In Make Believe Diana Athill acclaimed author of Instead of a Letter & Stet remembers her turbulent friendship with Hakim Jamal a young black convert to the teachings of Malcolm X whom she met in London in the late 1960s. Despite a desperately troubled youth he became an eloquent spokesman for the black underclass was Jean Sebergs lover & published a book about Malcolm X before descending into a mania that had him believing he was God. A witness to his struggles Diana Athill writes with her characteristic honesty about her entanglement with Jamal Jamals relationship with the daughter of a British MP Gail Benson & the couples eventual murder.