The Grass Arena: An Autobiography
Jul 2008 · Penguin UK
4.9star
11 reviewsreport
Ebook
288
Pages
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About this ebook
John Healy's The Grass Arena describes with unflinching honesty his experiences of addiction, his escape through learning to play chess in prison, and his ongoing search for peace of mind.
In his searing autobiography Healy describes his fifteen years living rough in London without state aid, when begging carried an automatic three-year prison sentence and vagrant alcoholics prowled the parks and streets in search of drink or prey. When not united in their common aim of acquiring alcohol, winos sometimes murdered one another over prostitutes or a bottle, or the begging of money. Few modern writers have managed to match Healy's power to refine from the brutal destructive condition of the chronic alcoholic a story so compelling it is beyond comparison.
'Sober and precise, grotesque, violent, sad, charming and hilarious all at once'
Literary Review
'Beside it, a book like Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London seems a rather inaccurate tourist guide'
Colin MacCabe
In his searing autobiography Healy describes his fifteen years living rough in London without state aid, when begging carried an automatic three-year prison sentence and vagrant alcoholics prowled the parks and streets in search of drink or prey. When not united in their common aim of acquiring alcohol, winos sometimes murdered one another over prostitutes or a bottle, or the begging of money. Few modern writers have managed to match Healy's power to refine from the brutal destructive condition of the chronic alcoholic a story so compelling it is beyond comparison.
'Sober and precise, grotesque, violent, sad, charming and hilarious all at once'
Literary Review
'Beside it, a book like Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London seems a rather inaccurate tourist guide'
Colin MacCabe
Ratings and reviews
4.9
11 reviews
Con Casserly
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September 22, 2014
Brilliant read really enjoyed this book. What a tough and harrowing life John Healey led. For someone to survive what he survived deserves a happy ending. Not sure he got that though.
Michael granton
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April 12, 2020
Fantastic! Takes you into another dark, disturbing and terrifying world that is only a stones throw from where you are now. Very dark, very funny, very scary and last but not least..very, very good.
About the author
Healy was born into an impoverished, Irish immigrant family, in the slums of Kentish Town, North London. Out of school by 14, pressed into the army and intermittently in prison, Healy became an alocholic early on in life. Despite these obstacles Healy achieved remarkable, indeed phenomenal expertise in both writing and Chess, as outlined in the autobiographical The Grass Arena.
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