Where Did It All Go Right?

Al Alvarez, poet, critic, novelist, sportsman, and poker player, has for seventy years been hard to categorize. He is the author of the best-selling study of suicide, The Savage God , and as poetry editor of the Observer , he has known most of the leading poets of the second half of last century. For a time he was an influential critic and his anthology The New Poetry scandalised the literary community. Much of the liveliness of Alvarez's story is inspired by the ambiguous fate of being an English Jew. Although his family had been settled in London for more than two centuries, being Jewish always made them feel like outsiders. He went from Oundle, an English public school, to Oxford, where an academic career beckoned; instead he embarked on life as a freelance writer. Meanwhile he climbed mountains, played poker and wrote books about these pastimes which are now regarded as classics. Where Did It All Go Right? is his memorable, irreverent account of that journey.