A Man’s Own Life is a memoir of love, loss, and survival. From a working-class childhood in the fading seaside town of Weston-super-Mare, through the wild, glittering years of gay London in the 1980s and 90s, to an unexpected third act in Florida, Clayton Littlewood traces five decades of queer life in all its humour, heartbreak, and resilience. Along the way are lovers and friends — some lost to AIDS, others simply to time — whose voices still echo through the present. Wry, observant, and deeply honest, the memoir balances grief with absurd comedy, capturing everything from smoky Soho clubs and late-night Tube journeys to the quiet rituals of surviving and growing older. At its heart, A Man’s Own Life asks what it means to outlive the people you once believed would outlive you — and how to carry those you’ve loved forward without being crushed by their absence.