Landesmania!

Philip Trevena

An intimate portrait of a delayed career, an open marriage and a life led from the heart

Jay Landesman has been described in John Clellon Holmes’s book, Nothing More to Declare, as one of the ‘representative men’ of his generation along with Ginsberg, Kerouac and G. Legman.

This is the true story of an American pioneer and Soho Gentleman Bohemian. Born in St Louis 84 years ago, he was a trend-setter for the Beat movement of the 40s and 50s, publisher and editor in New York of the provocative Neurotica magazine and writer of the only play to explore that time, The Nervous Set. Though he was ostensibly an antiques dealer by trade, he went on to become the founder and ringmaster of the Crystal Palace Bar in St Louis, where he inspired some of the best and most innovative cabaret in America.

Needing a boost of reinvention in his mid-forties, Jay brought himself and family to London to sample the Swinging Sixties, with only Peter Cook’s telephone number to set him in the scene. Jay has lived here ever since.