Burning Man

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What to expect

Bloomsbury presents Burning Man by Frances Wilson, read by Huw Parmenter.

**LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE**
**SHORTLISTED FOR THE DUFF COOPER PRIZE**

PICKED AS A BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE TIMES, GUARDIAN, SPECTATOR, DAILY TELEGRAPH, NEW STATESMAN, MAIL ON SUNDAY AND TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT

‘Frances Wilson writes books that blow your hair back. She makes Lawrence live and breathe, annoy and captivate you … she conjures the past with such clarity and wit and flair that it feels utterly present’ Katherine Rundell

'A brilliantly unconventional biography, passionately researched and written with a wild, playful energy' Richard Holmes
_____________________

D H Lawrence is no longer censored, but he is still on trial – and we are still unsure what the verdict should be, or even how to describe him.

History has remembered him, and not always flatteringly, as a nostalgic modernist, a sexual liberator, a misogynist, a critic of genius, and a sceptic who told us not to look in his novels for 'the old stable ego’, yet pioneered the genre we now celebrate as auto-fiction. But where is the real Lawrence in all of this, and how – one hundred years after the publication of Women in Love – can we hear his voice above the noise?

Delving into the memoirs of those who both loved and hated him most, Burning Man follows Lawrence from the peninsular underworld of Cornwall in 1915 to post-war Italy to the mountains of New Mexico, and traces the author’s footsteps through the pages of his lesser known work. Wilson’s triptych of biographical tales present a complex, courageous and often comic fugitive, careering around a world in the grip of apocalypse, in search of utopia; and, in bringing the true Lawrence into sharp focus, shows how he speaks to us now more than ever.

'No biography of Lawrence that I have read comes close to Burning Man' Ferdinand Mount, author of Kiss Myself Goodbye


'The most original voice in life-writing today' Lucasta Miller, author of Keats

Critics Review

Wilson’s Dantesque excursion detracts only marginally from the brilliance of her book. Her great strength is the aliveness of her writing, which constantly interweaves glowing phrases from Lawrence into its fabric

SUNDAY TIMES

Terrific, smart and scholarly … Paints a vivid picture of a brilliant writer who was “censored and worshipped” in his lifetime, and remained furious at the world and at those not sufficiently cognisant of his genius.

GUARDIAN, BEST BOOKS OF 2021

[Wilson] gives it to you straight … and leaves you to decide for yourself … This is a red-hot, propulsive book. The impression it leaves is of Lawrence not so much as a phoenix (his chosen personal emblem) rising from the flames, but of a moth coming too close to a candle and, singed and frantic, flying into and into and into the wick

THE TIMES

Not only does Frances Wilson revive her subject, she lifts the whole genre. Biography of this calibre is rare … Our most original biographer

NEW STATESMAN

The challenge for any biographer of one Lawrence is to come to terms with his many contradictions – his rage, impotence, silliness and genius. This elegantly written, intelligent and witty account lays them all bare with admirable skill

EVENING STANDARD

I cannot remember the last time one left me feeling so exhilarated, so challenged and absorbed … Burning Man is a work of art in its own right, as wanton and as magnificently flawed as anything Lawrence ever wrote … The chorus of voices builds and builds. Sometimes ecstatic and sometimes shrill, it brings Lawrence alive in all his derangement: his ridiculousness as well as his glory; his perspicacity and his blindness … Wilson writes so brilliantly, and with such conviction. If you believe, as I do, that to live life well is to fail in ways that may be unimaginably huge, this strange and confounding book is for you

OBSERVER

Vivid and unusual

LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS

Wilson tells the story well. It was a period of uncertainty, of bonds being shed and reforged; of the immense growth of Lawrence’s reputation

SPECTATOR

Wilson’s Guilty Thing, her life of Thomas De Quincey, is one of the finest recent literary biographies … Burning Man is in the same league. … This is a book that performs a rare and laudable task: of saving a writer, posthumously, from himself. We are all beneficiaries of Wilson’s articulate and persuasive advocacy

Literary Review

Heady, entrancing, comedic… Outstanding … Without condoning Lawrence’s temper at all – quite the opposite, indeed – Wilson reveals an achingly flawed, ultimately sympathetic human being, who wrote mostly imperfect novels, but whose immense contribution to the twentieth-century literary scene is worth both acknowledging and commemorating. And whatever you have thought of Lawrence, or will think after reading this book, Frances Wilson’s Burning Man is a virtuoso performance in the art of biography-writing

TLS

A brilliantly unconventional biography, passionately researched and written with a wild, playful energy. Above all Frances Wilson’s great achievement is to liberate Lawrence from the old, heavy, moth-eaten “priest of love” mythology, instead breathing new life into his big novels as contemporary “autofiction”, and lovingly stoking the furious fires in his letters, poetry and short stories. A new Lawrence emerges: a thinker, travel writer and essayist of strange, absurd, irrepressible genius

RICHARD HOLMES

‘”How can biography do justice to Lawrence’s complexities?” asks this book. Frances Wilson shows us exactly how. Hers is the most original voice in life-writing today

LUCASTA MILLER, author of Keats

No biography of Lawrence that I have read comes close to Burning Man in getting across both his unquenchable fire and his appalling ruthlessness. After reading almost every page, you think “what a monster!” but then at the same time “what an eye!” – for people, landscape, birds, the whole world really. It’s a wonderful book

FERDINAND MOUNT, author of Kiss Myself Goodbye

In this astonishing tale, rife with jealousy, messianism and blood, she meets Lawrence on his own terms, offering readers a mythology of his deeply wild and complex spirit

GUARDIAN

Dare we hope that Lawrence might soon assume his rightful place – neither messiah nor pariah – as a writer of boundless freshness, originality and breadth? If so Frances Wilson’s stimulating and utterly enthralling book will be seen to play a vital role in the long-awaited rehabilitation of the man who, in the words of poet Tony Hoagland, “burned like an acetylene torch/ from one end to the other of his life”

GEOFF DYER

[An] engrossing, entertaining and illuminating biography … Wilson, whose previous books include a compelling life of Thomas de Quincey, eloquently makes the case for Lawrence’s genius and the need for his revaluation

HERALD

This is in many ways a superb biography … Her writing about him is gloriously vivid

THE WEEK, Book of the Week

Meticulously researched and energetic … She converts this seemingly incendiary and unapologetic radical into a patron saint of passionate intensity … It is a job well done in illuminating Lawrence’s many complexities

REACTION, Books Digest

Wilson captures the ferocity and aggression of this driven author … Burning Man presents a rounded, empathetic portrait of Lawrence

INDEPENDENT, Books of the Month

Beautifully written

THE TIMES

A vivid picture of a complex, difficult, haunted man whose art was driven by conflict

BBC HISTORY MAGAZINE

Thrillingly unusual … If you want a cool, dispassionate biography, this is not it … At times she seems to be almost channelling Lawrence, especially in her landscape descriptions, which are as good as Lawrence’s own

DAILY TELEGRAPH

[A] witty and rigorous reappraisal of this divisive, divided figure

STANDPOINT

Her thrillingly partisan biography sets out to rescue him from the slough of derision in which he has wallowed since the 1960s

DAILY TELEGRAPH

Wilson is splendid … The result is a brilliant, convoluted, mannerist approach – lovely on the page, often thrilling in its daring

AUSTRALIAN BOOK REVIEW

If you love a literary biography, then you’ll be admirably catered for by Frances Wilson’s Burning Man, about D.H. Lawrence

BOOKLIST

As fiery as its title, and a match for its subject’s own incandescence and intensity: a brilliant evocation and a profound study

SPECTATOR, Books of the Year

A fizzing biographical study of D. H. Lawrence

SPECTATOR, Books of the Year

D. H. Lawrence … finds a superb advocate in Wilson … as she raids his lesser-known works to render him fresh and exciting

DAILY TELEGRAPH, The 75 Best Books of 2021

This book refracts his flaming life and searing words in vivid, unforgettable detail

TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT, Books of the Year 2021

This exhilarating biography manages to rehabilitate Lawrence for the 21st-century reader

THE TIMES, 14 best literary non-fiction books 2021

[A] subtle and penetrating study. Wilson is … a compelling advocate of complexity and of Lawrence’s right to try to “shape the world to his will”

NEW STATESMAN, Best books of 2021

The most original literary biography I read this year … Wilson writes with such energy and humour that you fast become absorbed in Lawrence’s mad, bohemian circus of drunks, conmen, freethinkers, spongers and adulterers

MAIL ON SUNDAY

An exhilarating book to read, very strange and special … It really crackles

OPEN BOOK, RADIO 4

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