Jocelyn Brooke – författare

A disarming, lyrical hybrid of fiction and autobiography, this forgotten masterpiece of post-war English fiction follows a small boy through his First World War childhood and teenage years on the Kentish coast, then into the army and frontline service in the Second World War. Obsessed by his strange twin passions for orchids and for fireworks, the author-narrator paints a haunting portrait of a childhood and adulthood interleaved with one another in a near-mystical rural idyll. Defined by his unspoken homosexuality, the books capture the unfolding of a melancholy, often painfully sensitive male consciousness.First published in the late 1940s as three separate but interlinked volumes – “The Military Orchid”; “A Mine of Serpents” and “The Goose Cathedral” – The Orchid Trilogy conjures up a rapturous, fantastical portrait of England at war and peace in the 20th century. Witty, subtle and deceptively simple, this unjustly neglected classic that has yet to be surpassed in its exploration of the magical world of childhood.One of those too-rare books whose enjoyability makes it seem too short – Elizabeth BowenIt is a kind of collage of sharply drawn bits of real life, excellently described and artistically arranged – Stephen SpenderReminiscence and reflection and description are woven together to make a curious and fascinating tapestry – David CecilMr. Brooke's finely shaped prose, his wit, percipience, and liveliness in the description of people, places, and states of mind are a rare delight – The ScotsmanA sad, funny, densely detailed yet continuously readable experience – The ObserverOne of the most exciting creative artists of our time and one who will consistently evade all the literary categories – John Pudney

The Dog at Clambercrown takes its name from a mysterious pub - seductive and frightening, never visited, only heard of – that fascinates Brooke’s child narrator in this beautiful and utterly original work of autobiographical fiction.Both a journey through Europe and a return to the forbidden kingdoms of a Kentish childhood, the novel interweaves past and present as Brooke, responding to the magical potency of “Abroad”, summons the obsessions and terrors of his youth, and conjures an almost pagan vision of the English countryside – even as he sits down to tea with the Sicilian mafia.First published in 1955, The Dog at Clambercrown epitomises what Anthony Powell termed as Brooke’s unique genre of “reminiscence lightly touched with fiction”. Disarmingly clever, deliciously opinionated and irrepressibly amusing, this neglected classic of gay literature is ripe for rediscovery.‘One of the most interesting and talented of contemporary writers’ – Anthony Powell‘He is subtle as the devil’ – John Betjeman‘Here is a writer possessed by the magic—the voodoo—of childhood’ ­– New Statesman

When Duncan Cameron’s mother dies, he is sent to live with his Uncle Gerald on a remote farm in Kent. What follows is a hypnotic tale of psychological suspense as this boy on the cusp of manhood enters his only living relative’s ultra-masculine world of; a dark, erotically charged landscape in an England teetering on the brink of the Second World War.Originally published in 1948, The Scapegoat was Jocelyn Brooke’s first novel and, as with many of his other works, occupies a fascinating space between fiction and autobiography. Described by novelist Peter Cameron as ‘almost unbelievably subversive and kinky’, this unjustly neglected classic of gay fiction offers a quiet depiction of a childhood adrift in silence and despair, and a beautifully wrought exploration of masculinity.“He is subtle as the devil” - John Betjeman“Jocelyn Brooke is a great writer. . . . If you care enough for literature, seek out The Scapegoat” - Elizabeth Bowen“It could not have been written more delicately or sensitively” - Sean O'Faolian“Exceptionally well-written”- Desmond MacCarthy

The calm of Reynard Langrish’s quietly predictable life is shattered when, on a night of rain-swept storm, a stranger – a young soldier called Captain Archer - appears at his remote Kentish cottage. He takes Langrish to an ancient hill fort and introduces him to the men under his command, all of whom share a mysterious tattoo – two snakes entwined around a drawn sword – and are engaged in preparations to defend against a nameless menace, referred to only as ‘the Emergency’.As the dreamlike narrative rapidly accelerates into Kafkaesque nightmare, Langrish is drawn into a world where illusion, paranoia, and reality unite with lethal consequences, and disorienting shifts of time and perception culminate in a terrifying moment of pure horror.Originally published in 1950, The Image of a Drawn Sword is steeped in the themes and images that occupy much of Brooke’s writing – the relentlessness of time, suppressed homosexuality, condemned love, self-hatred, and futility; and, above all, an England that was both real and uniquely his own, a mystical, half-known natural world.‘In its way not inferior to Kafka . . . [it has] a haunting, sinister quality’ – Anthony Powell‘Seldom have naturalism and fantasy been more strangely merged’ – Elizabeth Bowen‘He is subtle as the devil’ – John Betjeman‘The skill and intensity of the writing made peculiarly haunting this cry of complaint on behalf of a bewildered Man’ – Pamela Hansford Johnson, Daily Telegraph

Brittle, effeminate and perennially untalented, Nigel Tuffnell-Greene has little in common with his high-achieving and ultra-masculine elder brother, Geoffrey, whom he worships and detests – hating him with a passion almost indistinguishable from love. In Conventional Weapons the reader is introduced to a stratum of English middle-class society before and after World War II as the divergent paths of the two brothers unfold. Geoffrey joins the army, marries and sets up in business, but eventually ends up an exile in Malta; Nigel drifts into a seedy London life of drinking, parties and half-hearted gay liaisons, and finds some fame as an artist and novelist. With an astonishing appreciation of their deeper character traits, which remain unspoken and barely revealed, Brooke explores the shared fragility beneath the surface of these seemingly polarised lives. Beautiful, subtle and immensely powerful, his impeccable prose is never better than in this late novel.‘One of the most interesting and talented of contemporary writers’ – Anthony Powell‘He is subtle as the devil’ – John Betjeman‘Mr Brooke has ploughed his English corner of The Waste Land between the two world wars with a dexterity that compels our harrowed admiration’ – Harold Acton

Jocelyn Brooke's love affair with wild flowers and home-made fireworks began when he was growing up in Kent and exploring the countryside of the the Elham Valley. But there was one particular flower, especially rare and beautiful which became an obsession. Over three decades and through two world wars, in the deserts of Libya and the woodlands of Italy, in the chalk downs of Kent, Sussex and Hampshire, he searched continually for his most beloved and elusive Orchis militaris, the military orchid.Against the backdrop of his quintessentially English upbringing and his army career, with ts wonderful cast of snobbish neighbours, eccentric public school teachers and bullish staff sergeants, Jocelyn Brooke blends memoir, botany and satire to recall his lifelong quest. The Military Orchid is a comic masterpiece and became widely revered: Kingsley Amis decribed Brooke as "brilliant and exciting", John Betjeman called him "as subtle as the devil", and to Anthony Powell he was "one of the most interesting and talented" writers to emerge after the Second World War.