Worth Waiting For

The Perfect Stranger by P.J. Kavanagh has bided its time very patiently upstairs for over twenty years, more like twenty-five, since arriving as part of a large box of books donated to my library. There could still be more such good books unread up there, I don't know.

Having not been so taken with the signed Selected Poems returned to after being sent in that direction by Derek Mahon, PJK's memoir is every bit as good as the praise it is accorded. 

Somewhat itinerant in these early years, he very naturally becomes the non-conformist 'poet' in family, school, as a mis-fit in proper jobs, in Paris and in the best bits in the army, most notably at Catterick where the humour goes up a couple of gears,

At the highest, windiest, most improbable point of World's End Camp, by itself (I'm sure all the other huts had long since blown away) stood the P.O. Block. Except that we lived in it, it was uninhabitable.

In the Foreword, Kavanagh expresses doubts about the book's status as autobiography and explains why he didn't provide a sequel. It's a pity he didn't but we are better off being grateful for what we have rather than regretting what we don't have.