The Biography Of Joe Orton

The Biography of Joe Orton (1987) – John Lahr
(Penguin Books, ISBN: 9780140100679, Condition: Good — from the ever-reliable “Crappy Old Books”)

What do you get when you cross a working-class lad from Leicester, an irreverent wit sharper than a box of broken gin bottles, and a tragically short life that ended in a murder worthy of one of his own plays? You get Joe Orton — playwright, provocateur, and 1960s enfant terrible. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your stamina for outrageous anecdotes), John Lahr was on hand to capture the whole riotous saga in The Biography of Joe Orton.

First published when Thatcher was busy dismantling society and shoulder pads were considered structural, this 1987 Penguin edition is everything you could hope for in a biography: scandal, wit, subversive theatre gossip, and a reminder that British council libraries were once vandalised not by bored teenagers but by up-and-coming playwrights on the make. Orton’s short, brilliant life is told with all the verve you’d expect from Lahr, who understood that you can’t write about Joe without rolling your eyes and laughing nervously at least once a chapter.

This particular copy, offered by Crappy Old Books in Good condition, comes with no guarantee of moral improvement but plenty of evidence of survival. “Good,” of course, is bookseller shorthand for “not quite falling apart” — so you can expect intact pages, a spine that still does its job, and perhaps the faint aroma of second-hand seriousness.

If you like your biographies tidy, reverent, and discreet, move along. But if you’d rather plunge into the gloriously messy orbit of a playwright who made polite Britain choke on its own tea, this well-worn Penguin is ready to perform. Crappy Old Books proudly — or at least grudgingly — presents it to you: a paperback bristling with faded scandal and unrepentant mischief.

Keep browsing: See more Biography books Other books by John Lahr