conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me a description for a book titled London Triptych about div><B>the, Birkbeck, University with the genre: Literature & Fiction, Genre Fiction.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: <div><B>the author</B> teaches creative writing, literature, and queer theory at Birkbeck, University of London. He also DJs. He is the author of <I>Ghosting</I> and <I>Twentysix</I>.</div>
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the first two paragraphs for this book.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: London Triptych
  A man's very highest moment is, I have no doubt at all, when he kneels in the dust, and beats his breast, and tells all the sins of his life.
  Another arrest reported in the papers this morning. Some poor sod caught in a public toilet. Hardly a week goes by without one. Now, I can't claim to know much about it, but it seems to me that when old men hang around public toilets while younger men are pissing, we aren't out for a glimpse of cock, or even a grope. No, in truth what roots us to the spot is the most profound feeling of envy because we can't piss like that any more. Respect, even. When you reach fifty, it trickles out.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me five more paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The only thing about becoming an adult that I rushed toward with open arms was that I would no longer suffer the brutality of school and could blot the experience from my memory, along with my desires. Life seemed so much easier for adults. In many ways, I was much more capable of conforming to the accepted behaviour of middle-class adults, though I say that with absolutely no feeling of pride whatsoever. I've always been too frightened to do anything else. My timidity shames me all the more since I met Gore.
  Sis ut videris was our school motto. "Be as you seem." No pretence, no airs, no affectations. We would become good, solid, bourgeois men, reliable, capable, honest, and true. Masculine. Transparent. Be as you seem. Ah, but we seemed, and still do, so much less than we really are or might be. Right down to marrying Joan, I did exactly as expected. I moved placidly within the narrow parameters set down during my childhood. I never once questioned whether anything lay beyond, never dared articulate my own desires or ambitions. My only outlet from this prison has been art, though until recently I was never anything other than an observer. Once I'd left art school, outside of work I never picked up a pencil, let alone a brush. Although I still visited galleries voraciously, I no longer thought to sketch those paintings that moved me the way I had when I was young, let alone attempt to create my own. I had locked away my joy in creating art when I began working. And yet now I cannot stop, producing countless sketches, good sketches, and finding myself itching to work in oils. For the first time in I don't know how long—perhaps ever—I feel exhilarated.
  This morning I finally began to prepare for a large oil painting of Gore. I haven't worked in oils for years, not since my art school days. The smell of the paints took me back instantly to a time when I was still able to dream of my life as an artist. Over the last few weeks, I've been working on preliminary sketches. A year ago I would never have believed that I would ever paint again.
  I stretched the canvas myself, relying only on memory, and am quite proud of the results. After over thirty years I could still remember each stage of the process. When I touched the coarse fabric, the past contracted into an instant and I was full of youth and optimism and I felt a pang of pity for that young man I was and wished that I could speak to him now and tell him to follow his dream. In this life, dreams are all we have to remind us of who we really are or should be. How different my life would have been if I'd been strong enough to defy everyone in the pursuit of freedom. How difficult life is without the freedom to discover who you are meant to be. I refuse to believe I was meant to be so unhappy. Making that canvas this morning felt like an act of rebellion and, in choosing to portray a beautiful man in my painting, I feel another sense of vertigo. Freedom is always vertiginous, just like desire.
  When you work as a designer you spend all your time pleasing others, those clients upon whose patronage you rely. It is, I suppose, a form of prostitution. You work hard at keeping them happy, doing what they want, at the expense of your own creativity. There is little scope for making yourself happy. Your happiness defers to that of another. The artist is as far away from this position as possible: the artist spends all his time and energy making himself happy. I please myself now. There is no one to tell me what to do, and that is quite frightening. Freedom is always frightening; that's why most people choose not to be free. I wouldn't say I'm any exception, but with these new paintings I'm planning, I feel as if I have no choice. I either paint what I see, the way I see it, or I don't bother.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the last three paragraphs.. End with the sentence ' And to Linda McQueen for her amazing copy-editing skills.'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: For all three men, their experience of London is, essentially, one of liberation. I repeated some locations to give a sense of different memories, different events, occurring within or upon the same geographical site, such as Highgate Cemetery or Barnes Common. The three men's lives unfold in tandem, as if simultaneously, transcending concrete time. It is, in that sense, very much a triptych.
  To all my gorgeous friends for their years of encouragement and humour, and for never doubting I'd get there in the end, especially: Michael Atavar, Darius Amini, John Lee Bird, Helen Boulter, Pippa Brooks, George Cayford, Matthew Fennemore, Johnny Golding, Lucien Gouiran, Sally Gross, Hally, Gerry Hislop, James Killough, Louise Lambe, Sadie Lee, Clayton Littlewood, David Male, Steve Muscroft, Joe Pop, Clive Reeve, Chris Rose, Matthew Stradling, Sue Smallwood, Roy Woolley.
  Endless gratitude to my literary agent, Adrian Weston; Candida Lacey, Vicky Blunden, and Corinne Pearlman at Myriad Editions. And to Linda McQueen for her amazing copy-editing skills.