‘Wilson has written a cultural exploration of post-World War II America, when the country appeared to cast off the last shackles of Puritanism in order to embrace guilt-free hedonism – sex, drugs, money and pleasure’ USA Today

HAROLD ROBBINS: THE MAN WHO INVENTED SEX

Harold Robbins, the godfather of the airport novel pulsating with sex and glamour, changed the face of publishing with classics such as "The Carpetbaggers", "The Dream Merchants" and "The Lonely Lady". His readers loved his steamy tales of money, soft porn, drugs, corruption, greed and, just sometimes, redemption. In his lifetime, his book sales exceeded 750 million, and he became as much a part of the sexual and social revolution as the Pill, "Playboy" and pot. The world's first playboy writer, he reportedly frittered away $50 million on fast cars, loose women and high living. Obsessed with fame and fortune, Harold Robbins was a deeply complex and often controversial man; a constant master of self-invention, even his closest friends and lovers could only guess at the past of the man behind the perma-tanned mask and gigantic mirrored sunglasses.
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Rachel Cooke, The Observer
'But he is too sensible to start making daffy claims for the quality of his prose or his storytelling which ... could be spectacularly awful. This liberates Wilson. He is free to get on with the real business of this book - dishing the details of Robbins's silly and sometimes squalid life'
Blake Morrison, The XXX
'His life makes a fascinating cautionary tale, and Andrew Wilson tells it with wit and concision'