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Christopher Isherwood Inside Out
A stunningly intimate exploration of the writer and gay cultural icon and of his lifelong search for authenticity. The story of Christopher Isherwood’s life is one of away from the constraints of inheritance and empire and toward authenticity and spiritual illumination. Isherwood—the author of Goodbye to Berlin, which inspired Cabaret, and A Single Man—was born an heir to a crumbling English estate. He died an icon of gay liberation in California while his partner of thirty years, Don Bachardy, painted his death portrait. Isherwood began his career depicting the psychological wreckage of World War I. Living in Berlin, his stories and plays (cowritten with W. H. Auden), inspired by the city’s nightlife and artistic underbelly, made him famous. With the rise of fascism and the Gestapo’s arrest of his boyfriend, Isherwood left the country and found work as a screenwriter in Hollywood, where he became the disciple of a Hindu monk, Swami Prabhavananda. Together they translated the Bhagavad Gita. Isherwood shed his family ghosts and became a chief instigator of the cultural shift that made gay liberation possible. Every step of the journey served his writing; one of our greatest diarists, he recorded his experiences and transformed them in fiction and memoir. Katherine Bucknell charts the quest of the restless, penetrating, blackly comic mind through books, films, foreign lands, love affairs, and collaborations for self-understanding and happiness. Here is Christopher Isherwood Inside Out.
852 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 20, 2024
65 people are currently reading
490 people want to read
About the author
Katherine Bucknell
17 books19 followersKatherine Bucknell was born in Saigon in 1957 and grew up in Washington, D.C. She has degrees from Princeton, Oxford, and Columbia Universities and lives in London with her husband, Bob Maguire, and their three children.
She is the editor of W.H. Auden's Juvenilia: Poems 1922-1928, four volumes of diaries by Christopher Isherwood, and The Animals, a volume of letters between Christopher Isherwood and his partner Don Bachardy. She is co-editor of Auden Studies, a founder of The W.H. Auden Society, and director of the Christopher Isherwood Foundation.
She has published four novels, Canarino, Leninsky Prospekt, What You Will, and +1.
She is the editor of W.H. Auden's Juvenilia: Poems 1922-1928, four volumes of diaries by Christopher Isherwood, and The Animals, a volume of letters between Christopher Isherwood and his partner Don Bachardy. She is co-editor of Auden Studies, a founder of The W.H. Auden Society, and director of the Christopher Isherwood Foundation.
She has published four novels, Canarino, Leninsky Prospekt, What You Will, and +1.
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August 24, 2024A densely-packed and wonderfully readable new biography of Isherwood, surely the book destined to be the definitive life of the man (and the men in his life). My full review is here:
https://openlettersreview.com/posts/c...
https://openlettersreview.com/posts/c...
June 4, 2024
Any account of Isherwood’s life lives and dies by how the writer handles two things: the life before Berlin, and the life after.
For Berlin made Isherwood. It gave him his two most memorable characters - Arthur Norris and Sally Bowles - and established the clear, compelling style that stays coolly neutral even as it catalogues disaster. (His previous, more conventional novels were relative duds.) It gave his contemporaries their first real look at the growth of Nazism, from the fringe to fledgling dictatorship. These glimpses of reportage - the ruined shops, the approving smiles of the well-heeled towards mob thuggery - remain an urgent warning from history.
In some quarters, people still hold forth, often heatedly, against Isherwood and his contemporary WH Auden for fleeing to America in wartime. Perhaps there is something in it. But this perhaps ignores the crucial difference between the two men. After cutting himself off from the landscapes that had nourished his best work, Auden made art out of himself and his own preoccupations. By contrast, Isherwood immersed himself in the new locale and its citizenry. The late masterpiece of Isherwood’s career, A Single Man, remains a beautiful flower grown in American soil, and continues to wrong-foot his dafter critics.
Domestic bliss is a hard thing to come by in life and harder still to bring off on the page. However stormy, the relationship with long-term partner Don Bachardy is handled well and provides a wealth of insight into Isherwood’s mostly happy final years.
I would have preferred this admirable but overlong book more had the opening chapters been shortened and less bogged down by the author’s need to scry Isherwood’s future in every minor childhood detail. At one point, readers may well wonder whether at any moment the contents of Isherwood’s potty are about to be scrutinised with all the rigour of a Greek Soothsayer.
For Berlin made Isherwood. It gave him his two most memorable characters - Arthur Norris and Sally Bowles - and established the clear, compelling style that stays coolly neutral even as it catalogues disaster. (His previous, more conventional novels were relative duds.) It gave his contemporaries their first real look at the growth of Nazism, from the fringe to fledgling dictatorship. These glimpses of reportage - the ruined shops, the approving smiles of the well-heeled towards mob thuggery - remain an urgent warning from history.
In some quarters, people still hold forth, often heatedly, against Isherwood and his contemporary WH Auden for fleeing to America in wartime. Perhaps there is something in it. But this perhaps ignores the crucial difference between the two men. After cutting himself off from the landscapes that had nourished his best work, Auden made art out of himself and his own preoccupations. By contrast, Isherwood immersed himself in the new locale and its citizenry. The late masterpiece of Isherwood’s career, A Single Man, remains a beautiful flower grown in American soil, and continues to wrong-foot his dafter critics.
Domestic bliss is a hard thing to come by in life and harder still to bring off on the page. However stormy, the relationship with long-term partner Don Bachardy is handled well and provides a wealth of insight into Isherwood’s mostly happy final years.
I would have preferred this admirable but overlong book more had the opening chapters been shortened and less bogged down by the author’s need to scry Isherwood’s future in every minor childhood detail. At one point, readers may well wonder whether at any moment the contents of Isherwood’s potty are about to be scrutinised with all the rigour of a Greek Soothsayer.
May 26, 2024
I admit I was drawn to this title simply because I have always loved the film “Cabaret” based on Isherwood’s stories set in pre WW2 Berlin.
This is a comprehensive and fascinating work detailing a life that began in privilege and where societal expectations were rigid and confined. But in a changing world, Isherwood embraces a lifestyle unexpected full of travel and relationships, all shaping the man and writer he became.
Travel delighted and informed, creative minds challenged and intrigued, and his homosexual lifestyle was never up for debate.
Katherine Bucknall’s study of Isherwood’s life is meticulously documented with full references and detailed background. This made it interesting to me as a historical snapshot as well as a story of a life well lived. Thanks to NetGalley, author Katherine Bucknell, and publisher Farrar, Straus and Giroux for providing me with a complimentary ARC.
This is a comprehensive and fascinating work detailing a life that began in privilege and where societal expectations were rigid and confined. But in a changing world, Isherwood embraces a lifestyle unexpected full of travel and relationships, all shaping the man and writer he became.
Travel delighted and informed, creative minds challenged and intrigued, and his homosexual lifestyle was never up for debate.
Katherine Bucknall’s study of Isherwood’s life is meticulously documented with full references and detailed background. This made it interesting to me as a historical snapshot as well as a story of a life well lived. Thanks to NetGalley, author Katherine Bucknell, and publisher Farrar, Straus and Giroux for providing me with a complimentary ARC.
December 20, 2024
In 2016, I read all of Christopher Isherwood’s oeuvre. Why? I admired his work at every level: sophisticated and lyrical vocabulary; his sometimes quirky but lyrical syntax, the variety of genres he tackled, from fiction to nonfiction (history, biography), and play/screenplay writing. My reading included about 4,500 published pages of Isherwood’s journals, all edited by Bucknell. Now she has created an exquisite biography of the author.
At first, I thought I would run into a lot of repetition, but I soon discovered that Bucknell’s scholarly work had thoroughly investigated Isherwood’s life from beginning to end—as a biographer should. From Isherwood’s point of view, for example, he only knew his father until the man was killed in WWI, when Isherwood was little more than eleven. Bucknell fills in those blanks for readers: lets us know what a sensitive man the father was and how, as long as he could, he nurtured Christopher’s artistic personality. The hole left in Isherwood’s life was one that would never be filled.
Christopher Isherwood was as openly gay as a man could be in his era (b. 1904). By his own accounting he went to bed with over 400 men (from Germany to the UK to the USA). He loved his sexual life. Even when he had a lover/partner, he often had trysts with other men. Yet “[h]e saw from the outset of his career that he must make homosexuality attractive to mainstream audiences if he was to change their view of it, and he worked to do this in all his writing in different ways” (9). I believe he succeeded. Within the glory of the Gay Liberation days of the 1970s, the man was in his sixties, yet he still continued to grow, and he was admired far and wide by younger gay men (my generation) for his pioneering life and work. He was in constant demand for teaching and speaking gigs, which he labored to keep, not only for the remuneration but for the communication it afforded him with others.
This tome is one of the most eloquent pieces of literary biography I’ve ever read. If readers wish to learn about one of the finest twentieth-century writers working in English prose, this book is a fine place to begin.
Isherwood worked on the boundary of fiction and nonfiction. He kept diaries most of his adult life and drew on them for his published writing, creating narratives more vivid, more revealing, more entertaining than what he documented. He altered the truth in order to make the truth more compelling, and his subtle and mysterious reworking accounts, more than anything else, for the lasting appeal of his writing (5).
At first, I thought I would run into a lot of repetition, but I soon discovered that Bucknell’s scholarly work had thoroughly investigated Isherwood’s life from beginning to end—as a biographer should. From Isherwood’s point of view, for example, he only knew his father until the man was killed in WWI, when Isherwood was little more than eleven. Bucknell fills in those blanks for readers: lets us know what a sensitive man the father was and how, as long as he could, he nurtured Christopher’s artistic personality. The hole left in Isherwood’s life was one that would never be filled.
Christopher Isherwood was as openly gay as a man could be in his era (b. 1904). By his own accounting he went to bed with over 400 men (from Germany to the UK to the USA). He loved his sexual life. Even when he had a lover/partner, he often had trysts with other men. Yet “[h]e saw from the outset of his career that he must make homosexuality attractive to mainstream audiences if he was to change their view of it, and he worked to do this in all his writing in different ways” (9). I believe he succeeded. Within the glory of the Gay Liberation days of the 1970s, the man was in his sixties, yet he still continued to grow, and he was admired far and wide by younger gay men (my generation) for his pioneering life and work. He was in constant demand for teaching and speaking gigs, which he labored to keep, not only for the remuneration but for the communication it afforded him with others.
This tome is one of the most eloquent pieces of literary biography I’ve ever read. If readers wish to learn about one of the finest twentieth-century writers working in English prose, this book is a fine place to begin.
June 2, 2025
3.5
Ambitious, but not entirely successful. It too much on Bachardy as a source and therefore has some obvious blind spots. Pretends to be critical but ends up being fairly hagiographic. Where it works best is reading Isherwood’s life through his writing.
Ambitious, but not entirely successful. It too much on Bachardy as a source and therefore has some obvious blind spots. Pretends to be critical but ends up being fairly hagiographic. Where it works best is reading Isherwood’s life through his writing.
February 25, 2025
Well done. Exhaustive bio.
August 26, 2024
Dense and fascinating biography of Christopher Isherwood. Gives much contextual information about his time spent in England, the USA, and of course, Berlin where Berlin Stories was inspired. I have always known of Christopher Isherwood, because of Cabaret.
The writer, Katherine Bucknell, certainly did her homework as this book is lengthy and very well researched. It seems that she left no stone unturned.
Isherwood led a fascinating, celebrity filled life. He was pretty much openly gay during times when that could have been punishable by death. I am really glad that I saw this book on Net Galley and read it. It provided much more information on the writer of one of my favorite stories of all time.
Thank you to Farrar, Straus and Giroux , as well as Net Galley for the ARC.
The writer, Katherine Bucknell, certainly did her homework as this book is lengthy and very well researched. It seems that she left no stone unturned.
Isherwood led a fascinating, celebrity filled life. He was pretty much openly gay during times when that could have been punishable by death. I am really glad that I saw this book on Net Galley and read it. It provided much more information on the writer of one of my favorite stories of all time.
Thank you to Farrar, Straus and Giroux , as well as Net Galley for the ARC.
May 28, 2025
I have (mostly) avoided Isherwood, aside from one or two of the novels and Cabaret. At some point I had stupidly relegated him to a minor literary figure, especially by comparison with Auden. He is not. In this magnificent biography, Katherine Bucknell (who also served as editor of Isherwood's diaries) has brought him to vibrant life, and secured his place in the upper echelons of 20th century authors. Bucknell also threads her way through Isherwood's relationship with the artist Don Bachardy. It's a difficult task, as Bacharedy for the first ten years seems only intermittently aware of his importance to Isherwood. This was far more than a simple sexual relationship (of which Isherwood had many throughout his life), but the kind of soulmate for which the writer had always yearned. But for the last twenty years of Isherwood's life the relationship settled into emotional stability and deep, enduring ties. As of this writing, Bachardy is still living in their shared house. He has developed from the barely legal boy who first began seeing Isherwood in Southern California into an internationally renowned painter. Their shared artistry was an important link. Bachardy always was a receptive first reader, and Isherwood's pride in his partner's growing skills and reputation was frequently voiced.
Isherwood was also drawn to Vedanta Hinduism. He became what can only be described as a secular Hindu monk (although he always resisted his guru's attempts to give him a Sanskrit name to replace his own). Bucknell is insightful throughout the book about the importance of Isherwood's "chosen" name after he discarded "William" and "Bradshaw" as part of it. The refusal to change something so fundamental is a metaphor for his approach to religion. A belief system was a basic part of his nature after 1940, when he first became involved with the Los Angeles Vedanta community. And although he was ultimately unable to live the ascetic life his Swami encouraged --- sex and alcohol remained lifelong enticements once begun --- he returned again and again to meditation and formal prayer practices.
He also became a Californian. It may be that he utterly relaxed for the first time in his life. He loved the climate and felt at home in Los Angeles, no mean trick for any expatriate. He began to teach at the institution that became Cal State, and settled down to do some of his best writing since the 1930s Berlin material. Two in particular reflected a growing need for a more public honesty, both about his family and its effect upon him (Kathleen and Frank, a memoir named for them) and his sexual/political adventures in the dying days of Weimar Germany and the seizure of power by the Nazis, Christopher and His Kind.
The book is engrossing, not least because of the strength of Bucknell's writing. She is a novelist herself with ties to Vedanta. That is probably helpful, as she is able to respond to Isherwood's religiosity in ways that allow her to explain what he was seeking and what he ultimately found. Her own literary style is so good that this is one of the most pleasurable biographies I have ever read. I will conclude by paying it the highest compliment: this biography has inspired me to delve much further into Isherwood's body of work.
Highly recommend.
Isherwood was also drawn to Vedanta Hinduism. He became what can only be described as a secular Hindu monk (although he always resisted his guru's attempts to give him a Sanskrit name to replace his own). Bucknell is insightful throughout the book about the importance of Isherwood's "chosen" name after he discarded "William" and "Bradshaw" as part of it. The refusal to change something so fundamental is a metaphor for his approach to religion. A belief system was a basic part of his nature after 1940, when he first became involved with the Los Angeles Vedanta community. And although he was ultimately unable to live the ascetic life his Swami encouraged --- sex and alcohol remained lifelong enticements once begun --- he returned again and again to meditation and formal prayer practices.
He also became a Californian. It may be that he utterly relaxed for the first time in his life. He loved the climate and felt at home in Los Angeles, no mean trick for any expatriate. He began to teach at the institution that became Cal State, and settled down to do some of his best writing since the 1930s Berlin material. Two in particular reflected a growing need for a more public honesty, both about his family and its effect upon him (Kathleen and Frank, a memoir named for them) and his sexual/political adventures in the dying days of Weimar Germany and the seizure of power by the Nazis, Christopher and His Kind.
The book is engrossing, not least because of the strength of Bucknell's writing. She is a novelist herself with ties to Vedanta. That is probably helpful, as she is able to respond to Isherwood's religiosity in ways that allow her to explain what he was seeking and what he ultimately found. Her own literary style is so good that this is one of the most pleasurable biographies I have ever read. I will conclude by paying it the highest compliment: this biography has inspired me to delve much further into Isherwood's body of work.
Highly recommend.
December 1, 2024
I have long admired the works of Isherwood, so when I got to know that there was a chunky biography published on him, I had to read it. Katherine Bucknell, the director of his foundation, has created a fitting tribute with her biography, Christopher Isherwood Inside Out, a detailed, richly researched work that brings the writer’s complex life into full view. I for one enjoyed it a lot. It also spoke to me as a fellow gay man, riddled with all our complexities and eccentricities.
Isherwood, best known for his Berlin Stories and his role in the gay liberation movement, led a life that was anything but conventional. Perhaps most of all, the confidant he truly trusted and constantly sought was his companion and artist, Don Bachardy, throughout the long span of more than 30 years. Typical for many couples, Isherwood and Bachardy shared a home that often included the former’s friends and ex-lovers.
Bucknell’s biography doesn’t shy away from Isherwood’s weaknesses and warts. She shows them the way they are meant to be seen. His diaries reveal troubling views on women and Jews. Bucknell confronts this complexity, presenting him as both a champion of queer identity and a man of his time—sometimes with blind spots.
Isherwood’s circle was filled with towering literary figures, be it W.H. Auden to later bonds with E.M. Forster, Graham Greene, and even Marilyn Monroe. It is funny the relationship he shared with his mother, the way all gay men do - the one of volatility and apprehension. His own struggle with his identity and his battle for self-expression were central to his work, as reflected in his life as a “renegade” and his embrace of both Weimar Germany’s hedonism and Hollywood’s glitter.
Inside Out is Bucknell’s understanding of Isherwood, truly one centred on a multifaceted author exploring diverse relationships, grappling with personal dilemmas, and living a life with cultural paradoxes.
Isherwood, best known for his Berlin Stories and his role in the gay liberation movement, led a life that was anything but conventional. Perhaps most of all, the confidant he truly trusted and constantly sought was his companion and artist, Don Bachardy, throughout the long span of more than 30 years. Typical for many couples, Isherwood and Bachardy shared a home that often included the former’s friends and ex-lovers.
Bucknell’s biography doesn’t shy away from Isherwood’s weaknesses and warts. She shows them the way they are meant to be seen. His diaries reveal troubling views on women and Jews. Bucknell confronts this complexity, presenting him as both a champion of queer identity and a man of his time—sometimes with blind spots.
Isherwood’s circle was filled with towering literary figures, be it W.H. Auden to later bonds with E.M. Forster, Graham Greene, and even Marilyn Monroe. It is funny the relationship he shared with his mother, the way all gay men do - the one of volatility and apprehension. His own struggle with his identity and his battle for self-expression were central to his work, as reflected in his life as a “renegade” and his embrace of both Weimar Germany’s hedonism and Hollywood’s glitter.
Inside Out is Bucknell’s understanding of Isherwood, truly one centred on a multifaceted author exploring diverse relationships, grappling with personal dilemmas, and living a life with cultural paradoxes.
September 18, 2024
Understanding and appreciating the genius of Christopher Isherwood
One only needs to begin reading the Prologue to this extraordinary biography to realize that this book is the most thorough and beautifully written biography of the gifted author and activist Christopher Isherwood before the public today. Katherine Bucknell has examined all the diaries of Isherwood and has spoken with key figures from his past, and combined with her excellent writing skills as a novelist, she makes this hefty volume celebrate even the most evanescent moments of Isherwood’s richly colorful life read like a novel – indeed, a gift!
All aspects of Isherwood’s life and creativity are covered, from birth and early days in England to his time in Germany (yes, ‘Goodbye to Berlin’ aka ‘I Am a Camera’ aka ‘Cabaret’ are descriptions of his life there!) to his move to the US – California particularly – and his impressive role in advocating gay liberation in addition to his continued writing are all examined by Bucknell in the most genuinely informative and entertaining manner. Having visited his home in Santa Monica, sitting for a portrait by Isherwood’s artist lover Don Bachardy, this reader is especially impressed with the genuine realism the author displays: remembering Bachardy’s conversations while painting underscores the invaluable credibility of the author’s work. The added photographs enhance this journey.
Laudable scholarship, empathy, insights into history, and appreciation for the enormous multifaceted gifts of Christopher Isherwood make this one of the finest books of the decade
One only needs to begin reading the Prologue to this extraordinary biography to realize that this book is the most thorough and beautifully written biography of the gifted author and activist Christopher Isherwood before the public today. Katherine Bucknell has examined all the diaries of Isherwood and has spoken with key figures from his past, and combined with her excellent writing skills as a novelist, she makes this hefty volume celebrate even the most evanescent moments of Isherwood’s richly colorful life read like a novel – indeed, a gift!
All aspects of Isherwood’s life and creativity are covered, from birth and early days in England to his time in Germany (yes, ‘Goodbye to Berlin’ aka ‘I Am a Camera’ aka ‘Cabaret’ are descriptions of his life there!) to his move to the US – California particularly – and his impressive role in advocating gay liberation in addition to his continued writing are all examined by Bucknell in the most genuinely informative and entertaining manner. Having visited his home in Santa Monica, sitting for a portrait by Isherwood’s artist lover Don Bachardy, this reader is especially impressed with the genuine realism the author displays: remembering Bachardy’s conversations while painting underscores the invaluable credibility of the author’s work. The added photographs enhance this journey.
Laudable scholarship, empathy, insights into history, and appreciation for the enormous multifaceted gifts of Christopher Isherwood make this one of the finest books of the decade
August 12, 2025
Finished this 42-ish hour audiobook mere minutes before it was due at the library, and I’m glad I did! As a massive fan of Cabaret (the stage musical and subsequent movie), I wanted to read this book to get a better idea of the story’s originator. In addition, I got a look at someone who really lived through and actively participated in the historical paradigm shift from homosexuality as a practice to homosexuality as an identity. Born just 4 years after the death of Oscar Wilde, Isherwood had a father die in World War I and also lived long enough to participate in the modern gay rights movement, publishing Christopher and His Kind 7 years after Stonewall. Having been a Wilde fan for most of my life, it was the first time I had really looked into a gay life that took place during the murky years from 1900 to Stonewall and it was super informative. Really looking forward to reading more from Isherwood directly in the future.
I do think Bucknell has a tendency to read a lot of psychoanalytic meaning into various events in Isherwood’s life, without feeling as if she needs much actual evidence from Isherwood’s own writings to do so. That said, this is a man who immediately became psychosomatically ill every time something difficult happened to him, so maybe she’s right.
I do think Bucknell has a tendency to read a lot of psychoanalytic meaning into various events in Isherwood’s life, without feeling as if she needs much actual evidence from Isherwood’s own writings to do so. That said, this is a man who immediately became psychosomatically ill every time something difficult happened to him, so maybe she’s right.
September 13, 2025
I have long been a huge fan of Isherwood's writing and fascinated by his life and milieu. This very well-rewearched and scholarly book filled in a lot of the gaps and made me feel I knew him so much better, and will appreciate his own writing much more. The author's sympathy for Isherwood and key people in his life, notably his long-term lover Don Bachardy, shows through, even in Isherwood's darker and more self-destructive periods.
This book took me a while, though, because it is very detailed. If I have one suggestion, it would be to have a dramatis personae of some sort in the book, because there are hundreds of characters due to Isherwood's long and very well-travelled life. At one point I mistakenly thought the painter David Hockney was having an affair with the direct John Schlesinger - but it was another Schlesinger.
Would recommend for anyone interested in 20th century literature and social history - not just Isherwood, Auden and Spender.
This book took me a while, though, because it is very detailed. If I have one suggestion, it would be to have a dramatis personae of some sort in the book, because there are hundreds of characters due to Isherwood's long and very well-travelled life. At one point I mistakenly thought the painter David Hockney was having an affair with the direct John Schlesinger - but it was another Schlesinger.
Would recommend for anyone interested in 20th century literature and social history - not just Isherwood, Auden and Spender.
August 17, 2024
Katherine Bucknell has cornered the Auden/Isherwood market as an academic. Her editions of Ishwerwood's Diaries and Auden's Juvenalia are models of their kind, judicious, lucid, informative. I'd hoped that same touch would be on display in this exhaustive biography of Isherwood but judgment about levels of detail, the relative importance of others and how Isherwood's work should be objectively weighted seem to have been cast aside and the book rapidly becomes hard work. There is a potentially interesting narrative here, there is an undeniably fascinating subject, there is a patchy writer who in his best books is absolutely deserving of serious critical attention, but the path to what could have been a compelling book becomes rapidly overgrown by the weed of misplaced completism. A real shame.
July 22, 2025
Likely one of the best biographies ever written-- not so much due to the brilliance and warmth of its subject, but due to the fact that the author spent years working on the subject's extensive diaries, the diaries of his mother, and in- depth conversation and input by the person who had spent over thirty years of his life at the side of the subject. I picked this up because of what Isherwood has come to mean to me personally, how much I enjoy his work, and how much he is a part of my idea of those who provided me with a pattern of honor and joy as a gay man from a very early age. But if a biography is to be based only on the fact that the subject led and amazing life, knew everyone, went everywhere, found himself living history and finding love-- you can't do much better than Christopher Isherwood.
July 19, 2024
I would like to thank Farrar, Straus and Giroux , as well as Net Galley for the opportunity to read this book as an ARC. I was aware of Christopher Isherwood, primarily as the writer of the stories that became Cabaret. This is a lengthy, well written and well researched book about the complex life and times of Isherwood. It is extremely well researched and comprehensive. He led a long, and in many ways, a star studded life. He was also a homosexual in Germany at a time when that meant death. It is a long book, but a faascinating one. I learned so much about Isherwood, and his times and his life. I am very glad that I read this book. Thank you Katherine Bucknell for writing it.
November 12, 2025
DNF - This book is very well written and researched, but I just couldn’t get into it. The details were very granular and were likely unappreciated by me, as I have not read any of Isherwood’s works.
Though it is well written, it is also over-written, in my opinion. There is so much reference to his works that this biography almost entirely acts as footnotes to them. The author frequently begins sentences with “In [insert work here], …” and then makes a connection between a real person or place and the person or place in the inserted work.
Though it is well written, it is also over-written, in my opinion. There is so much reference to his works that this biography almost entirely acts as footnotes to them. The author frequently begins sentences with “In [insert work here], …” and then makes a connection between a real person or place and the person or place in the inserted work.
August 11, 2025
An exhaustively detailed biography of British-American writer Christopher Isherwood, who gave up upper-class England for a decade in decadent Berlin in the Thirties, moved to the U.S. before World War II, found a Hindu guru (Swami Prabhavananda, founder of the Vedanta Society of Southern California in Hollywood) and actively pursued the life of a monk, wrote several forgotten Hollywood screenplays purely for money, published many plays, novels, and diaries from the 30s through the 80s, became a gay icon and a prominent figure in the early gay rights movement, and maintained a three-decades-long relationship with Don Bachardy, a California artist who was thirty years younger than him.
Bucknell's book is over a million words, 852 pages, so it's a hefty read. The early parts of it are a slog. But at the halfway point, when Don Bachardy enters Isherwood's life in 1953 (Bachardy was then 18 and Isherwood was 48), the book became much more interesting to me. Their relationship, which went through many rough spots—including infidelity and separation—is ultimately the most fascinating and touching part of Isherwood's life story.
Isherwood led a long and rich life that intersected with the worlds of literature, art, movies, religion, and gay culture, so his biography will appeal to many different types of readers. There's enough celebrity gossip here for two or three books. Frankly, I didn't understand Isherwood's decades-long fascination with Hindu philosophy (which his friend W.H. Auden dismissed as "heathen mumbo jumbo") while pursuing a sexually promiscuous lifestyle that was clearly in conflict with it. Isherwood convinced himself, wrongly, that being a monk and a writer were similar pursuits. To his credit, he was open about his flaws, and he remained committed to both his writing and his spiritual goal to give up the ego.
The book sheds light on Isherwood's writing process, giving insight to many of his works, even some Isherwood never completed. Isherwood's indecisiveness and insecurity about his work surprised me, which makes his lengthy and distinguished career all the more heroic. His creative life was a constant whirlwind; Isherwood often juggled three or four writing projects simultaneously, working on a play, Hollywood screenplay, novel, and Sanskrit translation all at once. Remarkably, Isherwood mined his own diaries for many of the details of his stories, plays, and novels, sometimes describing the same events again decades later for a revisionist update. For example, although Isherwood became famous for his Berlin stories in the Thirties (which were later adapted into the plays/movies I Am a Camera and Cabaret, making Isherwood wealthy), in the Seventies he published a new account of his life during that period called Christopher and His Kind, in which Isherwood was finally open about his homosexuality.
Because both Isherwood and Bachardy were dedicated diarists and letter writers, Bucknell had access to voluminous details of their lives. Occasionally, I wondered if she shared too much. For instance, Bucknell records every time they're sick. Since they're both hopeless hypochondriacs, practically every page features a sore throat, cold, stomach ache, or other ailment. I could have done with fewer health bulletins. But their diaries and letters slowly reveal how Isherwood and Bachardy recalibrated their relationship in several ways over time to adjust for changes in age, health, emotional stability, and financial security, ultimately providing a genuinely moving ending to their remarkable story. (Their story is also the subject of a 2007 documentary, Chris & Don: A Love Story , in which Bucknell is interviewed. The documentary nicely complements this biography.)
Isherwood was good friends with many other famous writers, so the book provides a wonderful glimpse of his literary world. There are many passages about E.M. Forster (whom Isherwood called his "Master"), Graham Greene (Isherwood's cousin), Evelyn Waugh, W. Somerset Maugham, Aldous Huxley, Stephen Spender, W.H. Auden, Gore Vidal, Truman Capote, and Tennessee Williams. There's also an interesting interaction that Isherwood has with John Rechy, the bestselling gay writer who portrayed Isherwood and Bachardy fictionally (and unflatteringly) in his second novel Numbers . Isherwood writes, "One of the characteristic things about John is his fear of inventing; he wants to record everything exactly as it happened. So I spent a lot of time trying to convince him that this would be undesirable and anyhow impossible." Ha!
I was surprised to learn that Isherwood and Bachardy collaborated on the teleplay of Frankenstein: The True Story , a 1973 TV movie starring Leonard Whiting, Michael Sarazin, and Jane Seymour that thrilled me as a teenager. Isherwood and Bachardy hated what became of their beloved screenplay, but they're much too harsh in their judgment; the movie is tremendous fun and gives the Frankenstein story a provocative homoerotic twist.
The ebook has 56 photos of Isherwood, Bachardy, and many of their family and friends. It also has 78 pages of end notes; some run for a paragraph or more and are elaborately entertaining.
Bucknell's book is over a million words, 852 pages, so it's a hefty read. The early parts of it are a slog. But at the halfway point, when Don Bachardy enters Isherwood's life in 1953 (Bachardy was then 18 and Isherwood was 48), the book became much more interesting to me. Their relationship, which went through many rough spots—including infidelity and separation—is ultimately the most fascinating and touching part of Isherwood's life story.
Isherwood led a long and rich life that intersected with the worlds of literature, art, movies, religion, and gay culture, so his biography will appeal to many different types of readers. There's enough celebrity gossip here for two or three books. Frankly, I didn't understand Isherwood's decades-long fascination with Hindu philosophy (which his friend W.H. Auden dismissed as "heathen mumbo jumbo") while pursuing a sexually promiscuous lifestyle that was clearly in conflict with it. Isherwood convinced himself, wrongly, that being a monk and a writer were similar pursuits. To his credit, he was open about his flaws, and he remained committed to both his writing and his spiritual goal to give up the ego.
The book sheds light on Isherwood's writing process, giving insight to many of his works, even some Isherwood never completed. Isherwood's indecisiveness and insecurity about his work surprised me, which makes his lengthy and distinguished career all the more heroic. His creative life was a constant whirlwind; Isherwood often juggled three or four writing projects simultaneously, working on a play, Hollywood screenplay, novel, and Sanskrit translation all at once. Remarkably, Isherwood mined his own diaries for many of the details of his stories, plays, and novels, sometimes describing the same events again decades later for a revisionist update. For example, although Isherwood became famous for his Berlin stories in the Thirties (which were later adapted into the plays/movies I Am a Camera and Cabaret, making Isherwood wealthy), in the Seventies he published a new account of his life during that period called Christopher and His Kind, in which Isherwood was finally open about his homosexuality.
Because both Isherwood and Bachardy were dedicated diarists and letter writers, Bucknell had access to voluminous details of their lives. Occasionally, I wondered if she shared too much. For instance, Bucknell records every time they're sick. Since they're both hopeless hypochondriacs, practically every page features a sore throat, cold, stomach ache, or other ailment. I could have done with fewer health bulletins. But their diaries and letters slowly reveal how Isherwood and Bachardy recalibrated their relationship in several ways over time to adjust for changes in age, health, emotional stability, and financial security, ultimately providing a genuinely moving ending to their remarkable story. (Their story is also the subject of a 2007 documentary, Chris & Don: A Love Story , in which Bucknell is interviewed. The documentary nicely complements this biography.)
Isherwood was good friends with many other famous writers, so the book provides a wonderful glimpse of his literary world. There are many passages about E.M. Forster (whom Isherwood called his "Master"), Graham Greene (Isherwood's cousin), Evelyn Waugh, W. Somerset Maugham, Aldous Huxley, Stephen Spender, W.H. Auden, Gore Vidal, Truman Capote, and Tennessee Williams. There's also an interesting interaction that Isherwood has with John Rechy, the bestselling gay writer who portrayed Isherwood and Bachardy fictionally (and unflatteringly) in his second novel Numbers . Isherwood writes, "One of the characteristic things about John is his fear of inventing; he wants to record everything exactly as it happened. So I spent a lot of time trying to convince him that this would be undesirable and anyhow impossible." Ha!
I was surprised to learn that Isherwood and Bachardy collaborated on the teleplay of Frankenstein: The True Story , a 1973 TV movie starring Leonard Whiting, Michael Sarazin, and Jane Seymour that thrilled me as a teenager. Isherwood and Bachardy hated what became of their beloved screenplay, but they're much too harsh in their judgment; the movie is tremendous fun and gives the Frankenstein story a provocative homoerotic twist.
The ebook has 56 photos of Isherwood, Bachardy, and many of their family and friends. It also has 78 pages of end notes; some run for a paragraph or more and are elaborately entertaining.
December 24, 2024
A fantastic feat of research and brings Isherwood fully to life across the range of his “selves”, from inheritor of a stately home, to exploring his sexuality in Germany before the war, to California, to eastern religion, to embrace by the gay liberation community. Auden, Hockney, Spender, Redgrave, names across generations. Fascinating and readable. Long though….
July 8, 2025
I wanted to like this so much more than I did. As it stands, this is a frankly not very engaging bio on a fascinating author. There are moments truly fascinating but other times where the writing drags and feels very point A to point B. This bio feels like a reminder the best way to know Isherwood is to read his story in his words, not someone else’s.
December 17, 2025
Great for the comprehensiveness but otherwise I think sort of a failure. Too much detail, too linearly told: it’s day after day in a slog of a march through time. While themes are there they have little room to breath. I’d say interesting only for those who have a need to know the minutia of Isherwood’s day to day agenda over the entirety of his life.
October 30, 2024
A deeply comprehensive account of Isherwood’s path through life as writer-thinker-feeler.
August 3, 2025
Comprehensive biography. He fascinates me for a number of reasons. His fiction is variable. The book is especially insighful while parsing his relationship with Don Bachardy.
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