The Glass Cage

Nearly four decades after his acclaimed memoir The Grass Arena, John Healy delivers the long-awaited second volume of his extraordinary life.

The Glass Cage begins in the wake of sudden literary success and fragile sobriety, as Healy attempts to inhabit a world far removed from the prisons, streets and wino jungle that shaped him. Thrust into publishing, publicity and middle-class expectation, he finds himself disoriented by power, privilege and the subtle humiliations of class.

Written with fierce candour and dark, unsparing wit, this is a memoir not of escape, but of exposure − and of the cost of crossing worlds.



John Healy was born in London in 1942. After fifteen years living on the streets as an alcoholic vagrant, he learned chess in prison and went on to win ten major tournaments. His memoir The Grass Arena won the PEN Ackerley Prize and was adapted into an award-winning film. A documentary about his life was nominated for a Grierson Award. He lives in North London.