Gerald Durrell: The Authorised Biography By Douglas Botting, HarperCollins, ? 15 Generations of readers in the English speaking world would have been entertained by My Family and Other Animals, Gerald Durrell?s account of an idyllic childhood with charmingly dotty relations and sundry wildlife. While his books brought him fame and fortune, they were only a profitable sideline to what he considered his true vocation as a conservationist. For a man driven by a single ambition ? to have a zoo of his own ? Gerald was a many-sided personality: writer, raconteur, zoo keeper, television personality, cook and flirt. Douglas Botting?s massive biography tries to do him justice. By the time Gerald died just before his 70th birthday, he had packed a great deal into his life. But behind the ebullience was a darker side, given to depression and heavy drinking. Gerald had a tenuous connection with India where he was born but to which he did not return till he was in his fifties. His conventional father?s untimely death when his youngest son was barely out of his babyhood, cut his ties with India and the family returned to England. There followed a rake?s progress as his mother struggled to keep her brood together in a series of unsuitable lodgings with liberal doses of liquor ? a trait her son inherited. The dominant influences on the growing boy were his vague impractical mother and his bohemian brother, writer Lawrence Durrell. Gerald ?just growed??, precocious, taking refuge in natural history, with a near complete lack of any formal education. Later in life, Gerald pointed out that his crazy upbringing freed him from the hidebound attitudes of his class and time. Corfu figures largely in the book both in the years the family spent there and in Gerald?s attempts to capture the magic in writing. Pre-war Corfu was not the crowded tourist trap it has become (for which the Durrell brothers may be partly responsible) but quiet and cheap especially for a family chronically short of money. The family never got over their time on the island: Gerald?s brother Leslie became a wastrel and drifter. For Gerald, Corfu ?was like being born again??: it channelled his interest in natural history. But how much of the book was true? Botting quotes Gerald in the introduction where he admitted to taking liberties with the truth though he insisted that the anecdotes about the island were all true. In fact, Gerald fictionalised many details concerning his family: Larry, whose antics provide for some hilarious episodes, was married and lived separately. Botting rightly points out that such selection is common to many autobiographies. But the blend of detailed descriptions of nature and the clear-eyed vision of the child, Gerry, have proved irresistible. Corfu was to be a rich mine for Gerald into which he dipped whenever he was short of material. Botting is good in his accounts of Gerald?s early collecting expedition to remote places like the Cameroons and Paraguay and the impact of the fecundity of the tropical forest upon him. He later described this in his first book, The Overloaded Ark. But he is also critical of Gerald?s early attitudes towards Africans which smacked of the usual ?Great White Master??. However, his affectionate portrait of the bibulous Fon of Bafut is a classic of its kind. His experiences changed Gerald from collector to conservationist: from collecting animals for the conventional zoo he came to despise he realised the value of a zoo as a captive breeding centre for rare species. The reckless streak which led him to splurge a legacy on a collecting trip characterised his relationship with his first wife, Jacquie. Penniless, jobless and with no prospects, Gerald charmed her into eloping with him. Botting shows how Jacquie?s practicality and good sense sustained Gerald through the difficult years when money was short and the zoo would never materialise. She pushed him to write and helped him to put Jersey zoo on a sustainable footing. The bitter breakup of their marriage is described by Botting without undue partiality towards Gerald. The same sureness of touch is not there in describing Gerald?s courtship of his second wife, wildlife biologist Lee McGeorge. Half his age, she kept him dangling and, as Gerald admitted, may even have married him for his zoo. Readers could have done without the extensive quotations from sentimental poems and letters he wrote to her. The book is good on Gerald?s desperate struggles to establish his zoo and his brushes with red tape and the zoo establishment of the day. The idea of a zoo for captive breeding was new as were Gerald?s ideas on the care and treatment of zoo animals. Eventually, the zoo was set up in Jersey conveniently far from the mainland and its sclerotic attitudes. Botting uses extensive quotations from Gerald?s books for the atmosphere and fills in the details of fundraising and soured relationships which attended the zoo?s early years ? including an attempt to oust him. Some of Gerald?s books, like A Zoo in My Luggage, were written to drum up cash. The later part of the book becomes a chronicle of foreign trips and a record of triumphal progress as Gerald?s authority was acknowledged by authorities. But it was never enough and there are records of despair and bitterness at the low priority given to conservation. A personal triumph was the setting up of a zoo management training programme; the self-taught expert was now teaching others. The last part of the book describes Gerald?s battles with chronic liver disease, not helped by his formidable alcohol intake. Botting?s warts and all portrait does little to demolish Gerald?s larger-than-life personality. It emphasises his contribution to conservation and captive breeding. It explains the sources of the books that have been enjoyed by so many and the mixture of humour and seriousness with which he delivers his message: the decline of species not spectacular enough to catch the public eye like the Mauritian kestrel or the volcano rabbit of Mexico. As Gerald Durrell said, ?If you can make people laugh and at the same time get a message across, you?re three quarters of the way there.??