Love, Death & Trousers: Fifty Stories from a Nearby Life

By Laura Francis and Alexander Masters

Stories gathered and edited from the lost diaries re-discovered in A Life Discarded

Autobiography
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A digital copy of the book in your chosen format plus your name printed in the list of supporters at the back of the book.

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$45  + shipping
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Signed Bookplate

A copy of the first edition hardback plus a specially designed book plate signed by Laura and Alexander.

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Read with a Friend

Two copies of the book with signed bookplates for each of you.

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  • 2 Hardbacks
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  • E-book
  • Both names in the back of the book
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$190  + shipping
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Original Sketch

A signed copy of the book with a signed and framed original art work from Laura’s personal sketchbook.

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  • Hardback
  • Signed bookplate
  • E-book
  • Your name in the back of the book
  • A framed sketch by Laura
  • Only 5 available
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$440  + shipping

Guest Editor

A signed and dedicated copy of the first edition hardback plus the chance to help Alexander by guest editing a section of Laura’s diary to be included in the final book (limited to six).

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  • Hardback
  • Signed bookplate
  • Personal dedication
  • E-book
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  • Restricted to 6
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$1,250  + shipping

Patron

Become one the book’s main patrons, listed on a special page at the front of the book, with multiple signed copies to gift or share. (Limited to four).

PLUS:

  • 10 Hardbacks
  • 10 Signed bookplates
  • E-book
  • Your name in a dedication at the front of the book
  • Only 4 available
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A nice day in general; just enjoying myself.  No particular thoughts, except perhaps I’d like to change my life.

Laura Francis, now 81 and one of the most prolific and eccentric diarists in history, was a live-in companion and domestic servant to an ageing professor of IT — ‘like his wife in every respect except the sex (thank goodness)’.

She barely knew how to cook and had no time for tidiness.  On several occasions during her decades of service, she grabbed a knife and was vicious to the old man’s furniture.  She was also funny, self-sacrificially kind, and a profound observer of loneliness and disappointment.

In 2016, she was tracked down by the award-winning investigative journalist, Alexander Masters, after 148 of her anonymous journals were rescued from a skip. The story of his pursuit and discovery was told in his book, A Discarded Life. But until now the million-plus words of Laura’s diaries haven’t been available to read.

Love, Death & Trousers is a collection of fifty exquisite, deeply personal short stories extracted from the diaries by Laura and Masters.  (The first eight stories, published in The Paris Review, were anthologised in The Best American Non-Required Reading).

Feel pretty sure I’ll have something published sometime in my lifetime — is inevitable really, even if hard won.

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