It's a curiously intimate world that Gray, who died earlier this month, draws you into as he settles down in the still watches of the night to write the first volume of his Smoking Diaries. While others sleep, whether he is in a hotel in Barbados, at home, or in his brother's house in Toronto, Gray fires up an endless succession of fags, drinks Diet Coke and ruminates on the events of the day (or recalls scenes from his 65 years) in an artfully rambling attempt to pin his life down on paper. He tells us little about his successful career as a playwright, concentrating instead, with undramatic but painstaking frankness, on his childhood (including a teenage addiction to racy erotic novels), and the less distinguished features of his adult life: money troubles, adultery, booze (forsaken for the constant supply of Diet Coke) and fags (still going strong). His memories are vivid and sometimes poignant, his observations gratifyingly sharp: a distinguished-looking head waiter in Italy looks like an academic, “with the limited intelligence of an academic”

The Smoking Diaries by Simon Gray
Faber £16.99, 4 hours 30 minutes, abridged

Click here to download the first chapter

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