Sinclair's thesis is that Dylan Thomas, despite speaking no Welsh, is in the bardic tradition, both a court and public bard. This works well: Thomas's succeeds best when he personally recites his work, be it the poems or the drama (and Sinclair is especially good on the other Thomas radio play, Return Journey, in which Thomas is the Narrator in search of his younger self).
Sinclair works with the accepted three-part life of Thomas - childhood in Swansea, young adulthood in London, maturity in Laugharne. As those of us familiar with Sinclair, he is in his element discussing the dissolute life of Fitzrovia, where Thomas lodged with the painters Alfred Janes and Marvyn Levy. One of Sinclair's other books is War Like a Wasp: The Lost Decade of the Forties (1989). He also wrote an earlier study of Dylan Thomas, subtitled Poet of His People (1975). He says this, in 1999, is a rewrite of the earlier work. To what extent it is a rewrite, to what extent new material, I do not know. Caitlin Thomas liked his 1975 portrayal of Dylan. She died in 1994 and Sinclair certainly seeks to assess her role in the story here.
It's a fascinating book, full of insights, and useful to both the general reader and the scholar. The writing itself is exemplary, every sentence has rhythm and poise. I loved Sinclair's debut novel, The Breaking of Bumbo [reviewed on this blog, October 2023) and eagerly laid hands on his Gog, which I absolutely hated, so much so that I threw it in the bin. Perhaps I will stick henceforth to his non-fiction.
The book also contains Sinclair's 1971 account of the making of the film, Under Milk Wood, which he adapted and directed. No other biographer of Dylan Thomas can offer that.
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