In Pariah Genius, literary giant Iain Sinclair follows in the footsteps of photographer John Deakin, whose chronicles of Soho life - and the world of Francis Bacon and his friends - have so influenced our perception of that generation' s work.

In this bold fictionalisation, Sinclair enters the underworld of Deakin' s life and imagination, pursuing his subject across continents, in dive bars, and bedrooms. The result is an engrossing, utterly unique portrait of a man who some felt was a fallen angel, and others, the devil himself.

' His lexicon is occult as well as criminal. This is a world of negatives, dark rooms and transparencies. He inverts the old anthropological canard about groups […] believing that the camera steals the soul. Sinclair presents Deakin' s imagined life as a form of botched exorcism, with the subjects warped, distorted and smeared like sitters in a Bacon painting.' - Stuart Kelly, The Spectator

' [Pariah Genius] gives us a rollicking account of the celebrity criminals, obliging osteopaths and screaming queens of the seedy quarter. This "brotherhood of the damned" was caught by Deakin' s unforgiving camera, his prints bringing out their terror and melancholy. […] Sinclair gives brilliant, pungent accounts of the sacred sites: Wheeler' s oyster bar, the Colony Club, the Waterman' s Arms and the French House. […] Sinclair is particularly imaginative with his cinematic and literary parallels and digressions.' - Roger Lewis, The Times

' The result is a remarkable fictional biography - or "psychobiographic fiction" - written in Sinclair' s highly poetic and dazzlingly allusive prose.' - Tancred Newbury, Literary Review