Not since Frank Harris's "My Life and Loves", or Walter's "My Secret Life" have I encountered such a shameless piece of sexual self-aggrandisment. True the book has its moments. There are colourful glimpses of of terrorists at play - some truly peculair drinking habits, the whole wretched mileu of Belfast and Derry during the Troubles is well depicted, and the various atrocities are recounted in visceral detail (often at first hand). But the real theme of this book is what a great lover Kevin Myers is. His conquests are never mundane. They include a virgin, a lesbian, a married woman having her first affair, a woman having a last fling before marriage, and the most beautiful prostitute in the history of hookers (rejected becasue he doesn't "pay for sex"). Then there are the Carry On antics with a senior republican's wife's and a balancing act with a well-known loyalist's wife etc. etc. And finally we even get Myers having sex with the person he loves most in the world - himself. But who could blame him for this, he being so handsome - we know this because he tells us so a number of times.
I've always thought that Myers was a very good news journalist - I remember some excellent pieces he did from the Lebanon for the Irish Times. A lot of the reportage in the book confirms this impression. His current opinion pieces in the Independent sound like the dyspeptic ramblings of a retired colonel from Leamington Spa. He needs to get out more.
