Terry Gilliam is perhaps best known for his work as a member of Monty Python's Flying Circus, but paradoxically is possibly the least-known Python.
To some extent, he was the odd one out - not British, not Oxbridge-educated, not an established comedy writer - but he was nonetheless an essential member of the troupe.
His surreal animations were part of what enabled the TV series to break the mould of established British TV comedy.
Apart from being entertaining in their own right, they enabled the other five members to be ''liberated from the dominion of the conventional punchline'' by linking material that may have seemed quite unconnected.
Despite this, the book makes it clear that Python was just one part of a colourful life, albeit one that no doubt opened doors.
Self-described as a Minnesota farm boy who went to college on a missionary scholarship, he had stints cartooning for Mad magazine and working in the Madison Ave advertising industry.
Post-Python came the role that I gained the impression is the one for which Gilliam may prefer to be remembered, that of film director.
However, even that aspect of his life got its first break through Python when, after frustrations with the director of their first film, And Now For Something Completely Different, Gilliam and Terry Jones naively offered their services to direct Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Gilliam soon realised that directing required a level of dictatorship not suited to a shared position, so he left Jones to helm the remaining Python films and commenced work on his own eclectic and extensive oeuvre.
The making of the dystopian Brazil is covered extensively, and in particular Gilliam's lengthy battle - ultimately largely successful - with Universal Studios, which essentially tried to bully the director into giving the film a happy ending, a feature that could alter the whole character of the work.
The book is well-illustrated with Gilliam's own drawings as well as extensive archival photographs.
The text has a tendency to ramble at times, but ultimately it provides a good insight to the author's life and mind that will be enjoyed by fans of his work.
• David Barnes is a Dunedin writer and Monty Python fan.
