For Christmas I was given a copy of John Baxter’s biography of J. G. Ballard, and this is just a note to say that I have written a review of it, published below.
If anyone is interested in my reference to a certain review in New Statesman, I will try to find it in my ancient files and post it on this site, together with some accompanying material. The Ballard biography has brought home to me the importance of what weight we should place on verbal testimony, and its reliability or otherwise. The ancient incident described in NS was trivial and (for its subject) probably embarrassing, but when the same self-centred anecdotic rambling is used as evidence in the life of a great writer like Ballard, it’s time to get our priorities right. We have a responsibility to be true about these things.