Erotic Vagrancy

Everything About Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor

By: Roger Lewis

Narrated by: Justin Avoth

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.

©2023 Roger Lewis (P)2023 Quercus Editions Limited

Critic reviews

"Brilliantly funny...the book of the year." (Sunday Times)

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

The human side!

The author did a great job making these extraordinary people human being. Great REED recommended!

Masterpiece

Read it now. This book is a universe of insight and scholarship written by an obsessive.

This was great!

I picked this up because of Stephen Fry’s recommendation. Hugely entertaining and the reader was incredible.

Irreverent and entertaining.

A fascinating reflection on an era when stars were larger than life. Full of golden nuggets written and read with a Burtonian wry dry wit. I grew up in the 60s and 70s and remember the media following their affairs and movements, and my parents anecdotal interest and sympathies. Times have changed and the freedoms we have since lost to our perhaps more evolved, puritanical and judgmental society make the revelations more scandalous and juicy.

a very smart observation

....an almost literary fever dream take on the famous couple...rambling in the best way... stream of conscious at times....as if Kenneth Tynan, Martin Amis or Harold Pinter were pulling the strings. AND by far the greatest performance/reading of any book I have ever listened to on Audible. I assume there are awards for book reading performances and this one should win hands down. The narrator, Justin Avoth, even manages to very convincingly, and not cringingly, impersonate not only Burton but other celebrities. An incredible performance and narrating as good as any of Burton's.

Self important and condescending

I enjoy all types of biographies and was encouraged to read this one after seeing a recommendation by Stephen Frye. I admit I could only make it about 1/3 of the ways through. It was truly terrible. Nothing of interest and no insight. The tone was condescending and self-important. Very disappointed