I didn’t know the British kitchen-sink painter John Bratby wrote books till a couple weeks ago. A podcast I like mentioned a novel called Breakdown and I picked up a cheap copy on eBay.

What I knew of him before was his grubby canvases of apartments full of crap. They’re gleefully messy and look like they were painted in a fever. I also know they used his paintings to stand in for Gulley Jimson’s in the movie version of Joyce Cary’s The Horse’s Mouth—one of the best written/filmed portrayals of an artist’s life I know.

When I text Frank about the book, he says Bratby claimed The Horse’s Mouth was based on him but that can’t be true as he was only sixteen when it came out in 1944. Whatever the case, I’ve swallowed up the first third of Bratby’s book, which I assume is based, however exaggeratedly, on his own life.

It’s a vulgar, messy, laugh-out-loud trainwreck of a narrative about a successful painter who can’t control his own desires. But the best thing about it are the vivid, seen descriptions of the surroundings and denizens of “John Brady’s” world. I recognize these as the words of someone who’s spent his life looking.

Then, of course, there are the meaty ink illustrations throughout. I think this is a book I’ll hold onto.

I wrote about Colin Asher’s The Midnight Special.

I have some copies of The Sound and the Fury now if you’d like one from me directly. Or you can come to Tangible Books on the 18th for the book-release.