Overview

The Perfect Stranger was first published in the '60s and since then has continued to find a select group of passionate admirers. Evocative and engaging, and ultimately deeply emotional, The Perfect Stranger is the story of a soldier, a poet and a husband. The author describes it as the story of a rescue -of a young man who emerges from the bleak playing fields of school onto the battlefields of Korea, from the heady chaos of Barcelona into an intense and tragic relationship with a girl called Sally Lehmann. Brutally sad, sharp and wise, this is a classic of the genre.

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9781910463017

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Reviews

Funny, unique and powerful. A wise, sad, wonderfully written memoir that's ripe for rediscovery. -- David Nicholls A fine memorial to love and youth. -- Michael Frayn, author of Headlong and Spies I've re-read The Perfect Stranger many times and still think it, though unique, a model of its kind . -- Derek Mahon To hear the truth so devastatingly and yet so joyfully encountered is rare in an age where autobiography has been flattened by the massed weight of political and public reminiscence. This autobiography, from its beginning to its bitter end, is a celebration of joy: joy in youth, in woman, in male camaraderie, in the struggle of art, in married love. -- The Times Literary Supplement

"Funny, unique and powerful. A wise, sad, wonderfully written memoir that's ripe for rediscovery. -- David Nicholls A fine memorial to love and youth. -- Michael Frayn, author of Headlong and Spies I've re-read The Perfect Stranger many times and still think it, though unique, a model ""of its kind"". -- Derek Mahon To hear the truth so devastatingly and yet so joyfully encountered is rare in an age where autobiography has been flattened by the massed weight of political and public reminiscence. This autobiography, from its beginning to its bitter end, is a celebration of joy: joy in youth, in woman, in male camaraderie, in the struggle of art, in married love. -- The Times Literary Supplement"

Author Information

P. J. Kavanagh was a poet, writer, actor, broadcaster and columnist. Born in 1931, son of the radio comedy writer Ted Kavanagh, he went to a Benedictine school, served in the Korean war during national service, and worked for the British Council in Barcelona and Indonesia. He acted on stage and TV - his last appearance in an episode of Father Ted. The Perfect Stranger, awarded the Richard Hillary Memorial Prize in 1966, describes his early life. His columns for The Spectator and the Times Literary Supplement (he called them substitute poems) are collected in People and Places (1988) and A Kind of Journal (2003). Poetry remained his major occupation. His New Selected Poems came out in 2014. Earlier collections include Presences (1987), An Enchantment (1991) and Something About (2004). His Collected Poems was given the Cholmondeley Award in 1992. His novel A Song and Dance won the 1968 Guardian Fiction Prize. His other novels are A Happy Man, People and Weather and Only by Mistake, and for younger readers Scarf Jack and Rebel for Good. A travel-autobiography Finding Connections traces his Irish forebears in New Zealand. He edited G. K. Chesterton and Ivor Gurney, and the anthologies Voices in Ireland, The Oxford Book of Short Poems (with James Michie) and A Book of Consolations. P. J. died in August 2015 in the Cotswold hills, where he had come to live with his wife and two sons over forty years before.

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