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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

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
fascinating story and excellent narration, spoilt by substandard recording. I am reluctantly returning this audiobook.

Quality of recording is poor. it sounds like the narrator is talking on a mobile phone.

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I was recommended this book but I found it hard going. he could have summed it up in a few sentences. I was very dissapointed and had to make myself finish it. the format he used was hard to follow.

didn't enjoy this

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I could not follow this at all - it’s manic and seems a crazy mess of anecdotes

This book has no flow - all over the place

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I thought I would take a look at this book because I heard it mentioned on a book podcast. Sounded interesting and quite fun and to be fair it had quite a bit of interesting and fun content. What gradually ruined it for me was the author going into great depth about Richard and his Shakespeare while at the same time seemingly leering at Elizabeth's breasts. The author unfortunately is one of those silly men who think women grow breasts at will and for only one reason, to lure in men to their peril. He even sexualises Elizabeth at age 12 going on about her budding breasts and thrusting away on her horse. That's when my heart sank the first time. Later about various other actresses who get into relationships with charismatic talented actors who happen to turn into total sadists, of course this is interpreted as these women craving abuse , yeh...just NO. Richard is described with more reverance even though he has constant affairs, has deeply disturbing thoughts about his 12 year old step daughter and probably killed his brother. But hey! at least he doesn't have a pair of silly breasts for the author to mock. Author uses the words tits, monkey nipples, udders, c*+t, front bottom and even "boom booms" or was it boing boings? . I can't help thinking he spent those years writing this book with one hand under the table fiddling with himself then patting himself on the back for his intellectual and witty prose (sorry but no). Certainly put me off book professional book reviews.

Emperors New Clothes

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Amazing research - a fascinating account of people whose personal lives are far more dramatic than any drama they appeared in. The excellent narration brings them all to life.

Narrator extraordinaire!

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