Peter Smart's Confessions

by Paul Bailey

Peter Smart is a man with a highly developed sense of his own inadequacy - a gentle person whose self-induced confession of his past failures gradually but perceptibly evolves into a grotesque portrait gallery of the extraordinary people who have always surrounded him.

As he sits down to bare his soul, he finds, to his surprise, that it is these other personalities who fascinate and command the stage. In youth he has been flanked by a virago of a mother, aptly dubbed by her in-laws as ‘mouth and trousers’; by mother’s decrepit paramour, Dr Leonard Cottie, author of the astonishingly boring With Stethoscope and Scalpel; his ‘brownish’ grandmother, who, cosily reeking of beer and tobacco, chuckles over ‘penny dreadfulls’ like Ainslie Gritter’s The Fatal Cup of Cocoa.

Genres: British Literature

192 pages, Hardcover

First published May 26, 1977

About the author

Peter Harry "Paul" Bailey was a British novelist and critic, as well as a biographer of Cynthia Payne and Quentin Crisp.

Reviews

[George · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars. An entertaining, humorous, character based short novel about failing actor Peter Smart and the unusual individuals in his life. His awful, regularly complaining mother. The decrepit Dr. F. Leonard Cottie, his mother’s lover and author of the astonishingly boring ‘With Stethoscope and Scalpel, and Neville Drake, a Wagnerian devotee.

The dialogue is very well done. Peter Smart is an unassuming man who admits his failings readily.

Highly recommended.

This book was shortlisted for the 1977 Booker Prize.

[Colin Davison · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having previously read Bailey's Gabriel's Lament, I thought this earlier Booker short-listed novel resembled a swiftly-written sketch for the later, rather more developed version.
The ingredients are similar, a cast of stagey, grotesque characters, including again a memorably pitiless mother. One cannot imagine an elderly Mrs Bailey waiting with eager anticipation for her third manifestation in one of her son's novels.
It's hard to detect any sympathy for this constantly denigrating figure, who refuses to use Peter's name, and refers to him only as 'You.' This seems too vivid an idea to be pure invention by the author, and even in the epiloge, that explains and extenuates the circumstances of those who have gone before, there is a last jab of his pen to comment on her cruel dying bequest.
Characters met along the way include her decrepit, delusional ex-surgeon lover, a gay Wagnerian actor and Peter's occasional lover-boys, and the neurotic Nancy whom he ill-advisedly marries out of pity.
The narrative is episodic, its sharp dialogue fitting into the shape of a four-act play - childhood, adolescence, the actor's career, and marriage, followed by a fellow actor's closing address to the audience.
It was no surprise to discover that Bailey had worked as an actor for eight years, as could be guessed from the fun he has with spoofs on regional theatre, including the splendidly pretentious 'Evening dress essential' in blank verse for Cedric and Lydia at the Edinburgh festival.
His send-up of a production of Hamlet, in which the prince's motivation is determined by hereditary syphillis, is just a little far-fetched in imaging a posh paper review that deals exclusively with Peter Smart's portrayal of a minor character and the profound inner meaning of his delivery of three words "Good, my lord."
Nevertheless, there are amusing shots of life as a touring actor, from the awful digs to the back-stage drollery that invents additional characters from Shakespeare's text, Art Prithee the saxophonist, Madam Ho the Chinese laundress, Han(d)s Apt the Flemish artist and Madam Come, who naturally runs a brothel.
I'll listen out for them at the RSC.

[Donal O Suilleabhain · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very funny, wry wit. Petered out a bit at the end.

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first by Paul Bailey, and I now plan to read more. This novella gives a sweet-and-sour take on grudging parental relationships (Peter's mother calls him 'You', usually as the preface to another attack) and coming-of-age tale. It was like a micro-Dickens, as the boy Peter struggles to free himself from his mother's apron strings and forge a path for himself as an actor - not-so coincidentally what Paul Bailey himself did before turning to writing.

It's a relatively forgotten Booker nominee (1977) and very similar in both length and semi-autobiographical focus to Catherine Blackwood's 'Great Granny Webster' that made the list the same year.

[Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

A semi-autobiographical(?) novel in two distinct parts - Peter's confessions focus firstly on his childhood shaping under an absent father and mentally ill mother and grandmother, followed by an unexpected theatrical romp through adult actor life and sexual exploration, both segments linked together by outworkings of depressive impulsion and a little grotesque characterisation. False ending resolution rescued things a little. Overall, haphazard but somewhat compelling.

[Grebbie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sorry but I really didn’t like this. The narrative form was confusing, segments of the story seemed to ramble on and none of the characters were particularly likeable. Shortlist 1977.

[Brendan O'connell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great fun story, telling of a very sad tale. Well written, to the point and, at parts, heart wrenching. Well worth an effort in seeking out this Booker shortlisted novel from the 1980's