With Varying Degrees of Success he completes a trilogy of memoirs which describe his life from birth in 1935 to the present day, and together form a remarkable autobiography. His aim is to describe honestly and in some detail the highs and lows of being a professional creative writer in several different genres: prose fiction, literary criticism, plays for live theatre and screenplays for film and television. Few writers have excelled in so many different forms of the written word.

Lodge’s creativity, and his wonderful sense of humour, have made his work popular in translation in numerous countries, and his extensive travels around the world are recorded here. Each of the three memoirs has its own thematic focus. In this latest one it is on the hope and desire of writers to make a significant and positive impression on their readers and audiences. The elation of success, and the depression that follows disappointment, are familiar emotions to most writers in varying degrees. David Lodge describes these feelings with rare candour.

Varying Degrees of Success provides the reader with a privileged insight into the working practices and the creative life of a major British novelist.

As Tubby’s life fragments under the weight of his self-obsession, he embarks – via Kierkegaard, strange beds from Rummidge to Tenerife to Beverly Hills, a fit of literary integrity and memories of his 1950s South London boyhood – on a picaresque quest for his lost contentment.