THE LONDON LOVER

An exuberant, careening book, a modern day Tom Jones, rich with the sights, sounds and people from a life led to the full in Britain and America in the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s

Clancy Sigal first came to London 1957. He was homeless, illegal and, according to his FBI file, subversive. Over the next three decades, Sigal was to criss-cross around Britain and back home to the States, devouring as much as life could offer him. This is the story of that time.

With a wonderful restless curiosity about his surroundings and the people, from all walks of life, that he meets, Clancy Sigal is an irrepressibly charming and exuberant companion and narrator. Political and cultural shifts and earthquakes are witnessed – and fully experienced. From racial politics in Chicago to the birth of the CND in London and from a love affair with Doris Lessing, a relationship ‘so open you can hear the wind howling through the cracks', to therapy with R.D.Laing, Sigal details it all to constantly illuminating effect.

Underneath all his experiences is the character of Clancy himself. Warm, empathetic and laughout-loud funny, he is also riddled with sexual insecurities and deep anxieties. His voice and character are as vivid and captivating as the lost times and people he brings so beautifully to life, making The London Lover a biography to cherish.

CLANCY SIGAL is the child of a love affair between two labor organizers, Jennie Persily and Leo Sigal. Jennie, a single mother, raised Clancy on her own, with a mostly absent father. After an army stint he worked as an entertainment agent. Sigal arrived as an immigrant in Great Britain, where he met and commenced a fouryear affair with the writer Doris Lessing. Currently he lives in Los Angeles with his screenwriter wife, Janice Tidwell.