Dandy in the Underworld
A Memoir
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $16.99
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
'Like Salvador Dali's confessions, only far funnier and more self-deprecating, Dandy in the Underworld entertains as much as it revolts, is as tender as it is shocking, and as genuine as it is false.' Independent
Sure to shock and surprise, Sebastian Horsley recounts his life story with excruciating self-knowledge and a savage wit.
'One of the funniest, strangest and most revolting memoirs ever written.' Sunday Times
Growing up at High Hall, in Hull, with his alcoholic mother, who regularly attempted suicide, his stepfather, a cult member dressed in orange, and his father, a crippled millionaire, Sebastian Horsley couldn't wait to leave home.
Searching for happiness, meaning and a good outfit he embarked on a doomed career as a punk guitarist, had a stormy relationship with a notorious Scottish gangster, enjoyed a wildly successful period as a stock-market entrepeneur and experienced a near fatal stint as a shark-hunter.
Sebastian charts his years as a dandy, an artist, a male escort and a brothel connoisseur. There are the love affairs, with Rachel 1 and Rachel 2, and a harrowing descent into heroin and crack addiction. Dandy in the Underworld evokes his desperate attempts to get clean, culminating in his crucifixion in the Philippines.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
British artist Horsley's biggest claim to fame is the crucifixion ceremony he underwent in the Philippines in 2000, an attempt to "break the limits of life" and make an artistic statement. The feat is the apex of Horsley's "unauthorized autobiography," which chronicles his life as an artist, a junkie and a self-professed dandy. Pithy and engaging, Horsley bares all, painting himself as a misogynist, a sexual deviant and a narcissist. While the memoir starts slow drawn out accounts of childhood travails, tawdry family history and boarding-school miseries Horsley's writing picks up when he's describing his cyclical addiction to and withdrawal from drugs. A crack high is a "whole-body orgasm" and "heartbreaking ecstasy"; heroin is "molten sunshine." By the time he is on a raft in the Philippines, paddling to the site of his crucifixion, he's been in and out of exclusive rehab clinics and self-imposed bouts of "cold turkey time," not to mention a stint as a prostitute. By the time a 50-something Horsley winds down his life history wealthy and privileged from birth (his family owned a food empire), he was also uncannily successful in the stock market he is nearly bankrupt. He ran through, by his own estimation, 100,000 on his drug addictions and the same amount of money each on his other addiction, prostitutes, and tailored clothing befitting his stature as a dandy. Correction: The title of Lea Jacobson's book was left out in the December 10 issue. The title is Bar Flower: My Decadently Destructive Days and Nights as a Tokyo Nightclub Hostess.
