Al Alvarez has been at the centre of British literary life for nearly 40 years. His 1969 study of suicide, "The savage god", is recognised as a classic. As poetry editor of "The Observer" in its heyday, Alvarez knew, influenced and was friends with an extraordinary array of writers - Auden, Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath, Robert Lowell, John Berryman (who, like Plath, committed suicide), John le Carre (his next-door neighbour), and many more. He was born into a prosperous North London Jewish family of caterers. He went to Oundle and to Oxford where, unusually for a budding poet, he was a keen and successful sportsman. He went on to write poetry, novels, literary criticism and a host of non-fiction. So far so true. What such a description hides is the extraordinary array of characters that Alvarez vividly brings to life. Remember the two grandmothers in "Cider with Rosie"? Al Alvarez had grandfathers too. His best friend flies aeroplanes upside down. His first marriage was a (highly entertaining for us) disaster, from which he emerged to write a compelling study of divorce (beginning with Sterne's epigram: "When a man marries, he must realise he gives up forever the pleasure of lying diagonally in bed").