During the war, Sassoon's poetry had become very successful. After the war, however, he went through a period of great unhappiness. His friend Rivers died suddenly, and he felt he had nothing left to write about. He realised that he was homosexual, but he was unable to find a partner he could rely on. He thought of becoming a politician, but began writing for the newspapers instead. After a few years, a friend suggested that he should write about his experiences in a novel. Sassoon did so, writing about his early life and calling the book "Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man" (1928). He published the book anonymously, because he was well known as a poet and had doubts about his ability to write prose. To disguise his identity, he called the hero "George Sherston", but the character was based on Sassoon himself. The book turned out to be a huge success, and Sassoon wrote two sequels to it. He later wrote three more prose books about his life, this time without disguising any of the characters, and these were also very successful.