The Living Proof

by Alan Isler

Cyril Entwistle, Yorkshireman, womaniser, egoist, world-class liar, of late controversial BBC talking head on almost any topic, has long been the Grand Old Man of British Art. And now he has chosen Stan Kops to write his biography. Kops, born in Brooklyn, an academic who once tried his hand at pornography, has earned an international reputation as the biographer of long-dead British artists, the likes of Hogarth, Millais and Turner. Our narrator is Robin Sinclair, whose mother was once Entwistle's mistress and model during the artist's most prolific period; Sinclair, moreover, has known Kops for more than forty years. All three of them have been bewitched by the beautiful and sensuous Saskia Tarnopol. In Sinclair's telling and via his sometimes unreliable testimony, we follow the intersection of these lives back and forth over decades.

217 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2005

Reviews

[Karen · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is how little I enjoyed this book: I interrupted it with three others. Two, granted, because a colleague had loaned me them, and I was about to start another job. But the other, simply because I was warm and cosy in bed and had left this downstairs, and it was preferable to roll over and pick a new book from the shelf than drag my sorry arse out of bed to retrieve this. In fact, the only reason I even bothered to finish was the fact that I'm sooooo close to completing my 2015 reading challenge goal, that it seemed daft to waste half a book.

It reminded me of everything I hate about Jane Austen (boring, overprivileged twats being beastly to one another) but with shagging. This was not a welcome addition, given the participants...