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A Stranger on Earth: The Life and Work of Anna Kavan
Reed’s new biography draws on new material to map out the enigmatic life and times of one of Britain’s most extraordinary novelists.This biography of novelist Anna Kavan, draws on newly discovered material about a visionary writer who renamed herself after a character in one of her own novels and did everything she could to resist biography. It documents Kavan's addiction to heroin, her failed marriages, her bond with her psychiatrist, her suicide attempts, her strange, unforgettable paintings, her devotion to gay men, her obsessions, phobias, reclusiveness, and indomitable artistic courage. Of Reed's biographical fiction of the Marquis de Sade, When the Whip Comes Down.
- GenresNonfictionBiography
240 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 2006
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
December 28, 2008
not sure what my thoughts are until i read david callard’s biography. anna kavan didn’t leave much behind & that’s partly why she’s so fascinating. also, heroin. i thought jeremy reed was wonderfully non-judgmental about her drug use. one thing i found annoying was the endless stream of pop culture references. i know jeremy reed wrote a book about lou reed & kavan was a total addict, but i thought it lame that he used this quote from VU’s heroin as a preface: when i’m rushing on my run & i feel just like jesus’ son. that’s like prefacing henry & june with don’t you know you’ll stain the carpet.
July 11, 2014
A brisk run-through the life and work of Helen Woods/Ferguson/Anna Kavan. This is of interest to Kavanites but I can't see any newcomers being won over. Part of the problem is that we simply don't have much information about important sections of her life - as Reed admits, the only surviving diaries are from a patch of the late 1920s, and there is no known answer to the questions of when or how she was introduced to heroin, for example. Unfortunately Jeremy takes rather too many liberties in speculatively filling the gaps. The suggestion that Ferguson/Kavan was relieved when her daughter died as an infant is entirely unwarranted and unnecessary. Meanwhile plenty of knowable threads don't get followed up: we don't hear the story of her son Bryan's death in action in World War Two, even though there presumably must be some official records. The startling revelation that Kavan killed a pedestrian in a car accident in 1958 is also passed over in a couple of sentences.
At the same time we do get a fair bit of background about the shifting cultural context of heroin usage and mental health problems, and the intriguing character of Dr Karl Theodore Bluth, on whom Kavan was pretty dependent for emotional and chemical support for 20 years. As with any biography set in the vicinity of Bloomsbury/Fitzrovia, there is at least 1 supporting figure who sounds like a hoax, and in this work the potential spoof is "Denham Foutts", allegedly described by Christopher Isherwood as "the most expensive male prostitute in the world", "his previous roll-call of lovers had included Prince Paul of Greece", "Like Anna, he was dedicated to the constant reinvention of his own myth", "Everything about his life appeared invented", "He reputedly worked in his father's bakery in Florida until he was noticed and taken up by a passing cosmetics tycoon." Come on, admit it, you're just taking the piss here Jeremy.
Anyway, fans of Kavan may be interested to know there's going to be a symposium about her work on September 11th 2014 in London:
http://annakavansymposium.wordpress.com/
At the same time we do get a fair bit of background about the shifting cultural context of heroin usage and mental health problems, and the intriguing character of Dr Karl Theodore Bluth, on whom Kavan was pretty dependent for emotional and chemical support for 20 years. As with any biography set in the vicinity of Bloomsbury/Fitzrovia, there is at least 1 supporting figure who sounds like a hoax, and in this work the potential spoof is "Denham Foutts", allegedly described by Christopher Isherwood as "the most expensive male prostitute in the world", "his previous roll-call of lovers had included Prince Paul of Greece", "Like Anna, he was dedicated to the constant reinvention of his own myth", "Everything about his life appeared invented", "He reputedly worked in his father's bakery in Florida until he was noticed and taken up by a passing cosmetics tycoon." Come on, admit it, you're just taking the piss here Jeremy.
Anyway, fans of Kavan may be interested to know there's going to be a symposium about her work on September 11th 2014 in London:
http://annakavansymposium.wordpress.com/
June 9, 2021
I found this a good way to review the Kavan/Ferguson novels I haven't read, and wonder if I shouldn't get move on to complete my collection...
When I first read Ice, it chilled me to bone. Magical, mystical, spooky. I am now about to read Mercury, which according to Reed is something like an early draft, or another version... Sort of Joyce's Stephen Hero to his A Portrait Of The Artist...
It was Kavan's self-admitted Scarcity Of Love in her early life and marriages that I found the most moving part in the biography, as this was no doubt the formative pressure for her novels stories of alienation, anomie, and victimhood.
The paintings included were a revelations too. I didn't know she was an artist as well as a heroin addict and prolific writer.
Such a pity many of her others paintings, along with her diaries and notebooks, were destroyed, either by her or after her death, at her wish. You'd have hoped her friends and executors would have done a Max Brod, who protected Kafka's work despite his request to destroy them when he had died. After all, the K of Kavan's adopted name was in honour of the great Polish writer.
Finally, Reed does a good job of fleshing out the scant details of Anna Kavan's life story with positive and enthusiastic analysis of her work, just as it says in the tile.
When I first read Ice, it chilled me to bone. Magical, mystical, spooky. I am now about to read Mercury, which according to Reed is something like an early draft, or another version... Sort of Joyce's Stephen Hero to his A Portrait Of The Artist...
It was Kavan's self-admitted Scarcity Of Love in her early life and marriages that I found the most moving part in the biography, as this was no doubt the formative pressure for her novels stories of alienation, anomie, and victimhood.
The paintings included were a revelations too. I didn't know she was an artist as well as a heroin addict and prolific writer.
Such a pity many of her others paintings, along with her diaries and notebooks, were destroyed, either by her or after her death, at her wish. You'd have hoped her friends and executors would have done a Max Brod, who protected Kafka's work despite his request to destroy them when he had died. After all, the K of Kavan's adopted name was in honour of the great Polish writer.
Finally, Reed does a good job of fleshing out the scant details of Anna Kavan's life story with positive and enthusiastic analysis of her work, just as it says in the tile.
January 2, 2018
'Today the average London adult has a cocktail of chemicals in his or her body including organochlorine pesticides, phthalates, brominated flame retardants, PCBs from electronic components and pre-fluorinated compounds. We are full of DDT and industrial chemicals. Anna was, too, but to a lesser degree. Heroin was her chemical, and she stayed with it to the end.'
***
Great biography, really want to read the rest of Kavan's work now.
***
Great biography, really want to read the rest of Kavan's work now.
April 8, 2010
Found this little gem on a trip to Adelaide in an amazing bookstore...cst me a fortune but I am happy nonetheless.
July 27, 2012
A little too much of the "she was on HEROIN, she MUST have been simply FASCINATING". But a credible overview of an incredible life.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews