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Francis Bacon in Your Blood
- Narrated by: Michael Peppiatt
- Length: 16 hrs and 26 mins
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Summary
It is a story I have been wanting to write for a long time, telling it as it really was before that whole world that I shared with Francis vanishes....
Michael Peppiatt met Francis Bacon in June 1963 in Soho's French House to request an interview for a student magazine he was editing. Bacon invited him to lunch, and over oysters and Chablis they began a friendship and a no-holds-barred conversation that would continue until Bacon's death 30 years later.
Fascinated by the artist's brilliance and charisma, Peppiatt accompanied him on his nightly round of prodigious drinking from grand hotel to louche club and casino, seeing all aspects of Bacon's 'gilded gutter life' and meeting everybody around him, from Lucian Freud and Sonia Orwell to East End thugs; from predatory homosexuals to Andy Warhol and the Duke of Devonshire. He also frequently discussed painting with Bacon in his studio, where only the artist's closest friends were ever admitted. The Soho photographer, John Deakin, who introduced the young student to the famous artist, called Peppiatt 'Bacon's Boswell'.
Despite the chaos Bacon created around him Peppiatt managed to record scores of their conversations ranging over every aspect of life and art, love and death, the revelatory and hilarious as well as the poignantly tragic.
Gradually Bacon became a kind of father figure for Peppiatt, and the two men's lives grew closely intertwined. In this intimate and deliberately indiscreet account, Bacon is shown close-up, grand and petty, tender and treacherous by turn, and often quite unlike the myth that has grown up around him. This is a speaking portrait, a living likeness, of the defining artist of our times.
What listeners say about Francis Bacon in Your Blood
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- Mr. B. Martin
- 05-01-18
Riveting!
Highly enjoyable and fascinating account of the author's experiences with painter Francis Bacon. Great anecdotes, I especially enjoyed the high camp conversations from the colony room featuring the legendary Muriel Belcher.
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5 people found this helpful
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- A. E. F. Mccann
- 01-12-19
Fascinating. Listened in a one-er.
This book is interesting on so many levels - the work of Francis Bacon, his life, his friends, Paris and Soho. I loved it.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Emily S
- 16-06-22
Brilliant
Listening to Michael Peppiatt read his memoirs of his time Francis bacon is a sheer joy. I think a little piece of Francis Bacon lives on in Peppiatt.. Certainly his voice does.
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2 people found this helpful
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- John Lovie
- 10-11-18
An Incredible Insight
A moving and powerful epilogue was the perfect ending to a throughly enthralling biography. The author’s own narration of his book adds so much to the story. I will read the text version too, to review the many locations, french phrases, and artists mentioned. An incredible book.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 12-09-19
Prefect for Bacon lovers
This is an almost perfect insight to one of our greatest artists, living up to the mythic stories of Soho, drinking and painting whilst giving better understanding to the very human person behind images that forever changed the landscape of painting. At times it falls into a pattern of recounting Becon at his most poetic then listing the dinner menu along with the wine list at some expensive restaurant in which this happened to often but honestly you can forgive it is flaws you can't help but wish you where at the table.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Mina
- 20-12-23
Just Bad
Nothing about Bacon’s works or anything remotely important about his life just writer’s blah blahs
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- Amazon Customer
- 20-10-23
loved this book
Although I've never been that interested in Francis Bacon, I enjoy looking at his paintings. this book is a great listen from Michael who has known him personally for many years and gives the listener a first-hand account. It's very well written and narrated in my mind. Thanks, Micheal. Regards, Vicki.
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- James A.
- 07-07-23
We’ll never get closer to Bacon
A brilliantly performed and captivating memoir. This is the closest anyone will ever get to hearing the man himself speak at length. Peppiatt goes far beyond an impression of Bacon - he embodies him. In doing so he gives us a unique and invaluable insight into what it was like to have a conversation with him. Peppiatt also creates wonderfully detailed sketches of the rooms, people and places where these conversations were happening.
A fascinating listen, highly recommended.
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- Y.D.
- 14-06-23
Superb
Lovely to hear it read by the author! Superbly written and wonderfully captivating. There’s a short prologue that I didn’t like and doesn’t seem to fit with the tone of the main book. Please listen past it!
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- Anonymous User
- 05-06-23
Fascinating and beautiful
I enjoyed even single minute of it with every repeat noted as a repeat of Francis himself.
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