The Animals

Christopher Isherwood, Don Bachardy, Katherine Bucknell

"The love story between Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy--in their own words Christopher Isherwood was the celebrated middle-aged English author of Goodbye to Berlin when he met the Californian teenager Don Bachardy on a Santa Monica beach in 1952. Defying convention, the two created an enduring relationship out of that initial spark--living as an openly gay couple for more than three decades in the closeted world of Hollywood. The Animals is the testimony in letters of their extraordinary partnership, which lasted until Isherwood's death in 1986--despite a thirty-year age gap, affairs, jealousies, the pressures of literary fame, and the disdain of twentieth-century America for love between two men. In romantic letters to each other, they invented the private world of the Animals. Chris was Dobbin, a stubborn old workhorse; Don was a rash, spirited white kitten named Kitty. The...