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John Healy’s devastating autobiography The Grass Arena (New in Chess) was first published in 1988 to great critical acclaim. It won the J.R. Ackerley Prize for Autobiography, and was made into a multi-award-winning film. It gained many fans, and some establishment sceptics, all astonished that a man who had left school at 14 and spent fifteen brutal, alcoholic years living rough on the streets of London, could write such a fine and compelling work. Twenty years on it has lost none of its power to grip, or its elegance and verve. After a decade out of print, Penguin is delighted to be publishing it as a Modern Classic for the first time.
John Healy, brought up in a poor Irish immigrant family in Kentish Town, was a child when he discovered that drink offered a release from his violent and unpredictable father. Stints in the army, the boxing ring and military prison couldn’t save him from spiralling into alcoholism and homelessness. For fifteen years he dossed, drank and fought in the grass arena – the parks and open spaces of London – with beggars, thieves, prostitutes and killers. Healy tells of darkly funny schemes to purloin the next drink with his fellows – The Dipper or The Sham – which turn in an instant into desperate accounts of murder over prostitutes or a bottle, or the begging of money. The only respite comes from the police cells and prison, where he is treated with casual brutality and contempt and kicked back onto London’s streets. Here, racked by meths, homelessness and dog-end cigarettes, the premature and ugly death of the vagrant looks inevitable.
On one occasion in prison, though, something remarkable happens. Healy learns chess... and becomes hooked. He gives up alcohol, plays obsessively and becomes a tournament champion. He finds himself in a new arena where the conflicts are subject to unfamiliar, middle-class rules, but where the old school tie cannot hide the seething aggression and mania of competitive chess players. He realises that he has given up one addiction for another, and his search for peace of mind, and friendship, has to continue.
Recently we published an article on the new film coming out about Healy, Barbaric Genius
What brutal style comes out of such a route to becoming a chessplayer?? What kind of chess player was John Healy? For this we have prepared a series of games played by this enigmatic character, for you to decide. The following are annotated by Healy himself.
A crushing attack. Healy misevaluates his opponent's resources, as 4...Ne6 would not have saved Black. White would still have some crushing resources, none of which is 5.f3?! Can you find the correct way to continue the attack? The line given does not devalue the beauty of the finishing attack.
Was his opening the best in the world? Kramnik might disagree, but his opponent could not resist the attack!
This game truly speaks for himself. Pure devastation! If anyone had to describe the 'ultimate in coffehouse chess', well, this would be it.
The brilliant coffeehouse attacker in action, exhibiting his skills in a simultaneous
