“Robert Hughes, the celebrated art critic reveals how his life was deeply scarred by the dark side of the Swinging Sixties.”
From the London Times:
When I was 28, an Australian living in late Sixties London, I launched into a marriage that brought me, along with early episodes of great delight and even a small ration of enlightenment, the most extreme and durable misery I had ever felt.
Her name was Danne: Danne Patricia Emerson. For a long time I believed I could not possibly exist without her; that there was no other woman on earth who could offer me the same sexual and emotional intensity. Erratically and episodically, she cherished the same fantasy about me.
And it was just that: a mutual fantasy. If there was ever a misalliance between two emotionally hypercharged and wolfishly immature people, it was our marriage. I was as unsuited to her as she was to me. The result was a disaster so complete that even now, 40 years and two marriages later, I shudder inwardly when I think about it, though I can’t and wouldn’t deny that we had some good times together — at first.
More here.