Al Alvarez, poet, critic, novelist, sportsman, poker player, had for seventy years been hard to categorize. Author of over twenty books including POKER and THE BIGGEST GAME IN TOWN he was one of the great writers of the 20th Century. He died in 2019.

Using the untimely death of the poet and friend, Sylvia Plath, as a point of departure, Al Alvarez confronts the controversial and often taboo area of human behaviour: suicide. The Savage God explores the cultural attitudes, theories, truths and fallacies surrounding suicide and refracts them through the windows of philosophy, art and literature: following the black thread leading from Dante, through Donne, Chatterton and the Romantic Agony, to Dada and Pavese. Entwined within this sensitive study is the author's deeply personal account of his own unsuccessful suicide attempt, and together they form the most fascinating and compelling meditation on the Savage God at the heart of human existence.

An intelligent and sympathetic analysis of one of the true taboos of modern life.