In the first volume of his bestselling autobiography, novelist, playwright and former barrister John Mortimer relates all the pleasures and paradoxes of his early life. With wit and style, he takes us from his unusual childhood (his father, a blind barrister, insisted that his wife read the sordid details of his divorce briefs in public) to the dilemmas of his life in the law (one of his clients indignantly declared, ‘Your Mr Rumpole could’ve gotten me out of this, why the hell can’t you!’). Filled with laughter and a sense of the absurd, Clinging to the Wreckage is an extraordinary insight into the rich life of one of the great figures of our time.