance.
What transpires is an account of a well-lived life that renounces the heritage and high privilege of Donaldson’s birth right. Instead, his life choices embraced frivolity, booze, drugs, woman and a real rainbow life lived well but also in the gutter. Donaldson rightly comes across as one of life’s bohemians and also one of life’s ‘one-offs’ who refused to bend to protocol, duty and expectation in a variety of situations.
There are many choice quotes to be found in this book, many of them by the author and many by the protagonist and all lead to a great existential-like analysis of life. By the end of the book, Donaldson indeed seems to come across as a life-philosopher and Blacker’s collected potpourri of quotes from his subject’s newspaper articles depict a large quota of jaded yet hilarious and well-thought topical humour. I giggled a lot and even shed a couple of tears at some very honest and very poignant bits.
The reading of this biography seemed, at times, quite lengthy and even repetitive in places. This said, the character of Donaldson seemed so enlightening that I decided to stick with it. It was encouraging to experience the living of a somewhat ‘sub-culture’ life and empathise with a distinctive individual.
I wouldn’t say this book is mainstream enough for all tastes but for those passionate enough about quirky people, quirky lives and something a bit different from your average biography then this is worth it and extremely experiential.
Enjoy!
February 9, 2009
''When aren't we acting?' he asked in his diary. 'When aren't we concealing? Would you like me to have been a fly on your wall yesterday? Did you do nothing shameful? Of course you did. The version of ourselves that we present to the world bears no resemblence to the truth. If we knew the truth about each other we could take noone seriously. There isn't one of us who could afford to be caught. That's all life is. Trying not to be found out.'
March 11, 2023
“Though born into privilege and inheriting a fortune, Willie Donaldsom ended up dying alone in a seedy rented flat, his computer still logged on to a lesbian porn site.”
Sold.
Very entertaining account of an unusual life. I detested Donaldson as a young man (and the book was all the better for it). I thought he was a smug little shit. Later, when things started to go wrong I warmed to him a bit. I suppose I just like the underdog. Or maybe it’s because his life-cycle exactly matches my own.
He’s an interesting mix of contrasts. Amazing ability and stunning incompetence. Funny, and foul to his friends. Teetotal and a crackhead.
It plays out against a backdrop of the small world of the British arts scene from the 50s onwards. Amazing to see how many of the people of that time are still going. Interesting to a Brit, but may be a little meaningless to others.
The book’s properly researched and written in quite an informal style. Blacker often let’s you see his workings. A good choice I think as he and Donaldson were friends. It’s biased, but Blacker’s sometimes questionable opinions are on full show and I never felt he was lying. Occasionally funny too, and a couple of times, where he quotes from Donaldson's own work I was in physical pain from laughing.
I’m going to read the Henry Root letters again now.
Sold.
Very entertaining account of an unusual life. I detested Donaldson as a young man (and the book was all the better for it). I thought he was a smug little shit. Later, when things started to go wrong I warmed to him a bit. I suppose I just like the underdog. Or maybe it’s because his life-cycle exactly matches my own.
He’s an interesting mix of contrasts. Amazing ability and stunning incompetence. Funny, and foul to his friends. Teetotal and a crackhead.
It plays out against a backdrop of the small world of the British arts scene from the 50s onwards. Amazing to see how many of the people of that time are still going. Interesting to a Brit, but may be a little meaningless to others.
The book’s properly researched and written in quite an informal style. Blacker often let’s you see his workings. A good choice I think as he and Donaldson were friends. It’s biased, but Blacker’s sometimes questionable opinions are on full show and I never felt he was lying. Occasionally funny too, and a couple of times, where he quotes from Donaldson's own work I was in physical pain from laughing.
I’m going to read the Henry Root letters again now.
February 28, 2025
Sensational. Incredibly funny and moving all the way through.
Willie Donaldson was one of the great British comic writers of his generation and this book gave me an even greater appreciation for him.
Willie Donaldson was one of the great British comic writers of his generation and this book gave me an even greater appreciation for him.
binned
March 1, 2008omg graham's gonna kill me. i read 130 pages of it in 2 sittings in an attempt to get into this. it was OK. his life was very interesting - no question. but the person who wrote this likes him far too bloody much to write a decent biography of it (oh yes, i didn't realise that it wasn't an autobiog until i started it, so i was a bit disappointed - i guess the clue was in the author's name...). so willy donaldson goes around being a bit of a cock and we get some sort of wishy washy excuse from the author at every corner - 'oh i'm sure that he would never have stolen money from the beyond the fringe lot' blah blah whatever. Just delight in him being a bit of a knob and stop being so cloying! So many biographies are ruined by rubbish biographers.
Anyway, i'll probably come back to it at some stage, I'm half way through and it's not appalling or anything, but i just can't be doing with working all the hours that god sends, and then begrudglingly forcing meself to read something i don't really wanna on the tube journeys that surround the working days (and nights).
Anyway, i'll probably come back to it at some stage, I'm half way through and it's not appalling or anything, but i just can't be doing with working all the hours that god sends, and then begrudglingly forcing meself to read something i don't really wanna on the tube journeys that surround the working days (and nights).
November 26, 2010
I started this thinking “Who was Willie Donaldson?” and was enticed by the promise of a tale of wit, sex, drugs and London in the swinging sixties as seen through the eyes and experience of one of its most colourful characters. I didn’t get it. What I got was what felt like an insider’s nudge nudge, do-you-know-what (who) -he’s-doing-now type of an affair, where the biographer was too close to the subject to be really salacious or spiteful. Half way through and I still hadn’t a clue who the guy was and what made him attract the attentions and people that he did (Carly Simon looked worth one all the same). Worse, I could care less. He was a ponce, in a kind of Carry On film way, a drug addict, but who in media London wasn’t, an eccentric and an oddity, but I couldn’t warm to him much. So, on running for a taxi early on a Monday morning, I spent a frantic two minutes searching the bookshelves for something to get my teeth into and thanked my selection of John Le Carre for providing it.
January 25, 2008
This is a great biography of my favourite comic writer of all time, Willie Donaldson, who i would recommend to everyone. It is a remarkable story, truly breathtaking in his rebelliousness and anarchy. Willie Donaldson was a true rebel, utterly rejecting society's mores. He was his own man but he paid the price in many different ways. The writer was a friend and tells his story sympathetically and wisely, a great job.
October 3, 2013
Fell into my lap unexpectedly. I have enjoyed making Willie Donaldson's acquaintance through this biography....not sure I would have appreciated him quite so much in real life..a complex character to say the least....
July 4, 2008
Scandalous and ultimately very sad biog. Such talent, such dissipation.
March 6, 2014
R4x Monday
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 2, 2015
Not as good as I thought it was going to be. Still loved Henry Root letters though!
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews