Youve Had Your Time

After returning from a trip to Brunei Anthony Burgess initially believing he has only a year to live begins to write - novels film scripts television series articles. It is the life of a man desperate to earn a living through the written word. He finds at first that writing brings little success and later that success and the obligations it brings interfere with his writing - especially of fiction. There were vast Hollywood projects destined never to be made novels the critics snarled at journalism that scandalised the morally scrupulous. There is the clat of A Clockwork Orange (and the consequent calls for Burgess to comment on violent atrocities) the huge success - after a long barren period - of Earthly Powers. There is a terrifying first marriage his description of which is both painful and funny. His second marriage - and the discovery that he has a four-year-old son - changes his life dramatically and he and Liana escape to the Mediterranean for an increasingly European life. With this marriage comes the triumphant rebirth of sex creative energy and travel - to America to Australia and all over Europe.