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The Devil Rides Out by Paul O’Grady
The Blurb On The Back:
Birkenhead, 1973. The eighteen-year-old Paul O’Grady get ready for a big Saturday night out on the town. New white t-shirt, freshly ironed heads, looking good. As he bids farewell to his mum, who’s on the phone to his auntie, and wanders off down the street in a cloud of aftershave, he hears the familiar cry” ‘Oh, the devil rights out tonight, Annie. The devil rides out!’
The further adventures of Paul O’Grady - following on from the million-copy-selling At My Mother’s Knee - are, if anything, even more hilarious and outrageous than what has come before. As Paul struggles to get to grips with unexpected fatherhood and bereavement, he searches high and low for a job that lasts and somehow finds himself getting married in the process. Work takes him from an abattoir to a children’s home, from a hospital to a nightclub, and from penthouse to pavement. Along the way, he takes his first Savage steps on stage, tastes the exotic delights of Manila and invades Plans …
To say that The Devil Rides Out is action-packed is an understatement. Its extraordinary cast of characters includes lords and ladies, the legendary Vera, a serial killer, more prostitutes than you can shake a stick at and drag queens of every shape and size. Wickedly funny, often moving, and searingly honest, Paul’s tales of the unexpected will make your jaw drop and your hair stand on end. And you’ll laugh like a drain.
The Devil Rides Out - one hell of a read!
Paul O’Grady was a comedian, actor, TV presenter, chat show host and British national treasure. The second in his autobiographical quartet charts 1973 to 1980 as he deals with his father’s death, becomes a father, bounces between jobs, marries a lesbian, struggles to find a partner, travels internationally and starts to develop Lily Savage within the London drag scene. Told with O’Grady’s biting wit, it’s sad, thoughtful, horrifying and honest.
O’Grady’s second autobiography picks up immediately where AT MY MOTHER’S KNEE stopped - his father has died suddenly of a heart attack as his mum is seriously ill in hospital, recovering from a heart attack of her own and he has just been told by Diane (with whom he had a one night stand) that she is pregnant with his child. As with AT MY MOTHER’S KNEE, there is a lot of emotional honesty in this book - O’Grady is open about how he was simply not ready for fatherhood and how his relationship with his mother was damaged in the aftermath of his father’s death because she blamed him for helping to cause it. That makes the opening chapters quite difficult to read at times, notably when O’Grady talks about the way his mum shouted at him and how he found it difficult to even hold his daughter as he sensed that she wasn’t impressed with him either.
Also similar to AT MY MOTHER’S KNEE is O’Grady’s lack of direction. He drifts from job to job, not being able to stick at anything for more than a couple of years (and driving his mum to distraction when he gives up a decent but boring job as clerk at the magistrate’s court). Although again O’Grady is very open here, I must confess that I did find it a little repetitive at times, even though each job is interspersed with stories of people he met or situations encountered. Those jobs that seem to have made most impact on him (and which I found most interesting) were where he worked in a children’s home (which comes with a horrifying post script) and where he worked providing live in respite care for Camden Council. One of the things that impressed me about O’Grady is that these are emotionally and physically very difficult jobs - indeed he shares some terrifying stories of violent homes - and yet he gets on with it as though it was no big deal and I would have very much welcomed a bit more reflection of why he felt he was able to do it when others would find it hard.
O’Grady’s biological family take more of a background role here and instead there’s more of O’Grady’s friends, notably the hapless Vera but also Chrissie (an ex con with a gift for the sewing machine who made O’Grady’s first drag outfits). There’s also a lot of Paul’s boyfriends and his attitude to relationships (where he is as unable to commit to people as he is to work). His on-again/off-again relationship with Ryan takes him to Manila in the Philippines, which is one of my favourite sections of the book as O’Grady talks about the small gay scene going on and is, once again, very honest in his account of his own fecklessness and selfishness. His descriptions of Manila and his reactions to it are fascinating and vivid and his affection for it really comes through.
If all this sounds very heavy, it is but O’Grady finds a way of finding humour in even some terrible situations, e.g. a gay sex show in Manila. I think the reason why it’s not overwhelming is that he finds the humanity and dignity in people, whether it’s Joselito (a young gay boy who shows him around the Philippines) or the call girls who he escorts for a very high end escort agency. He comes across as genuinely caring about people and gets to the heart of what makes them tick - even as he bounces around, unable to find a purpose for himself.
On this note, Savage fans will be thrilled with the sections depicting O’Grady’s involvement in the London drag scene as he watches acts such as The Harlequins and the Disappointer Sisters together with less impressive performances and begins to think about setting up his own act. I really enjoyed his thoughts on the London gay scene - especially how he includes a photo of him on a Pride float in the late 1970s - and how he tries to pull together a decent show and think about what it is that he wants to do.
Although THE DEVIL RIDES OUT doesn’t end with the same cliffhanger as AT MY MOTHER’S KNEE, both the reader’s and O’Grady’s benefit of hindsight lend weight to the vague sense of doom he feels as he sees in 1980 - the decade when HIV and AIDS decimated the gay community. On this basis, I do have a sense of nervousness about picking up the third book in this quartet, even though O’Grady always finds a sharp and funny line in even the most horrifying of situations. That said, I will be checking it out and if nothing else, this book reminds you of what a smart, emotionally candid man we lost when he died.
The Verdict:
Paul O’Grady was a comedian, actor, TV presenter, chat show host and British national treasure. The second in his autobiographical quartet charts 1973 to 1980 as he deals with his father’s death, becomes a father, bounces between jobs, marries a lesbian, struggles to find a partner, travels internationally and starts to develop Lily Savage within the London drag scene. Told with O’Grady’s biting wit, it’s sad, thoughtful, horrifying and honest.
The further adventures of Paul O’Grady - following on from the million-copy-selling At My Mother’s Knee - are, if anything, even more hilarious and outrageous than what has come before. As Paul struggles to get to grips with unexpected fatherhood and bereavement, he searches high and low for a job that lasts and somehow finds himself getting married in the process. Work takes him from an abattoir to a children’s home, from a hospital to a nightclub, and from penthouse to pavement. Along the way, he takes his first Savage steps on stage, tastes the exotic delights of Manila and invades Plans …
To say that The Devil Rides Out is action-packed is an understatement. Its extraordinary cast of characters includes lords and ladies, the legendary Vera, a serial killer, more prostitutes than you can shake a stick at and drag queens of every shape and size. Wickedly funny, often moving, and searingly honest, Paul’s tales of the unexpected will make your jaw drop and your hair stand on end. And you’ll laugh like a drain.
The Devil Rides Out - one hell of a read!
Paul O’Grady was a comedian, actor, TV presenter, chat show host and British national treasure. The second in his autobiographical quartet charts 1973 to 1980 as he deals with his father’s death, becomes a father, bounces between jobs, marries a lesbian, struggles to find a partner, travels internationally and starts to develop Lily Savage within the London drag scene. Told with O’Grady’s biting wit, it’s sad, thoughtful, horrifying and honest.
O’Grady’s second autobiography picks up immediately where AT MY MOTHER’S KNEE stopped - his father has died suddenly of a heart attack as his mum is seriously ill in hospital, recovering from a heart attack of her own and he has just been told by Diane (with whom he had a one night stand) that she is pregnant with his child. As with AT MY MOTHER’S KNEE, there is a lot of emotional honesty in this book - O’Grady is open about how he was simply not ready for fatherhood and how his relationship with his mother was damaged in the aftermath of his father’s death because she blamed him for helping to cause it. That makes the opening chapters quite difficult to read at times, notably when O’Grady talks about the way his mum shouted at him and how he found it difficult to even hold his daughter as he sensed that she wasn’t impressed with him either.
Also similar to AT MY MOTHER’S KNEE is O’Grady’s lack of direction. He drifts from job to job, not being able to stick at anything for more than a couple of years (and driving his mum to distraction when he gives up a decent but boring job as clerk at the magistrate’s court). Although again O’Grady is very open here, I must confess that I did find it a little repetitive at times, even though each job is interspersed with stories of people he met or situations encountered. Those jobs that seem to have made most impact on him (and which I found most interesting) were where he worked in a children’s home (which comes with a horrifying post script) and where he worked providing live in respite care for Camden Council. One of the things that impressed me about O’Grady is that these are emotionally and physically very difficult jobs - indeed he shares some terrifying stories of violent homes - and yet he gets on with it as though it was no big deal and I would have very much welcomed a bit more reflection of why he felt he was able to do it when others would find it hard.
O’Grady’s biological family take more of a background role here and instead there’s more of O’Grady’s friends, notably the hapless Vera but also Chrissie (an ex con with a gift for the sewing machine who made O’Grady’s first drag outfits). There’s also a lot of Paul’s boyfriends and his attitude to relationships (where he is as unable to commit to people as he is to work). His on-again/off-again relationship with Ryan takes him to Manila in the Philippines, which is one of my favourite sections of the book as O’Grady talks about the small gay scene going on and is, once again, very honest in his account of his own fecklessness and selfishness. His descriptions of Manila and his reactions to it are fascinating and vivid and his affection for it really comes through.
If all this sounds very heavy, it is but O’Grady finds a way of finding humour in even some terrible situations, e.g. a gay sex show in Manila. I think the reason why it’s not overwhelming is that he finds the humanity and dignity in people, whether it’s Joselito (a young gay boy who shows him around the Philippines) or the call girls who he escorts for a very high end escort agency. He comes across as genuinely caring about people and gets to the heart of what makes them tick - even as he bounces around, unable to find a purpose for himself.
On this note, Savage fans will be thrilled with the sections depicting O’Grady’s involvement in the London drag scene as he watches acts such as The Harlequins and the Disappointer Sisters together with less impressive performances and begins to think about setting up his own act. I really enjoyed his thoughts on the London gay scene - especially how he includes a photo of him on a Pride float in the late 1970s - and how he tries to pull together a decent show and think about what it is that he wants to do.
Although THE DEVIL RIDES OUT doesn’t end with the same cliffhanger as AT MY MOTHER’S KNEE, both the reader’s and O’Grady’s benefit of hindsight lend weight to the vague sense of doom he feels as he sees in 1980 - the decade when HIV and AIDS decimated the gay community. On this basis, I do have a sense of nervousness about picking up the third book in this quartet, even though O’Grady always finds a sharp and funny line in even the most horrifying of situations. That said, I will be checking it out and if nothing else, this book reminds you of what a smart, emotionally candid man we lost when he died.
The Verdict:
Paul O’Grady was a comedian, actor, TV presenter, chat show host and British national treasure. The second in his autobiographical quartet charts 1973 to 1980 as he deals with his father’s death, becomes a father, bounces between jobs, marries a lesbian, struggles to find a partner, travels internationally and starts to develop Lily Savage within the London drag scene. Told with O’Grady’s biting wit, it’s sad, thoughtful, horrifying and honest.