Stephanie Jones: Book Review - The Life and Loves of a He Devil by Graham Norton

Graham Norton’s effervescent blend of camp and cheek has earned him fans among all generations and three high-profile current roles, the most lucrative being a long-running Friday night talk-show gig that has made him one of the BBC’s most highly paid stars.

The others, a fortnightly advice column in the Daily Telegraph and a Saturday morning show on BBC Radio 2, are covered in the ‘Work’ chapter of Norton’s frank and entertaining new memoir, The Life and Loves of a He Devil, which delivers what he promises at the outset - not a chronology of events since the publication of his autobiography proper, So Me, a decade ago, but a distillation of and hilarious rumination over his great passions, which along with his career include dogs, “booze”, men, divas, Ireland and New York.

In an introductory anecdote that sets the mood for what follows – funny and revealing without being dirty, self-aware but not self-deprecating – Norton says the idea for a follow-up book about his life came to him as he surveyed the room at his 50th-birthday party (“itself an enormous gay wedding where I would declare my undying love for myself”) and saw himself reflected in the 300 attendees, who included k d lang, a “smattering” of guests from his talk show and a posse of friends, family and colleagues.

Perhaps the most revealing portion of the book, the chapter on men, will also be the most familiar to those who have read So Me, as Norton unflinchingly recounts various carnal and romantic escapades and muses frankly on where he finds himself in his early 50s after a series of long-term and long-distance relationships. He admits that despite his fondness for an accent, the latter element isn’t accidental, for he is unwilling to share everything required to have the “happy ever after”. What is apparent, as the upfront placement of the chapter titled ‘Dogs’ suggests, is that the great loves of his life are a Labradoodle named Bailey and a terrier, Madge.

Despite his lifelong obsession with dogs, he didn’t own one until adopting Bailey 10 years ago, and various humiliating experiences (Middle Eastern picnickers confronted with Bailey’s genetic brand of “hungry genius”; a hapless passerby who was left with the impression that Norton had imbued his pets with racist ideology) lead him to conclude, “If dignity is something that interests you, never get a dog.”

Similar enthusiasm and candour infect the entire book, which, much as Norton does on television, straddles the invisible line between too-much and not-enough. Tales of one-night-stands in unfamiliar environs and episodes of overindulgence are recounted with subtlety and a gauzy lens over the grittier bits. As in So Me, Norton remembers a dear friend, Syd, who was beloved in their London community before his death from AIDS in the 1980s. It is a sobering reminder that in spite of the levity Norton applies to the experience of leaving “the shores of heterosexuality behind” after early affairs with women, many of his compatriots did not survive the era.

Above all, the impression left by The Life and Loves of a He Devil is that of the author’s gratitude. Norton has innumerable loved ones, homes in London, Ireland and New York, a thriving career and, as a comprehensive physical at the half-century mark disclosed, robust health that has not been compromised by his close relationship with alcohol. Will we see another journey through the scintillating Norton psyche in 10 years’ time? I wouldn’t bet against it.