A Liar's Autobiography

Graham Chapman reveals what it was like to be part of the revolutionary and zany Monty Python team

Required reading for Monty Python fans, this true and false memoir is Graham Chapman's own hilarious account of his life as a Python and as a homosexual. The book equals Joe Orton's famous Diaries in providing an unblushing account of a gay lifestyle linked to entertainment. Full of outrageous fictions and touching truths, in telling surreal and outrageous lies Graham Chapman often uncovers a truth about himself and colleagues. The stories Chapman relates—whether as mountaineer or medical student (he was a doctor); actor or alcoholic (he was both); heterosexual groupie-guzzler or homosexual coming to terms with himself (bit of both)—form a surreal and crowded mosaic that is funny, disturbing, and moving by turns. A minor cult classic by a major comic talent.