Nothing to Declare: A Memoir

by Taki Theodoracopulos

World-class athlete, playboy, war correspondent, and heir to a Greek shipping fortune, Taki has over the last three decades moved among the rich, the powerful, the titled and the celebrated in London, New York, Gstaad, the Riviera—wherever fun or stimulation was to be had. But in 1984, while passing through Heathrow Airport, Taki was arrested for possession of cocaine and summarily sent to jail. Nothing to Declare is the hilarious and surprisingly wise account of the three months Taki spent in prison, a story filled with perilous day-to-day events as well as reflections on the glamorous life he has led.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir

224 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1991

Reviews

[Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent. I added it to my favorites list shortly after I started reading it. This is going on my bookshelf right next to Right from the Beginning and Radical Son: A Generational Odyssey

I first learned of this book when Taki mentioned it at takimag.com.
The Greatest Movie Never Made

Here's a great audio interview with Taki by John Derbyshire.
Nothing to Declare

[Matthew Wilder · Rating 3 out of 5]

Taki, playboy, right wing pundit, man who knows how to take a bite out of life—one day some guy in airport security hands him an envelope he dropped. “If only you knew what was in it!” Taki smirks. “Come back here,” the bureaucrat says. In an instant, a life is changed.

Any sane person—surely one who has looked at the cartoon on the cover of Taki swilling a martini—would think this would be a giggling account of being a toff loosed for a few minutes among the hardass people of the general population.

Instead, the book is harrowing. Anyone who has ever done time will instantly recognize the soullessness, the material awfulness that is proclaimed the way things are by the “screws,” the daily functionaries of the jail. Taki gets the self-pity, the inexplicable violence and anger, the wild self-destructiveness of people who are about to get out.

He also crosscuts, GODFATHER 2 style, with his previous life among the beautiful people. The effect, of course, is double harrowing.

Taki runs out of both prison anecdotes and bon vivant anecdotes by the end of the book’s running time. But he is appropriately chastened and so are we. Let us also this quintessential newspaper voice is an excellent writer.

[John Grace · Rating 3 out of 5]

The pre-imprisonment, biographical stories of Taki's youth are more interesting than prison diaries. A good, quick read.