— welcome, one and all
To the home of Mr. Lucky.Explicit., Hilarious., Heartbreaking., True.
The book
Mr Lucky — the whole of it, written down.
“Explicit, shocking, sad, heartbreaking, filthy, intense, sweary, real, searing, happy, eye-opening, joyful, forthright, rude, hilarious, educational, necessary, wonderful, moving, surprising, authentic, emotional, upsetting…”
These are YOUR words, not mine.
Compare the three editionsLook inside
Start reading, before you buy.
Chapter one
'A Star Is Born' — Redruth, Cornwall, 1956
“Our hero comes in to the world — and what a world he finds…”
Que Sera, Sera — Doris Day. No.1, 1956, the week he was born. Every chapter opens with the song that was in the charts that very week — a musical diary of a life.
Why people finish it in one sitting
No ghostwriter. No tidying up. No apologies.
Written by the man it happened to
No ghostwriter, no committee. One voice, from the first page to the last.
Honest, even when it costs him
Nineteen years he would rather forget are in here too, told without flinching.
Funny as often as it is hard
Readers report laughing out loud and crying within the same chapter. Both are intended.
It ends well
This is a survival story with a man in big red shoes at the end of it.
The films
One life, told for the screen in three parts.
Screenplay · Feature
Do Not Go Gentle…
Friends, come what may…
Logline: when Martin's life as a dutiful fiancé collapses after a drunken hookup, he is plunged into London's 1980 gay underground, where lust, betrayal and the cruelty of secrecy force him to confront who he truly is.
Read the full storyScreenplay · Feature
Five Boyfriends and a Funeral
FIVE boyfriends? What is WRONG with you?
Logline: a young gay man addicted to the idea of love is forced by the death of his best friend to re-examine the five relationships that shaped — and distorted — his search for 'the one'.
Read the full storyScreenplay · Feature
The Man in the Big Red Shoes
…All good things…
Martin returns home to Cornwall, hoping to find his lost self, and love. After a series of very unfortunate events, and a time when he becomes so small he almost disappears, he finally meets the Man in the Big Red Shoes and his life is transformed. He walks away into his best future.
Read the full storyA taste of it
The world of the book, in moving pictures.
The photographs, the letters, the songs, the life — a first taster of the story.
Turn the sound on — every chapter has its own song.
The story so far
From one morning in 1980 to the man in the big red shoes.
Thrown out
Engaged to Julie one morning, out on the street the next — after a night that changed the direction of a whole life.
London, and Chris
An old college friend becomes a guardian angel and an enfant terrible, and the clubs and bars of the Big City do the rest.
Five boyfriends
Five relationships, each exploding and imploding, none of them the one — and then the loss of the friend who made him brave.
Cornwall, trapped
Home was supposed to be peace. It was nineteen years of being made small instead.
The man in the big red shoes
By the slimmest chance imaginable, someone online becomes real, and real becomes forever.
Mr Lucky, published
The whole of it written down, in three editions, because nobody had written it down for people like him.
Reviews & praise
The words that arrived after the final page.
Every quote here came from someone who read Mr Lucky. Nothing rewritten, nothing tidied up.
Why the book exists
I own everything that happened to me.So I wrote it down, all of it, and left nothing out.
This is not a tidy story and it was never going to be a tidy book. It is funny, it is filthy, it is unbearable in places, and it ends with a man in big red shoes. If any of that sounds like your life too, it was written for you.
Mr Lucky — UK
Who it's for
Readers, book clubs and anyone who was there.
Anyone who loves a true story
Autobiography readers who want it told properly — shocks, surprises and all.
Book clubs & reading groups
Plenty to argue about. Nigel is happy to join a call and answer for himself.
Producers & screen readers
Three feature screenplays drawn from the memoir, available to read on request.
How it works
Read it, tell him, pass it on.
Read it
Start with Mr Lucky in whichever edition suits you — black and white, full colour, or hardback.
Tell him
Readers write to Nigel constantly. He answers every one of them himself, usually the same week.
Pass it on
Most copies get lent to somebody who needed it. That is exactly what the book is for.
Three editions
Same story. Pick your copy.
Paperback · Black & white
Black and white version
The memoir in its most portable form — the full, unedited story, in black and white.
- The complete memoir, unabridged
- Photographs in black and white
- Paperback binding
- Delivered by Amazon
Paperback · Full colour
Full colour version
Same story, every photograph in full colour — the faces, the clubs, the shoes.
- The complete memoir, unabridged
- All photographs in full colour
- Paperback binding
- Delivered by Amazon
Hardback · Full colour
Hardback colour version
The keepsake: full colour, hardbound, made to survive being read again.
- The complete memoir, unabridged
- All photographs in full colour
- Hardback binding
- Delivered by Amazon
Questions
Everything people ask first.
Still wondering about something? Write to Nigel — Nigel reads and answers every message himself.
On Amazon U.K., in three editions: a black and white paperback, a full colour paperback and a full colour hardback. Links to all three are on this site.
Start with the black and white paperback if you just want to read it. Choose full colour if the photographs matter to you, and the hardback if you plan to keep it or give it away.
Yes. Readers have called it explicit, filthy, sweary and shocking — and also joyful, hilarious and necessary. It is a true story and it is told honestly.
Not yet. Do Not Go, Five Boyfriends and Big Red Shoes are written screenplays. Producers and readers are welcome to get in touch.
Very often, yes — in person where practical and online anywhere. Use the invite page and say roughly when and how many of you there are.
Please do. He reads and answers every message himself.
The readers' group
The story continues on Facebook.
Readers from Cornwall to the UK and beyond swap favourite chapters, songs and stories in Nigel's readers' group. Pull up a chair — yours is the kind of story he wants to hear too.
Join the readers' groupNew work first
Letters from Nigel.
News about the book, the films and what's next — straight from Nigel, first. Occasional, personal, and worth the read.
Read it? Tell him.
Mr Lucky has a habit of making people write at midnight. Nigel reads every message himself — about the book, the films, or a story of your own.