Douglas Stuart

This is about self-love! As a boy, Quentin Crisp’s flamboyant, lavender coif terrified me. Whenever he appeared on television it made me hide away inside myself. Only as a proud gay man did I come to appreciate the bravery it took for him to be so unapologetically queer. What extraordinary courage to be gender non-conforming in 1930’s Britain, in the face of such mockery and loathing. This is a wonderfully wry book, and it’s so quotable. Read it for the encounter with the Australian soldier, it’s totally unexpected.