Earlier this week, Steven McGregor wrote a touching memorial to Gilbert Adair, the late novelist and critic. Adair self-deprecatingly described himself as ‘one of the great unread writers’, but two of his books were made into films. He adapted The Holy Innocents with the director Bernado Bertolucci; the ensuing film was called The Dreamers, and Adair later revised and re-released the novel under that name.
Love and Death on Long Island was also filmed, starring John Hurt. The clip above captures Adair’s sense of humour (he was master of parody — The Rape of the Clock, a satire of The Rape of the Lock, being his most famous pastiche), and the mix of innocence and complexity that often marked his characters.
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