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Erotic Vagrancy

Everything about Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor

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Erotic Vagrancy

By: Roger Lewis
Narrated by: Justin Avoth
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About this listen

 The comic genius of English writing takes on Hollywood, delusion, celebrity and last century's ultimate glamour couple: Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor.

Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor were a Sixties supercharged couple in an era of supercharged couples. As a pairing they were fantasy figures, impossibly desirable. Liz supple and soft, in perfumes and furs - yet with something demonic and lethal about her. Dick, in turn, with his ravaged, handsome face, looked as though lit by silver moonlight - poised to turn into a wolf.

Roger Lewis uses this glamorous and damaged pair as the starting point to tell the story of an age of excess: the freaks and groupies, the private jets and jewels and the yachts sailing in an azure sea; the magnificent bad taste and greed. It is about the clash of worlds: the filth and decay of South Wales and the grandeur and elegance of Old Hollywood; the fantasies we have about film stars and the fantasies the Burtons had about each other.

'Brilliantly funny . . . the book of the year' - Sunday Times

'By turns, funny, tragic, tender and vicious . . . a word-of-mouth sensation' - Guardian

(P) 2023 Quercus Editions Ltd©2023 Roger Lewis Entertainment & Celebrities Entertainment & Performing Arts Film & TV Celebrity Entertainment Funny Thought-Provoking Witty

Critic reviews

Thirteen years in the writing, Erotic Vagrancy doesn't only surpass every other biography of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton yet to appear, this rich and articulate book is also about celebrity, creativity, being flawed and being brilliant.
It is one of the very best biographies I have ever read. One of the best books about fame, desire, Hollywood and mid-to-late twentieth-century culture ever written. Inside which, brilliant, hilarious and sensitive insights on all
manner of subject fizz and froth. Magnificent, terrible, tragic, triumphant. (Stephen Fry)
Lewis' prose, so electrifying, so funny, so sharp, so unsolemn, always going in unexpected directions, and with all those hilarious asides. Erotic Vagrancy gave me a week of pure joy
A hot thunderstorm of a book
Unputdownable (Tony Palmer)
Fascinating and hilarious . . . The joy is in the writing and the writing is joyful . . . The boldness of Lewis's writing is perfectly suited to the charisma of his subjects. (Hadley Freeman)
As extravagant and uncompromising as its badly behaved stars.
Lewis's magnum opus is a masterpiece in a genre of his own invention.
He is a genius writer . . . - brilliant, witty, exhilarating, and a fund of good stories.
A wonderful book . . . so deliciously written . . . Erotic Vagrancy is the biography of the year. Correction. It's the book of the year and then some
A dionysiac humdinger.
The 'battling Burtons' Liz Taylor and Richard Burton were the most glamorous celebrity couple ever. Passionately devoted to each other, the high life and - fatally - the bottle, this fascinating account of their love affair is gripping stuff.
Stupendous book
This eccentric, baroque and often funny book, full of riffs, asides and venom, is a study of megastardom, excess and monstrous personalities.
Tantalising
Excellent . . . Lewis has managed to create something bigger and more extravagant than a biography . . . Erotic Vagrancy manages to be both beautiful and ugly, romantic and putrid, which befits Burton and Taylor, their love, their style, their era which is long gone.
Glitters like one of Taylor's rubies
Bold, bitchy and bloody-minded. It is their masterpiece.
I started it on Friday and basically haven't done anything else but read it since, including over dinner last night. It is crazily good, hugely clever, monstrously opinionated, full of epic tangents, often mean (my God, so mean), completely gossipy, wildly, hilariously funny - like, put it down while you catch your breath funny - and brilliantly written. (India Knight)
Lewis is a brilliant writer; his acute eye for rich and fascinating detail is on open and shameless display here. (Colm Toibin)
All stars
Most relevant
Idiosyncratic, foul-mouthed, but also lyrical and never less than thoroughly entertaining. As a much a portrait of the world of movies in the post war years as a biography of Taylor and Burton. Highly recommended.

Loved it - superb narration

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Great from start to finish - the author's enthusiasm for the subject is palpable. I particularly enjoyed examination of their various film performances. The narration is brilliant, the best I've listened to so far on audible - quotes in different voices are conveyed convincingly. Not the standard dry biography, more a fascinating study on stardom, persona and their relationship. So good I will buy a physical copy as well.

Fantastic

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As a fan this book gave me a new perspective - it’s fascinating & so well researched

Outstanding

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No one could have done Burton and Taylor better justice than Roger Lewis and it could not have been better narrated. Richard Burton came uncannily alive in every quote.

The perfect match

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So So loved this book from start to finish. It’s one of those books you could listen / read a number of times. Firstly what a great title for this book very fitting I thought , I adore Taylor and wanted to find out more about Burton too , and yes I got that in a very surprising way haha… I think Roger Lewis’s sardonic writing ( which I enjoyed) was delivered superbly by the narrator Justin Avoth whom was brilliant and I thought sounded so much like Burton. I have pre ordered his new book about Peter Sellers , narrated again by Justin Avoth. Hopefully will be just as good !

Utterly Additive

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