Great Lives

BS Johnson was born in Hammersmith in 1933. A wartime evacuee, he never quite shook a sense of dislocation for the rest of his life. Holly's favourite book, she calls it the gateway drug to his work, is Christie Malry's Own Double-Entry. It's the tale of a disaffected accountant who applies the principles of double-entry book keeping to his own life; any perceived slight permits him to repay the same on somebody else. These stretch from minor acts of personal revenge to poisoning London's water and blowing up the House of Commons."The things I find attractive about him are the things I'm a little bit scared of. His work is so raw - it's so different to how I feel." Holly WalshJoining Holly and Matthew Parris is the novelist Jonathan Coe, author of The Rotter's Club and Like a Fiery Elephant, an award-winning biography of BS Johnson's life.The producer in Bristol is Miles Warde