Essex girl goes West

This highly entertaining and self-deprecating autobiography should dispel the myth, however craftily put about by the boy himself, that its author could ever have been a successful rent boy. Promotion of that role-play may rack up millions on the tabloid stage, but Everett is demonstrably far too original, headstrong and downright funny to ever have had the inevitable passivity requisite in a few quids’ quick shag. Judging by his prowess as a raconteur, you’d want Rupert to stay around for a good long time, but, though teenage, leather-clad nights at the Coleherne may have drilled him in the arts of being tied up, about the one thing he can’t deal with is being tied down.

His chapters are presented as essays or short stories in themselves; one can pick at random and be entranced in seconds. Everett’s technique has the bubbling thrust of a fountain and none of the gush. His flawless memory, allied to a sharp eye and ear, brings alive his crazy year in Moscow with Capote-like dark humour, his take on Los Angeles a junkie Gavin Lambert, a jaded Joan Didion.