The Grass Arena: An Autobiography (Penguin Modern Classics)

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Healy manages to bring the characters out from the pages, and holds no punches on his accounts of the savage experiences of life on the streets. Wow, what a book, feeling guilty for the one star rating already, but it was such a painful read that the only honest review for me would be 'didn't like it' hence the one star.

I read it for book club and am glad we did it, as my self selection is inevitably based on reading for pleasure, and reading can offer so much more can't it.

This is a used book in good condition, meaning that it shows signs of wear but has no major defects. The book is stuffed with anecdotes about stealing, drinking, fighting, sexual desire (usually not fulfilled), and is packed with great characters.

At times the British slang can be confusing (nick meaning to steal as well as being arrested, for example). Healey doesn’t help or even react much, he’s just happy there’s more to drink: I started drinking one of the bottles. He manages to describe such disgusting and sickening events so nonchalantly that I felt myself feeling pretty desensitized by the end (which is harrowing in itself)! His fellow combatants, exuberant, murderous and sentimental, by turns touchingly loyal, vengeful and treacherous seem to have sprung from the same bloodlines as Falstaff, Pistol, Nell and their fellows.At the time, I lived at the Angel Islington, when the northbound and southbound platforms of the station were in the same tunnel with a single narrow platform in the middle. It bubbled up into his mouth, nothing could muffle the sound of the blood gurgling out between his fingers.

Here're two articles on his life subsequent to the events in this autobiography: "What happened next?Out of school by 14, pressed into the army and intermittently in prison, Healy became an alcoholic early on in life. It was only around page 160 that I realised Healy's grass arena was my, and my childhood friends, den in Euston Square Gardens.