Derek Jarman is the patron saint of ruined beauty.

I am obsessed with Derek Jarman more than any other person in history. I will recommend anything and everything about him or by him, so as an indicator of my taste, that's the strongest one I can give you.

This is a substantial authorised biography of one of the most singular British artists of the late twentieth century: filmmaker, diarist, painter, gardener, AIDS activist, and imho, saint.

It follows his whole contradictory life — the art-school intelligence, the punk and queer underground, the films, the politics, the illness, the cultivated myth, and the actual person under it. For anyone interested in film, queer history, art writing, and late-century British counterculture. 

Little, Brown hardback, first UK edition, 1999.