CLR James died on a May morning in 1989. He’d had a lot of practise. For years previously the sad news had been broken to those who called on the old revolutionary, sportsman and critic unannounced: “CLR James is dead.”
For James it had become, John L Williams tells us in his new biography, something of a catchphrase. Much about Cyril Lionel Robert James – CLR to his disciples; “Nello” to intimates, Jimmy Johnson to the FBI – is contained in the gag. His love of mischief, his sometimes shocking asociality, a hint of his chronic health problems. And it reveals something else too: his extraordinary appetite for drama.
