W. Grey Champion
RUMINATA: "THE SEXUAL THEORY OF EVERYTHING" AND OTHER APOSTASIES
By W. Grey Champion
Published in September 2022 by Luminare Press, the essay collection Ruminata brings W. Grey Champion back to the genre in which he is most comfortable. The eighteen essays are written in an expository style, rather than that of the personal memoir now more typical of the form. The title of the first essay appears as the subtitle of the book: “The Sexual Theory of Everything.” Topics are various, however, from serious questions of life and death, to the mundane and even the fanciful. Here Champion shares the perspective of his seventy-five years, a time of rapid change, overpopulation, globalization, and climate crisis.
The following, for example, are but a few of the questions the book addresses:
Given the reliable means of birth control now available, why does the human population continue to grow exponentially; what was travel like before commercial aviation, and how did people manage to keep in touch when it required a dime and a phone booth; absent evidence, is there an afterlife or a soul that can be reincarnated; perhaps you have searched in a supermarket for one certain product only to fail in finding what you want. Why must there be so many choices; what is it really like to be an old person, or married with children, and should you know something of it before making hasty decisions?
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Readers will find these essays thought provoking, informative, frequently humorous, and always entertaining. The perfect companion next to your easy chair with a cup of tea or a glass of port!
MORE THAN AN ACTOR: THE STORY OF PETER H.
By W. Grey Champion
Because the subject of this biography was so much more than an actor, the name Peter H. deliberately leads readers away from the distracting aura of his celebrity. The first chapter uses the artifice of referring to him as Peter. Only when he took on a stage name does it appear in the story. Known in life as Peter Jeremy William Huggins, he became the British actor Jeremy Brett, most remembered for his incomparable role as Sherlock Holmes in the television series of the 1980s.
The author only discovered him when that series was in reruns, and was astonished by the resemblance of the actor to the charismatic English teacher aforementioned, by whom he had been inspired. Researching Brett’s life, Champion found a most compelling story of an exemplary English gentleman: the youngest of four brothers, born and raised in the village of Berkswell, his father a decorated military veteran, his wonderful mother of the Cadbury family, Quaker in origin. A graduate of Eton and a protégé of Sir Laurence Olivier, yet Jeremy struggled: with bias, being bisexual; with mental illness, being bipolar. Then as fate would have it, double tragedies: he lost his dear mother to a car accident when he was still in his twenties, and later in life his soulmate and wife, Joan Sullivan, to cancer. His rheumatic heart failed in 1995 due to the lithium he required to control bipolar disorder.
When Champion learned that this story of triumph in the face of calamity had not been told, he took it upon himself. The book was published in 2018. A good deal of the book is in a narrative, fictional style, though following the chronology of Brett's life and career. Considerable research went into it, and there are 164 endnotes. A beautiful tale for all its tragedy, the biography is popular with fans of Brett, of which there are still scores around the world.
CONJURING ARCHANGEL: CHRONICLE OF A JOURNEY ON THE PATH
By W. Grey Champion
The author was encouraged to write this first book by his American friend Anna, a fellow writer and companion on the Buddhist path. As retirement loomed and he decided to take up the writing life, she suggested his first priority should be to write about his experience with Buddhism, in such a way as to bridge the misunderstanding on the part of most Western people, among whom so many are spiritual orphans, disenchanted with the Abrahamic religions established in the West, and discomfited by the cold conclusions of science. Rather than the usual arid dissertation on this subject, he proposed to make it a dialogue, as with a Zen master in dokusan.
Anna, who holds a strong belief in angels, especially her own guardian angel, was on board right away, volunteering herself as protagonist along with her guardian, provided he was promoted into the bargain to Archangel. The deal was done, and so with Anna querying Archangel in nightly sessions with regard to the many ways Buddhism applies to modern life, the practical value of its precepts unfolded, especially in terms of our personal struggles. Considerable emphasis also is given to the importance of zazen, the Buddhist meditation practice.
Published in 2015 by Balboa Press, Conjuring Archangel gives time for reflection, and thus is best kept by a reader’s bedside, not as an opiate, more as a voucher for pleasant dreams!