Oh the bookseller's life is a hard one

Over at the The Bedside Crow, the independent-bookseller blogger has a review of Andrew Laties's book Rebel Bookseller.

This review sets out succinctly some of the problems facing small booksellers these days, and it is a thoroughly entertaining read. But it is often the case, of course, that it is highly entertaining to read about someone else's pain and difficulty. It is when one is experiencing pain and difficulty oneself that it becomes harder to laugh. Or even smile.

Meanwhile, Michael Cader, in yesterday's Publishers Lunch newsletter, continued to pour scorn on the behaviour of the retail side of the UK book trade.

The 'UK market continues to sow its own destruction', he says, quoting by way of an example the Telegraph interview with James Heneage, founder of Ottakar's. Cader adds:

Prominent publishers at a London Book Fair panel insisted they don't extra discount to the Tescos of the world. Heneage says they do, and that has been the undoing of his once-successful and fast-growing chain of stores. "They can undercut because they get better terms from the publishers." (The latest stroke of genius being considered by UK publishers, which you have may heard about, is to destroy their traditional market even more by raising cover prices on new hardcovers. The hope is that this allows traditional stores to offer better fake discounts to naive consumers, which will somehow keep them from realizing that the books are still cheaper elsewhere.

Ah me. And secondly meanwhile, Clive Keeble slaps my wrist again for failing to mention that all books are (normally) available from your friendly local bookseller, whose children can already be recognised by the absence of shoes. Yes, yes, I am guilty as charged, I have failed to do those things which I ought to have done. (Whether I have also done those things which I ought not to have done is not a matter on which I am prepared to comment.) But I have sent Mrs GOB to our local man to buy my birthday present, Clive. Promise.

17th Street from the inside

No, no, don't switch off. I know that you asssociate 17th Street with Kaavya Viswanathan, and I know that you are weary of all that. But I have something new. Honest.

Well, actually John Barlow has something new. He has actually been there -- metaphorically speaking. He has worked with the guys at 17th Street, and got money off them! Which he didn't have to pay back! Now if that isn't worth your time I don't know what is.

John also has a blog, don't forget.

Meanwhile, Reuters report that Kaavya Viswanathan's novel -- good, bad, or indifferent, original or totally pinched -- has been pulled off the shelves by her publisher (link from booktrade.info).

The Columbia MFA

It seems that not everyone is happy about the MFA degree in creative writing which is offered by Columbia University in New York.

Mark Slouka, who describes himself as a 'second-generation Columbian' (which presumably means he's an alumnus) is also a professor in the department of English language and literature and the chair of the creative-writing program at the University of Chicago. So he probably knows what he's talking about. And he has absolutely nothing kind to say about the Columbia approach to teaching writing (link from Maud Newton).

Slouka calls the Columbia MFA 'a self-perpetuating cycle of mediocrity', and refers, for instance, to:

...master’s theses that are routinely passed despite the fact that the level of writing exhibited in them is remedial at best and virtually illiterate at worst, tenure-track hires of close personal friends of the chair who have, quite literally, not a single publication credit to their names and who are hired over candidates with two and three books — resulting in a situation in which students often have more experience and more publications than their instructors, and an institutional culture in which those who have done nothing for 10 or 15 years hire others like themselves in order to make their own lack of accomplishment less visible.

And as if that's not enough, Felicia Sullivan, a graduate of the course, adds her own endorsement of the article:

'A -fucking-MEN. The comic highlight of my year? A letter from Columbia asking me to donate money to the MFA program and its students. Are you kidding me?! I wish I could have gotten some of my money back from some of the incompetent professors who i’ve suffered classes with...

Golly. Crumbs. Who would have guessed that a creative-writing degree would be taught by people who've never done anything much, and be an expensive waste of the students' time? Hard to believe really, isn't it? Although such opinions have been voiced before.

Excerpt 20

Here is the latest excerpt from my new novel, How and why Lisa's Dad got to be famous. Please remember that, if this excerpt is of the slightest interest, a free pdf copy of the entire book can be obtained through this link. (If you want a copy in any other format, please write.) Also, should you be overwhelmed by an irresistible urge to buy a copy of the book, you can obtain one (in the UK) from any bookshop. Theoretically that should also be possible in the US. If you wish to order online, UK retailers such Tesco.com and Play.com both offer the book with prompt delivery. American readers can buy from Amazon.com. Delivery times on Amazon.co.uk are at present unaccceptable, despite what it says about 'usually despatched within 24 hours'.

Letting people know

So, we went out and had dinner with Con. To celebrate.

Con got drunk. Debbie and I had a fair bit, but not enough to be paralytic. It would have spoilt the sex, and neither of us wanted that. After Con had gone home – well, actually after we’d taken him home – we jumped straight into bed and it got a bit frantic. It took us both a bit by surprise, to tell you the truth. But that’s the way it was.

The next morning we had a bit of a chat, and decided that we ought to go round and explain things to a few friends. Con was plunging ahead with arranging this and arranging that. He was talking about shooting schedules and all of that stuff. So he was clearly going to get on with it. And Debbie and I decided that there were some people who ought to hear about the TV show from us rather than anyone else.

Funnily enough, neither Debbie or I thought we would have any trouble from people. We were a bit simple there I think. Because it was a lot for people to take in, all at once. We started with Debbie’s Mum and Dad. We didn’t tell them too much. Not to begin with. But we told them everything important.

They took it pretty well. They asked a lot of questions of course. But in the end Debbie’s Mum looked pleased. Her Dad didn’t. He just looked as if nothing Debbie said would surprise him any longer. But he kissed her and said he was sure she would do well.

‘Thanks, Dad,’ she said. She ruffled his hair – what he had left of it – and laughed.

Then we went to see my best man, Jack, and his wife Sarah. If you remember, they were the people I got to introduce Debbie and me. Sarah being one of Debbie’s best friends. They were in the same year at school.

Jack and Sarah were a bit stunned if you ask me. Neither of them could believe it. Which made Debbie and me laugh like drains when we talked about it later. They as good as said to Debbie and me, Why are you two going to be on TV? What’s so special about you?

Anyway, we told them.

We also told everyone about me being HIV of course. That was the hard bit. People said how sorry they were. You could see straight off that they thought I was going to die in about six months. So I had to spend a lot of time explaining about that. Once they got over the shock of the HIV thing, the idea of Debbie and me being on telly wasn’t so hard for them to accept.

Debbie’s Mum and Dad took the HIV bit best, funnily enough. But then they’re educated people. They both said it was very unfortunate, but that it wasn’t a death sentence any longer. And they were sure we would be very careful.

I think they both knew Debbie well enough to know that she would do whatever she felt like doing anyway, and they’d better get used to it. And they didn’t want to fall out with her.

I realise now that Debbie’s Mum and Dad had been really worried when she went away and started working with GLAPSTOW. Risking her life to make the world a better place. Debbie’s Mum told me later that she hardly had a decent night’s sleep for three years. Debbie did some really wild things in those days. So when she came back home they were really relieved. And if now she was going to go out with a bloke who was HIV – well, that wasn’t so bad compared with what might have been. They might have lost her altogether. And by that time they knew full well that she was never going to be just an ordinary little wife and Mum.

One way and another though, we left quite a few people sitting there with their mouths open.

Oh, and I told the pub landlord, of course. Tony. I went in early one morning, immediately after he opened. I asked him if he had a few minutes to spare and he was kind enough to listen. Once he realised that it was going to take a little while he took me into one of his private rooms.

So, I went through the whole thing with him. Didn’t tell him exactly how I got HIV but he seemed to know anyway. Word gets around it seems. Then I went through the TV show and the rest of it.

I warned Tony that there would probably be a TV crew following me around at various times in the next few weeks. I asked him how he would feel about letting them into the pub. All right, he said. Good advertisement. I wasn’t so sure about that, but I didn’t argue.

Whenever we saw someone, Debbie and I, we told them as much as we could without taking up too much of everyone’s time. And we told everybody that it wasn’t a secret – they could tell anyone else if they wanted to. Which they would have done anyway, of course.

Funnily enough I didn’t tell my ex-wife, Carol. Couldn’t face that. And anyway, to be perfectly honest I didn’t think it was any of her business.

After about a week Debbie and I thought we had covered everybody. So we drew up a list, just to make sure.

As far as we could see we’d seen everybody that mattered. All our friends and relations.

‘In any case,’ said Debbie, ‘it really doesn’t matter if we’ve left anybody out. Before long the whole world will know.’

As it turned out, Debbie was right. Before long it seemed as if the whole world did know.

The Da Vinci code cracked

Today's Times carries a report to the effect that the written judgement of Mr Justice Peter Smith in the recent Da Vinci plagiarism case contains a secret coded message. And the Guardian has more detail (link from booktrade.info).

Well yes. Indeed. One would expect nothing less.

But wait. There is more. My mole in the Smithsonian Institute, Washington, sent me an email (coded, of course) this morning, telling me that scientists have recently re-examined a lump of moon rock which is lodged in the Institute's care. What they have found is that if you examine the atomic structure of the rock, under an electron microscope, and then look at it in a mirror, you can see a message placed there by aliens many centuries ago.

When decoded, this message says: The moon is actually made of green cheese. To be precise, Camembert.

Remember: you heard it here first.

The university press and original fiction

In January this year we took note of the establishment of the Mainstay Press, a high-powered and intellectually motivated publishing company. Well, now things are moving.

Visit the Mainstay web site and you will find details of the company's first five books, with one a month to come well into 2007.

Two of the books listed are by Tony Christini, these being the first two volumes in his Homefront trilogy of novels. The two novels are overtly political works of fiction, exploring the 'private and public ramifications of militant U.S. policy.'

Directly relevant to all this is a short essay that Tony Christini has published online, entitled The University Press and Original Fiction. In this essay, he argues that university presses have a duty -- I don't think that's too strong a word -- to publish works of fiction which are notably uncommercial, because of their serious nature and purpose, and which also, ideally, constitute a cultural critique.

'Doesn't it appear to anyone (Tony asks) to be the slightest bit irresponsible for all the university presses combined, several years now into the Iraq War, let alone the prolonged build-up, to not have published even a single (as far as I'm aware) culturally critical novel about the Iraq War?'

Well, ahem, actually, Tony, no. It doesn't seem at all irresponsible to me. Rather the reverse.

As it happens, I ran a university press for a number of years. I can't say that I ever sat down and wrote out, or even thought out, a mission statement for that press (and perhaps that was irresponsible); but if I had, I doubt whether it would have included a duty to publish fiction, of any kind. Furthermore, if I had come to the conclusion that the publication schedule should include fiction, whether serious, culturally critical, or any other kind, I doubt that I could have carried the university decision-making bodies along with me.

The precise aims of any given university press will be determined by the university of which it is a part. But they will normally include, and concentrate upon, the dissemination of research. In the past, such presses might reasonably have been expected to expend more than they brought in, and this would have been regarded as a legitimate call on the university purse. But not, I suspect any more. Certainly not in the UK. Today any press will be expected, I think, to wipe its own nose, if not come up with a handsome contribution to the university's coffers.

And besides. What's all this about 'serious fiction'? All fiction, I would submit, is serious. The people who write it take it seriously -- if they expect it to be any good, and to see the light of day -- even if they are writing what Tony Christini refers to as 'fluff or worse'. And where, I enquire politely, are the intellectual arguments which demonstrate that 'serious fiction', as commonly defined, makes a more valuable contribution to society than 'fluff or worse'? I know of none. Assertions, yes. But proof, no.

No. I dare say that there are some university presses which already publish fiction (Oxford, I believe, is one). But personally I think that this argument for university presses to get into the fiction business on any scale is a non-starter. And while it might have been arguable thirty or forty years ago, times have surely changed. Today, even the most 'serious' stuff -- of minority interest -- can be put before the public at minimum cost. By the author himself if necessary. And, as someone who has seen the sales figures for both a good many university press books and some self-published ones, I can tell you that a self-published book stands just as much chance in the marketplace as one from a university press -- despite the inherent 'prestige' of the latter. This is, admittedly a pretty slim chance; but it's no less promising.

Anyway, you'll just have to read Tony Christini's article yourself and see what you think. But if you're the author of a piece of 'serious' fiction, I wouldn't hold your breath in the hope that university presses are shortly going to offer you a contract..

Richard Rathwell: Red the Nile, Blue the Hills

Every so often I pick up a novel, or get sent one, and read it, and then I find that it's part of a sort of movement. Thus it was that I came to hear about the Underground Literary Alliance, for instance (through reading, as I recall, Noah Cicero's Burning Babies -- though Noah, I think, has since parted from the ULA).

And now it's happened again. I have been reading Richard Rathwell's Red the Nile, Blue the Hills -- fairly painlessly, on the whole -- and now that I come to look him up, I find that he's part of a considerable gang of like thinkers. (Although, in the course of time, like thinkers tend to discover a few differences in their thinking, fall out, and go their separate ways. E.g. Noah, mentioned above. And see, for instance, this account of a little ding-dong at the Friday Project; found for me by a commenter on the Scott Pack relocation story.)

Richard Rathwell is a Canadian novelist and poet. He has been around for some time and has usually been involved in controversy. His high school teachers found him 'oppositional', and he was named in the Canadian Parliament as a dangerous person in relation to the Gastown riots of 1971. He has taught literature in various countries and has worked as a consultant/adviser to the World Bank, the World Health Organization, and the British Foreign Office. He has had lots of experience in aid organisations and has worked in many African countries; and this latter experience is, I think, the key to his novel Red the Nile, Blue the Hills.

Richard has written four novels and various chapbooks, all of which are published by Blue Orange Publishing. This is a small firm which has also been around for some time and seems to have very definite views on how things should be done.

All of that I discovered after reading Red the Nile, Blue the Hills. So, what do we have?

Well, I find myself stumped for a quick summary of this novel, though I found it interesting enough to read. The principal character is Hank Rousseau, who works for a large international children's charity. As the title suggests, most of the action takes place in Egypt, though there are excursions to Albania and Ireland.

The plot? Hmm. Well, Hank becomes involved in troubleshooting, in particular investigating the death/disappearance of various of his organisation's staff. There's a lot of organisational infighting; huge amounts of local colour. And some violence. A lot of travel. And confusion. And if that all sounds a bit vague and confused, then that's because that's the way the novel left me. And maybe that's the point, because Blue Orange evolved from the Blue Apple Group of international surrealists, which operated in Ireland in the late 1970s and 1980s. So perhaps total clarity is not the desired end.

The author's brother, acting as publicist, described the book, in an email to me, as an adventure story set in an exotic land, and as a comic book. Well, I wouldn't disagree with that; though it's not a traditional sort of Wilbur Smith adventure story; and it is perhaps not so much comic, in the ho ho ho sense, as satirical. I take it to be an expose and critique, if you will, of the mysterious and largely self-serving ways in which large multi-national aid agencies actually work.

Hank, the leading character, is also confused in places. At one point he finds himself in Ireland, without quite knowing how he got there. In that respect, this book reminds me of Robert Irwin's The Arabian Nightmare. And believe me, it took some delving into the old memory to remember the correct title and author of that one. But the Nightmare itself I remember all right, because it was quite a frightening account of a man trapped in his dreams: unable to tell the difference between reality and nightmare. That book was also set in Egypt.

One thing I can tell you about Red the Nile, Blue the Hills is that it is exceptionally well written in places. Chapter one, after a prologue, offers a description of the North African wind which contrives to tell you an extraordinary amount about Egypt, its people, customs, and tastes, and also introduces Hank Rousseau of the World Relief Agency. It is the kind of prose which I can only describe as information-dense. Impressive, if not altogether reader-friendly. But then you'll surely have gathered by now that Richard Rathwell is an unusual kind of writer.

To whom would this book appeal? Well, it would, I suspect, appeal to any westerner who has lived and worked in Egypt. Anyone who has worked in a big, bureaucratic, international aid agency. Expats generally. And anyone with a taste for eccentric fiction: this is a strange, complex, deep novel.

And how, you must be wondering, can you buy a copy? Answer, go to Amazon.co.uk.

If you would like to get a taster of Richard Rathwell's work, try Almost Every Time I was Detained: it's on his blog, 21 February 2006. But you'll have to go into the archives and scroll down, because I can't get a direct link to work.

Excerpt 19

Here is the latest excerpt from my new novel, How and why Lisa's Dad got to be famous. Please remember that, if this excerpt is of the slightest interest, a free pdf copy of the entire book can be obtained through this link. (If you want a copy in any other format, please write.) Also, should you be overwhelmed by an irresistible urge to buy a copy of the book, you can obtain one (in the UK) from any bookshop. Theoretically that should also be possible in the US. If you wish to order online, UK retailers such Tesco.com and Play.com both offer the book with prompt delivery. American readers can buy from Amazon.com. Delivery times on Amazon.co.uk are at present unaccceptable, despite what it says about 'usually despatched within 24 hours'.

Debbie makes Con happy

Nothing much happened for a day or two.

Well, when I say nothing happened, I mean nothing happened to me. Quite a lot happened to Debbie and Con.

I never did get to hear the detail, and I probably wouldn’t have understood it if I had. From what I heard later I gather there was a lot of talk about guarantees, and residuals, and digital rights. And percentages. And off the top. And bottom line. And above the line. Expenses. Net profit, definition of. And a lot more.

On the whole I’m quite glad I wasn’t there. I have enough trouble measuring six and five eighths.

Anyway, that’s what they did. Debbie and Con. Most of one Monday morning. They sat across a table and played poker. Or who blinks first.

Con used to reckon that was his favourite game. Who blinks first. Said he was good at it. But from what I heard I reckon Debbie beat him hollow.

Not that she ever boasted about it. And of course Con had the advantage because he knew the business. Debbie and I knew nothing about television. Though we’ve learnt quite a lot since.

Eventually, somewhere about two o’clock, they both decided they needed some lunch so they came to an agreement. Subject, of course, to approval from what Con called head office. He sucked his teeth a lot and said he wasn’t sure Mr Patel would stand for that. And someone else was very firm on the other. And he wasn’t sure it was a wise move for him to seem as soft as he had been. But, in the circumstances…

So, Con bogged off to do some mobile phoning. I reckon he ought to have that phone surgically attached. It would be a lot easier for him. As it is he has to have treatment for stiff necks because of holding the thing against his shoulder. Debbie introduced him to her physiotherapist.

I got home about half-past five that day, and Con came in about six. I’d spent a few minutes on household things, and I was hoping he wouldn’t turn up until after I’d sorted out what I was going to do for a meal. Eventually I had to do what I’d been hoping I wouldn’t have to do. I invited him to stay for a meal with me.

‘We’ll go out, mate,’ he said. ‘One way or another we’ll go out. I’m still waiting for a call from HQ. And either we’ll have a deal with Debbie, in which case the three of us will go out and celebrate, or else we won’t have a deal, in which case you and me have got some serious talking to do.’

And then he carried on mooching around and making a nuisance of himself, like he had been for the past half hour.

Every so often he seemed to need to talk to me. Told me his life history, pretty near.

‘We’ve got a lot riding on this thing, you know, Harry. You and me both. I originated this show, you know. Developed the concept. Pitched it to Mr Patel. Got myself a good deal, between you and me. If all goes well, and the show catches fire, it’ll be franchised all over the world. And that’s where the money is, Harry.’

Well that’s where it is for you, Con, I thought. But what about me and Debbie? Debbie I thought had probably looked after herself, but I hadn’t been too clever. Well never mind. I could live with that. If I got even half of what had been talked about I’d be well pleased.

Con went on prattling and I just finished the things I’d been doing around the house. Then I went and changed my clothes.

While I was doing that I heard Con’s phone ring. I stepped out on to the landing and looked down into the living room. I nearly laughed out loud. Con was standing up to take that call! Standing to attention, as if he was a soldier!

‘Yes, sir,’ he as saying. ‘No sir…. No, quite happy about that, sir. No, nude is not a problem, sir…. Marvellous figure, sir, marvellous. Good for page three….’

Hmm, I thought, was she indeed? What did Con know about Debbie’s figure? And what was all this about nude? I was beginning to think I really should have read the contract more carefully.

‘Yes, sir, fully briefed on that. Yes, sir, I quite understand…. Yes, I’m waiting to see her now, sir…. Unless she’s changed her mind, sir. You know what women are…. Yes, sir. Thank you very much, sir.’

And three bags full, sir, I thought.

After he’d rung off I finished changing and then went downstairs. I noticed he looked a bit pale.

‘Any luck?’ I asked him.

‘Some,’ he said. ‘That was Mr Patel himself, Harry. Scares the shit out of me when he rings me.’

Well I could see that. ‘And is he pleased with you, Con? Or not?’

‘He doesn’t like some of it. But says if that’s what it takes to strike a deal with Debbie, so be it.’ He looked at me. ‘She drives a hard bargain, your Debbie, Harry. Hard bloody bargain. You’ve got a smart one there. I’ve had to give her some of my share to get this thing off the ground. Still, if that’s what it takes. Thing is, we must just hope she isn’t like some of ‘em. Too smart for her own good.’

I made us both a cup of tea.

Con said Debbie was supposed to come round at half-past six. But actually it was nearer half-past seven when she turned up. I thought at the time that she was doing it deliberately, and I know now that she was. She wanted to make him sweat.

Eventually she did arrive. She looked like a million dollars.

By this time Con was sweating. I mean literally. OK, so the house is centrally heated, but it wasn’t the temperature. It was the stress. His eyes seemed to have sunk into his head, and he kept licking his lips.

Debbie came in, all cheerful and smiles. ‘Hello, boys!’ she said. ‘How’s your mother off for dripping?’

I never did know what she meant by that, but she used to say it all the time.

She gave me a little kiss, and I had to control myself. On our own I would have grabbed her and given her a seeing-to right there. And I could see she felt the same. But I wasn’t going to do it with Con as an audience. Not yet, anyway.

Debbie and I had a little chat. Then she made polite noises to Con. And I asked her if she wanted a cup of tea or something. And she said yes, so I went off to make her one.

I will say this for Con. He had enough self-control to wait.

He sat down, and she sat there too. And they had a little chat about how cold it was. And then eventually Debbie asked him whether he’d got a reaction from his superiors.

I could hear most of this from the kitchen. And I took my time, pottering about. And then Con said well, his bosses weren’t happy, but in the circumstances… Dah di dah di dah. Which meant yes.

So then Debbie asked him if he’d drawn up a contract along those lines. And he said yes. And he fished another great sixty-page page monster out of his briefcase. He’d had it all ready, waiting for Mr Patel to kiss his shiny head.

Debbie changed seats and went to the dining table. Then she started to study Con’s new contract, comparing it with the one she’d been given to look at before. That took her quite some time.

Every so often she would ask Con a question. And he would reply. Mostly Greek to me. Then she said, ‘Fine. OK. Who’s going to witness?’

Well, to cut a long story short, we all trooped next door and got my neighbour to witness it for them. They both signed.

When we came back Con put the contract in his briefcase. Then he clicked it shut.

And then he sort of closed his eyes. He paused for a minute. And I swear I could see his face change colour and his body change shape. He stood up straight, opened his eyes, and let out this enormous shout.

‘Whoo-hooo!’ he went. ‘Folks, we have a TV show!’

And then, I swear to God, he did a little jig, all around the room.

I once asked him for a tape of that little dance. Because it was all recorded on camera. Everything was in those days.

Of course it wouldn’t really have been a tape at all. Tape was far too old-fashioned for Con. He had it all on computer. But in any case he said he’d wiped the bit with him dancing.

I can’t say I’m surprised. For once I believed him. He wouldn’t have wanted anyone to see that because he looked like a complete loony.

Essential -- repeat, essential -- reading

I don't often come across something on the web which I regard as truly essential reading, but here's one for today.

If you are reading this blog, you are probably (a) a writer, (b) a publisher/agent, or (c) a very keen reader. If you're in any of those categories, take a look at this account of profit and loss in publishing, written by one Anna Louise (the link was from booktrade.info.) I shall be surprised if you don't learn something useful.

The author works for Tor Books in the US, and she gives an extremely useful account of how firms figure out whether they are going to make, or have made, any money on a given book. Of course every firm will do a calculation of this kind somewhere along the line, but now that computers are commonplace the calculations have become not only useful but normally (I gather) compulsory. In the fairly recent past, editors just used to say, Yes, I think that will sell, and buy it. Now they have to produce some figures (even if they're no more than guesses at first), pump them into an Excel spreadsheet, and convince a committee. Times change, eh?

I'm going to leave the detailed commenting on this essay to other people. And plenty of them have commented. But your eyebrows will rise here and there I think. Note, for instance, what she says about discounts, and compare that with the formal position under Robinson-Patman. And note what she says about mass-market paperbacks: 'The average mass market paperback -- average -- sells one in three copies.' There's a lot more.

I can only repeat what I've said here before, namely that, to a young writer, this kind of information is worth its weight in --well, probably gold literally, since paper doesn't weigh a great deal. And when I was young it was unimaginable that you would ever find such an insight anywhere. Even if your father was a publisher, he wouldn't have had this kind of information to hand over to you. In those days firms simply didn't have the computing equipment to produce such figures. It was all done by guess and by God.

It must have taken Anna Louise a hell of a lot of time and effort to produce this piece (and more is promised), so say a prayer for her the next time you're in church, or wherever. This stuff is valuable, and she gives it away. No, I don't know why, either. Just be grateful.

The Times on book issues

Yesterday's issue of the UK Times had three articles which were of interest from a book point of view.

First, there was an article by Libby Purves, pointing out that many arts organisations depend on the free labour of young people who are dumb enough to think that, by working for nothing in some lowly capacity, they will find out how a particular form of art business works, meet useful people, get a foot on the ladder, et cetera. The whole naive thing.

Libby doesn't rate their chances very highly. Furthermore, she points out, this arrangement creates an uneven playing field. Those young people whose parents can afford to support them for a year or two while they work for nothing, or next to nothing, get to hang in there, while the truly poor really can't survive. Thus some true talent is lost to the industry, and only the well-heeled talent (or a proportion of it) ever graduates into a proper job.

Nowhere, of course, is this better exemplified than in publishing. There we find lots of interns -- usually reading the slush pile. And, of course, there are legions of writers, banging away on the old keyboard for years on end, learning their trade without a penny to show for it, sometimes for decades.

As I said in my book The Truth about Writing, 'Publishing depends, for its continuance, upon a ceaseless flow of mugs, suckers, and assorted halfwits who are prepared to work for a year or more without any serious prospect of remuneration.'

Next, the Times offered a story about John Howard and his book The Key to Chintak, mentioned here on 13 April. As you would expect, the story is built around John's experiment of sending out a washing-machine manual in the guise of a novel, and inviting agents and publishers to read it. That's inevitable, because from the average reader's point of view that's a good story. But there are also plenty of mentions of John's self-published book. John seems to be a dab hand at marketing both himself and his book, and is getting a good response from professionals.

By the way, if you read my earlier reference to John Howard's submission experiment, you will come across Zeno Cosini's very reasonable and, in the circumstances, polite comment, to the effect that agents get sent all kinds of weird stuff in the guise of novels, and some of it is intended to be taken seriously. And he also makes a good case for a standard reply which is friendly.

I accept all that entirely. And if Zeno wasn't a pseudonym I would have written back to tell him so. (Actually I think I can guess his identity, but that's another story.)

Also, if you are looking for a present for a nephew/niece, please note that John Howard is doing a book signing at Waterstone's, 311 Oxford Street (London) at 3 pm on Saturday 29 April. You may have to queue.

Finally, we have the inevitable tale about Waterstone's and various proposed take-overs. The latest features an attempt by the company's founder, Tim Waterstone, to buy back his old company. Authors, apparently, welcome this. But no one else seems to take it seriously.

Shorts

Kaavya continued

Should you care -- and I'm not at all sure that you should -- Galleycat has more on the Kaavya Viswanathan affair. First, a more or less anonymous but easily unmasked Harvard staff member says that Kaavya nodded off in class. And then the lady herself apologises. Oh, and whole lot more. If you have the patience.

Personally I stick to my original view of 24 February 2006, namely that if you're in a commercial business it makes sense to construct and market books on commercial lines. It makes sense in principle, that is. In this case, those who did the constructing seem to have fucked up. It looks like a case of plain old-fashioned incompetence, compunded by stupidity. With which I have no patience whatever.

Punctuation

Publishers Lunch carried a mention (ad?) for a new book on punctuation for creative writers. A lot of people seem to think highly of it.

Should you need any help with punctuation, the Concise Oxford Dictionary has a section at the back (most people don't even know it's there) which gives a succinct guide to usage. And for a more thorough treatment, I have never found anything to beat Sir Ernest Gowers's 50+-year-old Plain Words (still in print).

And, of course, don't forget Lynne Truss's famous book, Eats, Shoots and Leaves. The Guardian (link from booktrade.info) offers the opportunity to download a video of Lynne trying to convince schoolkids that they ought to find out where the commas go. Sounds like brick wall and head stuff to me, although at one time I used to do it for a living.

Excerpt 18

Here is the latest excerpt from my new novel, How and why Lisa's Dad got to be famous. Please remember that, if this excerpt is of the slightest interest, a free pdf copy of the entire book can be obtained through this link. (If you want a copy in any other format, please write.) Also, should you be overwhelmed by an irresistible urge to buy a copy of the book, you can obtain one (in the UK) from any bookshop. Theoretically that should also be possible in the US. If you wish to order online, UK retailers such Tesco.com and Play.com both offer the book with prompt delivery. American readers can buy from Amazon.com. Delivery times on Amazon.co.uk are at present unaccceptable, despite what it says about 'usually despatched within 24 hours'.

Debbie explains Russian Roulette

The following morning I woke up wondering what Debbie had got up to while I was in the pub. I didn’t have to wait long to find out.

Debbie rang me again. She said she’d had dinner with Con the night before. He paid, and they went somewhere posh. They had a good meal and a long chat afterwards, she said.

Hmm, I thought. I wouldn’t have minded being a fly on the wall when those two got together.

I was going to ask her what they decided, if anything. But before I could she told me to turn up at her flat for a meal that evening. Said we’d discuss it all then.

Fine by me.

In the afternoon I got my spinning rod out and went fishing for pike in the river. Didn’t catch much – a couple of small ones – but I enjoyed the fresh air.

I like looking at the birds too. I’m not a proper bird-watcher, but my Dad taught me most of the names when we lived in the country. And it’s surprising what you can see if you keep your eyes open.

When the sun went down it was bitterly cold, and I was glad to get back home.

A bit later on I walked over to Debbie’s flat again.

Debbie’s a good cook. I soon discovered that. Very big on organic vegetables and stuff. She isn’t a vegetarian but she doesn’t go much on steak and red meat. Though that night we did have some chops that came from one of the farms she goes to. And a fruit salad.

After we’d put everything in the dishwasher, we sat down and had a bit of a chat.

‘Well, Harry,’ she said, ‘your friend Con is an intriguing sort of chap. In more ways than one.’

Con wasn’t my friend. Not really. But I didn’t interrupt her.

‘He didn’t give too much away, but when I said that I was interested in taking part in his show – in principle – his eyes lit up like a Christmas tree. And, as I thought, he is willing to negotiate.’

Hmm, I said to myself. Again.

I couldn’t work out why Debbie was the least bit interested in Con. Or interested in me either. In spite of what she’d said the day before about her raised profile.

‘Are you sure you want to do business with Con?’ I said. ‘He’s a slippery bugger if you ask me.’

‘No doubt he is.’

‘And even if he offered you the crown jewels I don’t think it would be enough. Not to go the whole way.’

‘Well, Harry, that’s a matter of opinion. And anyway, I haven’t signed anything yet. We’re still talking.’

I didn’t actually say that I couldn’t see why she was interested in me. I thought that would look a bit feeble. As if I didn’t have any self-confidence. So I kept that to myself. But perhaps she was reading my mind.

‘You do realise,’ she said, ‘that I’ve waited two years for you to ask me out, Harry. And you never did.’

‘No, well, I wasn’t in the mood, Debbie. What with one thing and another.’

‘I was told in no uncertain terms that you and I were well suited.’

‘Oh? Who by?’

‘Dora Cartwright, for one.’

Blimey, I thought. If Dora Cartwright was keen on me and Debbie getting together, it’s a pity she hadn’t mentioned it to me. A year earlier. And then things might have been different. But I kept that to myself too.

‘Well,’ I said, ‘I certainly had my eye on you, Debbie. But at the time Dora’s little massage parlour seemed the best option. Why didn’t you ask me out, come to that?’

She smiled. ‘Oh, the man has to take the lead, Harry. It’s nature’s way. I smiled at you in the street once, but I don’t think you saw me.’

We didn’t say anything for a bit. And then she said, ‘You see the point is this, Harry. When Dora told me about Cathy being HIV, and you as well, I didn’t say to myself, Oh dear, well that’s the end of all that then. What I said was, Oh dear. Poor Harry. What can we do to help?’

Now it was my turn to smile. ‘Not much, as far as I can see.’

But that seemed as good a time as any to tell her about going to see my doctor. Which was what Dr Meadows at the clinic suggested I should do. And I told her how my GP had decided that I should be monitored. That’s what they call it, being monitored. It isn’t a cure for HIV, because there isn’t one. What they do is keep an eye on you, and when you get to a certain point you may need various drugs.

We talked about that for a while, and then we came back to the TV programme. In those days everything always came back to Con and his programme. I got sick of it at times.

‘You see the thing is this, Harry. If I’m going to sign up to appear on this programme, and play the girl that you’re courting, so to speak – what Con calls chatting up – then I need to find out whether I like you or not.’

I didn’t follow that. ‘I thought you did like me,’ I said. ‘Otherwise I wouldn’t be here.’

Debbie shook her head. ‘No, Harry. Not just like you, Harry. But like you like you.’

I still didn’t get it.

‘I mean in bed, Harry. In bed.’

Oh.

So we had a discussion about that. I was definitely reluctant. And I hope you understand why.

‘But it isn’t even our first date,’ she said. ‘We’ve been out together a couple of times. Had meals. All sorts of things.’

She seemed amused that I was twitchy. But I was twitchy. In fact I was more than twitchy. So we talked about the risk some more.

But in the end Debbie got her way. She always does.

It wasn’t that I didn’t fancy her. Of course not. And I certainly wasn’t worried about performing. If things had been different I’d have been all over her. But there was always that danger in the back of my mind.

‘We are going to be using a condom,’ she kept saying.

‘Yes, but even so….’

In the end she got a bit cross with me. ‘Harry,’ she said, ‘for Christ’s sake stop wittering. People take a bigger risk than this when they eat supermarket chicken. So shut up and take your clothes off.’

So I did. For better or for worse.

In fact we didn’t just go to bed together – I ended up staying the night.

The next morning I was awake early but we didn’t hurry ourselves. And we were both a bit late setting off for work.

I didn’t go straight to work. I had to go home to collect the van and get changed into my work clothes. But guess who was waiting for me when I got there.

‘Morning, Harry,’ he said.

I may have grunted. Nothing more.

He followed me into the house and hung around while I made myself a cup of tea. I’d got cold on the way over.

‘You’ve got a smart one there, you know, Harry.’ He meant Debbie. ‘A real smart one. I’m going to see her again later today.’

I could tell that he was dying to know what had happened the night before. And whether I’d spent all night at Debbie’s or not. I wouldn’t have put it past him to have slept outside her flat in his car. But he didn’t look as if he had. He just looked as if he was dying to ask. His eyes followed me around. I expect he was hoping to work something out from my expression. But I didn’t give him any help.

Of course a lot of blokes in his position would have had a smirk on their faces. And they would have made a few smutty remarks. But he was careful not to do that. Just as well. Otherwise I would have hit him.

After I’d had my cup of tea I left him to stew in his own juices and went off to the church.

As I did my work that day I spent quite a lot of time thinking about what the Vicar had said to me. And what Debbie had said. And wondering if I’d done the right thing.

Perhaps it would be for the best, I thought, if Debbie decided that she didn’t like me enough. That would be best for everyone really. But funnily enough I didn’t think she would say that. It’s not that I’m big-headed or anything, but I thought I’d made a good impression.

I can’t remember whether it was that first time we went to bed together, or later. But sometime early on, when we were still feeling our way, Debbie talked to me about probability.

‘How are you on probability, Harry?’ she said.

‘How do you mean?’ I said. I find myself saying How do you mean quite a lot when I’m talking to clever people like Con and Debbie. Because they’re educated and I’m not.

‘Well – even you, in your media-free zone, Harry, even you must have heard of Russian roulette.’

‘What – that business where you put a loaded revolver against your head and pull the trigger?’

‘That’s the one.’

‘What about it?’

‘The way it works is like this. You take a revolver, which holds six bullets in a circular chamber. You put one bullet into the chamber, roll the chamber at random, so that you don’t know where the bullet has ended up, and then you hold the gun against your temple and pull the trigger. With me so far?’

‘Yes.’

‘What do you think the odds are of blowing your brains out? How likely is it that you will survive?’

I hadn’t the faintest idea of course. The whole thing has always struck me as seriously crazy. ‘You tell me, Debbie.’

‘Well I’m not a statistician. Or an expert on probability theory. But the way I see it, there’s one chance in six that you’ll end up dead. Now – suppose you want to play the game again. What do you do?’

‘Press the trigger again, I suppose.’

‘Well, you could do. And if you do you’ve got less chance of surviving than before. So now there’s a one in five chance that you’ll blow your brains out. And if you go on pressing the trigger, without taking the gun away from your head, then the chances reduce every time. Five, four, three, two, one. You might get killed at any one of those points. But eventually, if you’re still there at the end of all that, you know for certain that the bullet has now ended up in the firing chamber, and you’re going to end up dead if you pull the trigger again.’

I couldn’t quite see where she was going with this. So I just had a drink of the wine that we’d opened and let her get on with it.

‘On the other hand, Harry, you could play the game a different way. Instead of going on pressing the trigger, with the odds getting worse and worse each time, you could take the gun away from your head each time, spin the chamber again, and then pull the trigger. That way the odds would always remain the same. There would always be one chance in six that you’d end up dead. In other words, you’d have a better chance of survival.’

Funnily enough I could follow all that. She explained it well enough even for me. ‘OK,’ I said. ‘But what has that got to do with us?’

‘My point is this, Harry. What kind of game are we playing? Or, to be more precise, what kind of risk am I taking, when I go to bed with you? We’re always going to be using condoms. And we know that they provide pretty good protection. And we also know that people don’t always get infected with HIV, even if they don’t use a condom. So let’s say the risk is a thousand to one. But if I sleep with you a thousand times, does the danger get greater every time? Or does it always remain a very slight danger – does it stay at one in a thousand?’

‘I’m sorry, Debbie,’ I said. ‘But I just don’t know the answer to that.’

‘Neither do I,’ she said. ‘But I’m pretty sure it’s the latter. In other words, Harry, it’s a very small risk indeed. So I want you to stop worrying about it.’

She was quiet for a bit. Then she said, ‘You have to live, you know, Harry. That’s my opinion. I drive a very fast little car, and I put my foot down. Because I like to drive fast.’

That was certainly true. Until I calmed her down a bit she used to frighten the life out of me.

‘And when I was younger, working for GLAPSTOW, I did all sorts of dangerous things.’

I knew that because Con had told me. But Debbie would never talk about them when I asked her. She always shrugged me off.

‘Having sex with you is a bit like smoking, Harry.’

Actually Debbie doesn’t smoke. Neither of us does.

‘People who smoke know that there’s a risk involved. They’ve been told it often enough, and it’s written on every packet. But they also know that smoking doesn’t kill everybody, and they assume that it’s going to be someone else. They want to do it, so they do do it. It’s their life. Their choice. And that’s the way we are. We both want to go to bed together, so we do. In my view it’s about as dangerous as one cigarette a day. So stop worrying, Harry. And since you don’t smoke, stop eating supermarket chicken too.’

Hugh Paxton: Homunculus

Warning: a certain amount of vulgarity, or plain speaking, may be encountered in the course of this review.

The reason for that is as follows: Hugh Paxton’s Homunculus is a book with balls. In fact it’s got the other piece of equipment too; and if you don’t watch out it may sneak around behind you and fuck you up the arse. Which is, as I forewarned, a vulgar way of saying that this book will take you by surprise and shock you. Quite often. Not least because, since the author tells it like it is, the novel is wildly politically incorrect.

Let no one say that I don’t have catholic taste. Hugh Paxton’s first novel is about as different from Michelle Lovric’s The Remedy (discussed last week) as it is possible to imagine, but, like The Remedy, this is also a book that I enjoyed enormously. More to the point, perhaps, I think it could sell very well.

Hugh Paxton is another of the first-time novelists to emerge from the Macmillan New Writing stable. Now in his forties, he is a highly experienced British journalist. He formerly worked out of Tokyo and is now based in Windhoek, Namibia. He is the author of seven non-fiction books and has covered assignments in 70 countries. He has won several BBC awards for his writing. So, Paxton is no beginner or amateur in the business of putting words on paper; and it shows.

At first sight, Homunculus is a fairly typical science fiction/fantasy book, involving a mixture of alchemy, modern technology, and African voodoo. In practice it is far more than that: it is a black comedy which is very funny in places, an extremely violent techno-thriller, and an expose, should you still need one, of the true nature of Africa today.

In the course of a plot which involves the creation of a small army of bio-robots, i.e. homunculi, Homunculus also provides a brutally frank picture of the incompetence and corruption of almost everyone and anyone who operates in Africa, from the politicians to the foreign mercenaries, the UN aid agencies, and the ordinary soldier. Also involved are the Japanese doomsday cult, Aum Shinrikyo, the members of which turn out to be even more clueless than everybody else.

The time is the present (more or less) and the setting is the civil war in Sierra Leone. As the author explains in an epilogue, many of the characters are either real people or are based on real people. General Butt Naked, for instance, whom you might imagine to be one of Paxton’s wilder feats of imagination, really exists. At least he does, says the author, ‘unless someone has shot him or his overtaxed liver has exploded’.

The plot involves a modern-day alchemist who poses as a Roman Catholic priest (Father Jack), takes over a village in a remote part of Sierra Leone, and proceeds to manufacture homunculi. This, apparently, has been an ambition of alchemists for many centuries. These particular homunculi are manufactured from spare body parts (no shortage of those during a violent civil war), modern technology, and witchcraft (Father Jack has Papa Det lodged in a freezer, which keeps him quiet for most of the time).

Having cracked the business of manufacturing totally obedient automatons, who can be used for any kind of wickedness, Father Jack decides to sell them to the highest bidder. And we go on from there. Naturally, this being Africa, absolutely nothing goes according to plan.

About thirty years ago, I did some research into African civil wars, particularly the chaos in the Congo after independence, for a novel which was later published under the title Counter-Coup (Muller UK and Lorevan USA). What I learnt was that African wars are fought by soldiers who are severely deficient in terms of IQ and education, to the extent that even shooting people with a rifle is often beyond them. It is easier for them to grab the weapon by the barrel and use it as a club. Better still, use a panga, or chopping weapon, and remove your enemies’ hands, feet, head.

Thirty or forty years ago, the average African soldier believed passionately in witchcraft. If the witch doctor cast the right spell, the soldier would be immune to bullets. (Holding a sea shell was believed to have the same effect.) Furthermore, a battle (and more or less any other activity) was believed to be best conducted when totally stoned through the use of various drugs, or when drunk, or both.

Homunculus, which I am quite sure is based on Hugh Paxton’s first-hand journalistic experience, reveals that absolutely nothing has changed. The facts relating to African civil wars are so tragi-comic, and the violence so incredibly bloody, that no work of fiction can out-perform reality. Rape, mutilation and murder are carried out by and on children without anyone thinking it out of the ordinary. Despite all that being documented fact, the author may well be right when he claims that ‘Homunculus is probably the most bizarre work of fiction ever to emerge from the African continent (African presidents’ memoirs and autobiographies excepted).’

What this means is that the book is pretty damn good. Brilliant, in fact.

Homunculus certainly isn’t going to appeal to everybody. But I have a strong suspicion that, if the Macmillan publicists can draw this to the attention of the right audience, the paperback version could really take off. That audience is, I further suspect, likely to be young, male, hip (or whatever the current term is), intelligent, familiar with science fiction and techo-thrillers (everybody is these days), and also inclined to watch Little Britain and the like. The audience is there all right. And it’s big enough to turn Homunculus into MNW’s first big hit. Which it deserves to be.

Stylistically, the book reads as if it was thrown together in a casual sort of way, as if the author was talking to his friends over a few drinks. So after I'd read it once I went back and started it again. As I had guessed, a second reading revealed that the book is put together with a great deal of care and thought (much of which, I dare say, comes as second nature to an experienced journalist). The writing is economical but full of significant detail. It just feels spontaneous.

Of course, Homunculus ain’t perfect. Few first novels are. There are too many viewpoint characters for my taste, which makes the story just a tad difficult to follow at times. And the book could definitely have done with another proof-reader. On the whole though, it's terrific.

Not sure about the cover illustration. It looks like a human sperm that's been subjected to some kind of genetic damage through radiation. Although, come to think of it...

While I was reading this book, the Times carried an article about Zimbabwe, by Jan Raath. Zimbabwe -- as you surely must know if you give even passing attention to the news -- is descending further and further into chaos under the mouth-frothing Mugabe. Inflation is totally out of control, and a loaf of bread currently costs 90,000 Zimbabwe dollars.

And you know what occurs to me? It seems to me that before long, a well-mannered deputation of educated Africans may well descend on Downing Street, knock on the door, and say: ‘Please sir, Mr Blair sir, will you take us back as a colony?’

Because God knows, reverting to colonial status would be a far better option than what many of them have currently got: namely corrupt and brutal incompetence.

Now there’s a politically incorrect thought for you. Bloody true though.

Skint Writer on getting published

Maxine of Petrona has kindly pointed out to me a post on the Skint Writer blog which is entitled How to get published (not).

Skint Writer describes him/herself as living in Wales, and as 'a writer and artist with a little success in the off-line world. Published a poetry and a cookery book, written a few articles -- three unpublished novels in the drawer, loads of short stories hanging about and a few paintings sold.'

Usually I would just post a link to a piece on a writer's blog, but this time I'm going to save you the trouble and quote it in full. Yer tis, as they say in these parts.

Went for a stroll through the back streets of blogdom today, in particular the district tagged as fiction. Deduced that there are thousands, if not tens of thousands of unpublished writers wandering those streets blindfolded and without a map - every lost one of them hoping to bump into the elusive dealer/agent so that they can score a book deal. They trip over each other in the dark and beg for directions to the mythical castles of the publishers.

Thing is, getting published has got little to do with talent and is much more about who you know and what school you went to. I had a hard lesson in this about 7 years ago when I paid a few quid to attend an event at the Hay-on-Wye literary festival. Hay is a small town on the English edge of Wales where the writing mafia gather once a year to display their latest stash of offerings to adoring punters and more importantly to the media mob who channel the hype into our living rooms through the literary sections of newspapers and television arts reports.

Anyway, I handed over the loot and went into a large tent with about a hundred other strung-out would be authors to hear the lowdown on 'How to get published', delivered by a senior editor from one of the biggest and most heavily guarded fortresses of publishing. On the stage with the editor were two of their new authors whose first novels were just being published. The authors and the editor then engaged in a discussion about the process of getting published.

Author 1 was an old friend of the editor - they'd been to some posh school together. They laughed as they described long evenings in the editor's lounge; the room carpeted with pages from the manuscript as they imbibed wine, reminisced and sorted the book out.

Author 2 was a literary editor for a national broadsheet newspaper.

Whatever the title and stated purpose of the seminar, the real message was stark - "if you're an influential friend of an influential editor and you've written a crap book - don't worry - we can fix it, we can lean on the right people in the right places, we know where the bodies are buried. And if you didn't go to the right school there is a another way to get the key to the castle - get yourself a top job in the literary media; then we can do business, nudge-nudge, wink-wink - you know what I mean."

Dear me. To find such cynicism in one so young is deeply distressing; whereas in someone my age it would be entirely understandable. (I am assuming Skint Writer is young, of course.)

But I tell you what: this kid can write. OK, so the post above could do with a polish. But as a piece of reportage it ain't at all bad. And the ability to string the words together is... well, let's say that it's one third of the battle.

Excerpt 17

Here is the latest excerpt from my new novel, How and why Lisa's Dad got to be famous. Please remember that, if this excerpt is of the slightest interest, a free pdf copy of the entire book can be obtained through this link. Also, should you be overwhelmed by an irresistible urge to buy a copy of the book, you can obtain one (in the UK) from any bookshop. Theoretically that should also be possible in the US. If you wish to order online, UK retailers such Tesco.com and Play.com both offer the book with prompt delivery. American readers can buy from Amazon.com. Delivery times on Amazon.co.uk are at present unaccceptable, despite what it says about 'usually despatched within 24 hours'.

What Dave thought of things

Debbie took Con’s telephone number and said she would probably ring him. So I went home and left her to it. Best if I was out of it, I thought.

As I walked home it seemed to me that everything was getting more complicated than I had ever imagined. I suppose I never did think it would be simple – appearing on a TV programme and that. But every time something happened it seemed to lead to problems.

Anyway, I wasn’t going to worry about it.

That evening I went to the pub and watched the darts match. Our lot won so we had a pretty good time.

When I came home I sat down with a cup of tea. I put a splash of Con’s whisky in it. Then I had a chat with my brother. In my head. One of those.

I took Dave through everything that had happened so far. Then I asked him what he thought about it all.

He wasn’t very impressed. Said he could see all sorts of snags. Well I could too.

On the other hand, I said, what had I got to lose? Didn’t seem to me I had anything to lose. In for a penny in for a pound, I thought.

So after a while we left it at that.

Some things from the weekend

Bloody Blogger

Blogger has been completely insane for most of today, refusing to post stuff at all until 8 pm UK time, and then posting about eight copies of Excerpt 16 -- which, enthusiastic for it though you no doubt are, is a bit excessive. However, at last, here are a few things which should not be overlooked.

Link for Kelly Link

Kelly Link is an extremely talented science-fiction/fantasy writer who has won many awards in that field, such as the Nebula, Tiptree, and World Fantasy Awards. Eleven of her stories were included in Kelly's first collection, a book called Stranger Things Happen (which Mrs GOB is buying me for my birthday). And now, folks, you can, if you wish read this stuff online; in more than one format.

There are other books of Kelly's available too. And thanks to Viktor Janis for pointing this out.

Agents to avoid

I assume that anyone smart enough to be reading this blog is smart enough to know that there are agents and agents, and that some of them are to be avoided. But, just in case you need reminding, take note of Writer Beware's list of the 20 worst agents around. (Link from Maud Newton.)

Madness in the UK

The Sunday Telegraph reports that 85 UK universities now offer postgraduate creative-writing courses. Writing is reported to have a 'glamorous new image'. Hmm.

The link to this story came from the Literary Saloon, which asks, in passing, what could be more depressing. Offhand, I can't think of anything. Not in the book world, anyway.

Weird, bizarre and unusual

Weird, Bizarre and Unusual, aka chewednews.com, is the name of a web site operated by Andrew J. Hewett. I'm not quite sure where this one 1s going to or coming from but I sense that there may be a book in it somewhere, somewhen.

Oops

Back in February I reported on the case of Kaavya Viswanathan, a very bright young woman who was reported to be working with a book packager and an agent to produce a commercially viable product. I was generally in favour of the idea, though commenter Jeremy Snippet wasn't.

Well, the book came out, and was the predicted success -- 32nd on the New York Times hardcover fiction bestseller list this week. However, the Harvard Crimson has just published an article alleging that several passages in the Viswanathan book are very similar to passages in another novel published in 2001. Oops.

So far it's no comment from everyone on the Viswanathan side. Thanks to Landjimk for the tip-off.

Gerard Jones on the wireless thingy

Gerard Jones, author of the world-famous Ginny Good, is interviewed by Denis Johnson on MobyLives radio. Go to MobyLives and click on the MobyLives Radio logo for 22 April 2006, and with a bit of luck an MP3 player will open up automatically and (provided you have your speakers turned on) start to play.

Gerard tells me that in this interview he sounds giddy and senile, but then, he says, 'I am giddy and senile.' Nah. No such thing. Actually he does very well and has some valuable insights to offer. It's a bit of a fag getting the MP3 thing to operate, but well worth it. Gerard is a one-off and an inspiration to us all.

It may be gone by the time you read this but...

You may remember that very old, and very silly, joke told by Francis Howerd.

Man goes into a doctor's waiting room, and the only other person there is a gloomy old lady. When her name is called, the old lady stands up (with difficulty), seizes her stick, and hobbles painfully into the doctor's surgery. Three minutes later, she comes out, cheerful as you like, minus stick, and walks out like a teenager.

When your man gets in to see the doctor he says to him, 'By golly doctor, you did an amazing piece of work on that old lady. She could hardly walk when she went in, and when she came in she was skipping like a lamb. How did you manage that?'

'Oh,' said doctor, 'it was quite easy really. When she got up this morning, the silly old bat put two legs in one knicker.'

My grandmother found that story really amusing. But in order to find it funny these days you have to have a good working knowledge of the kind of underwear that was favoured by old ladies of fifty years ago. Hint: they did not wear thongs.

Anyway, I was reminded of all that by a right little uproar which I got to hear about over the weekend -- one which involved large numbers of people getting their knickers in such a twist that lower limbs were threatened with gangrene on an international basis (tipoff from Clive Keeble).

It seems that there exists in this world a Star Wars fan who has written a 'fanfic' novel called Another Hope. Not only has she written it, but she has arranged for it to be published in paperback by Wordtech Communications.

The publication date given on Amazon.com is July 2005; if that is correct, then the world has been slow to notice it. But, as of last week, someone did, and since then there has been a flurry of interest/excitement, leading to 20-odd 'reviews' on Amazon, most of which give the book one star and express horror and dismay that the author has been dumb enough to breach Star Wars copyright in this bare-faced way. More to the point, perhaps, commenters worry that this incident might lead to an all-out war on fanfic in general.

Well, fanfic is a complicated field, too big to go into today. Basically, if you've never heard of it, fanfic is fiction written by fervent admirers of a book, TV show, or film, making use of well established characters, such as Harry Potter, the Star Trek team, et cetera, and involving in them in all sorts of new adventures and love affairs dreamed up by the fan in question. If you want to explore the subject, you might start with the Wikepedia article, particularly section 4 on legal issues.

One interesting aspect of this affair is that the Amazon page of this almost unknown (until recently) novel offers 21 used and new copies at less than Amazon price. The figure 21 is, I would guess, higher than the total number of books sold so far, so this leads some bricks-and-mortar booksellers to suspect that the 'booksellers' who are offering these cut-price used copies are just programming computers to go through the Amazon files and offer stuff at cut-rate prices (see last Wednesday's discussion of 'fulfilment services'). And, not surprisingly, the knickers of those orthodox booksellers are definitely creased as well.

I'm not sure if it's a coincidence, but if you Google "Lori Jareo" you will find that many of the links come up with 'page not available'. And the same may be true of the links given in this post by the time you read it.

Later -- Galleycat explains some of the background and confirms that Lori Jareo is being cooked over a slow fire by the George Lucas legal team.

Excerpt 16

Here is the latest excerpt from my new novel, How and why Lisa's Dad got to be famous. Please remember that, if this excerpt is of the slightest interest, a free pdf copy of the entire book can be obtained through this link. Also, should you be overwhelmed by an irresistible urge to buy a copy of the book, you can obtain one (in the UK) from any bookshop. Theoretically that should also be possible in the US. If you wish to order online, UK retailers such Tesco.com and Play.com both offer the book with prompt delivery. American readers can buy from Amazon.com. Delivery times on Amazon.co.uk are at present unaccceptable, despite what it says about 'usually despatched within 24 hours'.

Debbie explains the contract

I woke up feeling just a bit worried.

I couldn’t have cared less about what Con said – about the contract being confidential and all that. But I was a bit scared that Debbie would tell me it was a load of old cobblers. That I wasn’t going to get any money after all. Not even the twenty-five thousand.

Anyway, I got on with things. Pottered about. It was a Saturday, so I did a bit of laundry and went shopping. That kind of thing.

Soon after I’d had a bite of lunch the phone rang. It was Debbie. She wanted to talk to me about the contract. And she suggested that I should go over to her place. I was glad she did, because I thought the less Con heard of what we had to say the better.

It was the first time I’d been in Debbie’s flat. I rather liked it. Quite modern furniture. Light and airy. The block was only built about ten years ago. I was offered some work on it but I never actually did it. Can’t stand new buildings.

Anyway, I went round there and she gave me a cup of tea. And some cake. Then she sat down in a chair. I was on the settee. She waved the contract at me.

‘Have you ever read any of this?’

‘No.’

She sighed. ‘They’ve got you by the balls, Harry.’

Well, I kind of knew that. When you sign a mortgage you don’t really understand it. Well I didn’t anyway. And when I took out the loan for my motorbike I didn’t understand that either. But I always knew they had me by the balls. I mean, I knew that if anything went wrong – if I couldn’t go on paying – then they’d take the house back. Or the bike. I wasn’t so dim that I didn’t understand that. But I have still got the bike as a matter of fact. The house had to go when I got divorced, and I was renting after that.

So, I gave a little sigh of my own. ‘Well, Debbie,’ I said, ‘I dare say they have got me by the balls. But they can squeeze till I’m dead for all I care. It won’t make any difference to me.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘But it might make a difference to Lisa.’

Ah. Now I was listening. ‘How do you mean?’

‘This contract, Harry, is signed with a company which has a long fancy name which means bugger all. What do you know about them?’

‘Not much. I don’t think Con’s the boss. Not the really top man. There’s a Mr Patel he goes on about.’

Debbie nodded. ‘Mr Patel is no doubt the Mr Patel. Owner of Asteroid. Which you can check out on the internet, Harry, if you haven’t ever heard of it. It’s an international media monster. Based in Liechtenstein I believe. Mr Patel is a big-time media magnate, Harry. Not as big as Rupert Murdoch, or Maxwell in the good old days, but pretty big. He owns newspapers, TV and radio stations, magazines, all over the world. And, of course, he’s the owner of the Moon.’

Now the Moon I had heard of.

The Moon is a daily paper. Started about a couple of years ago. Naturally it’s a dead crib of the Sun, and does all the things the Sun does, only bigger and better. Chiefly famous because the Sun does a daily page-three girl, showing her tits, and the Moon has a page-three girl showing her bum. That’s what mooning means, apparently. In America. Showing your bum.

‘Ah right,’ I said. Trying not too appear too clueless. ‘I know all about the Moon.’

‘Most men do,’ said Debbie. She didn’t look too impressed. ‘Anyway, Mr Patel has got nothing whatever to do with the company you’ve signed a contract with. Not at any rate so far as I can discover from a check with Companies House. The company you’ve signed up with is a hundred-pound company, bought off the shelf three months ago.’

I tried to look as if I knew what she was talking about.

‘That is not a good sign, Harry. In short, it means there are lots of snags.’

She started leafing through the contract. ‘So, here’s the deal. The TV programme is going to be all about you. It’s going to be called Harry – the Man with AIDS. Now you know you haven’t got AIDS – ‘

‘Yet.’

‘Don’t be a pessimist. You know you haven’t got it, I know you haven’t got it, but the great television-watching public won’t understand the difference. So you are going to become know to everyone as Harry, the man with AIDS. That’s how people will think of you, probably for the rest of your life.

‘Second, you’re only doing this in order to win a million pounds. But even if you succeed in jumping through all the hoops that the TV company will put in your way, you won’t win a million pounds.’

Oh bloody hell I thought. I began to feel a bit sick. It was exactly what I was afraid Debbie would tell me. ‘Are you sure about that? No million?’

‘No. Not at any rate in one lump. What the contract says is that you will be paid fifty thousand a year for the next twenty years. Unless you die first, in which case all payments will cease. And only as long as the company that you’ve signed up with remains profitable – whatever that means. As far as I can see the company could go into liquidation at any time, because it has absolutely no resources that I can discover. And the directors, so called, are names almost entirely unknown to Google and so are probably a couple of secretaries working in Mr Patel’s office, who will do exactly what they are told for a thousand a year. Or whatever.’

She paused and looked at me. ‘And, that’s before we even start considering some of the moral and practical problems, Harry.’

I began to get a headache. I really wanted to get up and go home. But no, I thought. Think of Lisa. Do your best, Harry. That’s all you can do.

And now Debbie was talking about the moral and practical problems. I really hadn’t a clue what she meant. Of course I had done a certain amount of thinking about Con’s famous TV programme. I wouldn’t want you to think that I hadn’t. And the more I thought, the less happy I was. But I was quite prepared to believe that Debbie was way ahead of me.

‘What sort of problems are they, Debbie?’

‘Well, the whole point of the programme is that you, the man with AIDS, are going to have to find a woman who is willing to go to bed with you. She’s going to have to go to bed with you, have sex with you, and it’s got to be unprotected sex. Which means that she’s going to be running the risk of getting HIV/AIDS herself.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘That’s what the Vicar said too.’

‘And how do you feel about it? Suppose you find a woman who is willing to do that – for whatever reason. Do you think you could go through with it?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Not really. That’s why I think I can’t win the million pounds. I did think so once. When Con first mentioned it. But once the Vicar explained everything to me I didn’t think I could do that. For one thing I don’t think any woman would be daft enough to agree. And for another I wouldn’t want to put anyone in danger. To tell you the truth, I’ve more or less got used to the idea that I shall have to do without sex for the rest of my life.’

Debbie had a drink of tea and thought about it.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘I don’t think it’s as bad as that. There are plenty of people who are HIV positive who are in relationships with people who know all about it and are still willing to have sex with them. In one way or another. As a matter of fact I know one or two like that myself.’

Well, I didn’t know anything about that sort of thing. And right then and there I wasn’t too interested.

‘Look,’ I said, ‘the way I see it, I’m signed up to do this show. Which is not a good idea in some ways, but at least it seems that I ought to get twenty-five thousand. Is that right?’

‘Not entirely,’ said Debbie. ‘There are various cut-off clauses. If the show is abandoned at various stages, you would get considerably less than twenty-five thousand.’

I sighed again. It got worse and worse. ‘OK, well let’s say I get something. The point is that everything I get goes to Lisa. She’s the one person I care about more than anyone. I don’t have to worry about Carol, she’s got a new man. And my Mum and Dad are dead, so there’s no one else. Just Lisa. I’ve made a will leaving everything I’ve got to her. And the small amount of money that my Mum left is already in a building society for when Lisa goes to university.’

‘Oh, she’s going to university is she?’ said Debbie. And she smiled.

‘She is if I have anything to do with it.’

‘And how old is Lisa now?’

‘Seven.’

Debbie had another riffle through the contract and another drink of tea. I could see that she was thinking.

‘You write a good letter, Harry,’ she said eventually. ‘If you hadn’t written that letter to me, I would have left you to swing in the wind. But I could tell when I read it that you were a decent man. Which I already knew, actually, because that’s what everyone says about you. People have been trying to line you up with me for a couple of years now. Did you know that, Harry?’

No, I didn’t know it. And I didn’t altogether believe it either. Told her so.

She smiled. ‘Well, be that as it may, Harry, how would you feel if I signed up?’

‘How do you mean, signed up?’

‘Well, it says here’ – she waved the contract — ‘that the woman who agrees to serve as Harry’s partner in the TV show – that’s the word they use, partner – will be required to sign a separate agreement.’

She looked at me. ‘What that means, Harry, is that whoever agrees to act as muggins can strike her own bargain. Which is interesting, because it provides an opportunity to negotiate. And that is at least worth talking about with your friend Con. But my question was, how would you feel about it if I did?’

She’d got me there. I was on the spot. I had to think about that one. Bit of a googly, that was.

‘Well… Let’s put it this way. I think I’m very lucky that you’re even talking to me now. I hope we can be friends whatever happens. Perhaps even go out together once in a while. At least until you find a new boyfriend. And if you wanted to take part in the programme I would be thrilled to bits. But…’

And there was a pause while I did a bit more thinking.

‘But the thing is this. I don’t want to do anything to hurt you, Debbie. Or anyone else either. And the rules say that you can’t share in the million pounds anyway. Or whatever’s left of the million pounds after they’ve finished messing us about.’

‘No, that’s true. According to the rules, you can’t offer me a share in your million pounds. But I can sure as hell negotiate my own terms. And besides, there are other benefits.’

‘Are there?’

‘Oh yes.’

‘Such as?’

Now it was Debbie’s turn to scratch her head and think. ‘Well, as of this moment I need time to consider. But for a start there’s the profile. People who appear on reality TV shows tend to become quite familiar to the public. And that’s something that can be put to some use.

‘For instance, a person could use that raised profile to become a D-list celebrity and go on other TV shows. You could get yourself photographed in your luxury home for Hello magazine, and all the rest of that crap. But theoretically at least, a raised profile could be used much more constructively than that. Suppose, for instance, that someone decides to build a new road in a silly place. Drive it through some beauty spot that you and I have known all our lives. Now if I was a person with a raised profile, I could act as spokesman for the stop-this-road campaign. See what I mean?’

I did see what she meant. Sort of.

‘It needs thinking about,’ said Debbie. ‘At the moment I’m in danger of being as naïve as you are. So I’d need to talk to your friend Con, and friends of my own, and see if I’m talking out of my arsehole or what. But I certainly think I’ll make some enquiries.’

Well, by now I was seriously confused.

On the one hand I was really thrilled that Debbie hadn’t just told me to get lost. I really liked her a lot, and the more I saw of her the more I realised that I could fall for Debbie, big time.

But – and it was a big but – I was worried to death about this HIV thing. I began to think, If Only. But of course that’s silly. So I stopped thinking that nearly as soon as I began.

It’s no good thinking about If Only. You have to think about the here and now. And I really wasn’t happy about the idea of having sex with Debbie, whether for a TV show or not, if it was going to be dangerous for her.

I told her that. She seemed pleased.

And then I said, ‘Con reckons that most of what you see on TV is fake. It’s supposed to be live, or real, but it’s not. Do you reckon we could fake the having sex bit, so that you weren’t in any danger?’

Debbie laughed. ‘No, Harry, we couldn’t.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Because it says so, Harry. Right here. In the contract.’ She went leafing through the pages. ‘Page forty-nine.’

‘Oh.’

‘What is says there – and I paraphrase – is that you, never mind the woman, but you personally, commit yourself to having unprotected sex – defined as without condom – with the woman of your choice. It goes on for a page and a half.’

‘Yes, but if it’s all filmed in advance, and Con reckons it will be, can’t we just pretend?’

‘No, Harry, we can’t. The contract says that the programme will arrange for a team of scientific observers, so called, to monitor the partners’ sexual intercourse in real time. Whatever the fuck that means. We will have our blood pressure, pulse, and various other bodily functions monitored by a variety of machines and boffins while we shag away happily.’

I couldn’t believe all this. ‘All right, I’ll take your word for it. But we could use a condom anyway.’

‘No, Harry, you divine little innocent, we could not. The team of scientists are all going to have to sign affidavits that what they saw was you and me, or whoever it is, shagging away sans condom. And, what is more, they are going to stick a camera up the woman’s vagina so that ejaculation will be shown on screen.’

‘What the hell does that mean?’

‘It means, Harry, that all those who tune in to watch Harry – the Man with AIDS, in its climactic moments, will see you shooting your cum right up my pussy. And if not mine, then the Queen of Sheba’s or whoever.’

I was horrified. ‘But they can’t do that, can they? They can’t put a camera right up inside you?’

Debbie sat there and roared with laughter. My face must have been a picture.

‘They not only can do it, Harry,’ she said. ‘They will!’

‘Bloody hell,’ I said.

Discount dog-fights

One big difference between the US and UK book trades is in the area of the discounts which are offered by publishers to firms which buy books from them.

In the US (as I understand it), publishers are obliged by law to offer the same discounts to all purchasers (Robinson-Patman Act). There is more than one view as to whether this legislation is binding in all instances (see the US Independent Book Publishers Association advice to their members.) And Eric de Bellaigue, in his book British Book Publishing as a Business since the 1960s, says that while Robinson-Patman may prohibit discriminatory discounts in theory, in practice it merely discourages them.

Nevertheless, the general position in the US is that a small independent bookseller gets to buy books from a publisher at the same rate as a huge chain. Penguin famously lost a case on this issue, brought against them by the American Booksellers Association, and in 1997 had to pay out $25 million as a result.

In the UK, none of that holds. Discounts seem to differ wildly according to whether the buyer is a mammoth supermarket or a mom-and-pop store out in the sticks. Negotiations can be complex.

Not everyone is happy about this situation. See, for example, the discussion at the end of March on the Guardian Unlimited's Culture Vulture blog. Which includes, incidentally, a trenchant comment from our old friend Clive Keeble.

And now it's not just the little guys who are complaining about the discount situation. Now we have Bertrams, one of the two biggest wholesalers in the UK (Gardners is the other) lodging a formal complaint with the Office of Fair Trading, no less. You can read the story in the Eastern Daily Press (link from booktrade.info). And there is more in Publishing News, with talk of 'possible collusion between publishers'. Sounds really sinister, doesn't it?

It's a complicated story, but basically Bertrams feel that publishers are trying to push their noses into things which are essentially none of their business. And they're all chasing the same pound.

Moral: there are dog-fights at every level in what was once a gentlemanly business. Unless you enjoy dog-fights, take up knitting instead.

Bibliophile Bullpen

There's a very unusual, highly professional, and exceptionally interesting blog called Bibliophile Bullpen. Go take a look. I am not smart enough to figure out immediately who they are or where they come from, so to speak, but no doubt you will catch on immediately.

(Re the smarts: as someone said to me recently, 'I've reached the stage where I go into a room full of familiar faces, and the only name I can remember is Alzheimer's.')

The chief perpetrators of Bibliophile Bullpen appear to be J. Godsey, who is a bit coy about details: profile shows a female-looking outline. A spy told me that her name is Joyce. And Lynn DeWeese-Parkinson: who's a he; ex-lawyer.

Anyway, whoever and whatever, let no one doubt that it takes a hell of a lot of time and effort to put together a blog like this. Come to that, it takes a lot of time to do it justice as a reader. But it doesn't take long to figure out that there is some seriously valuable stuff here.

By the way, J.Godsey also urges us all to enter the Booklympics. This involves hurling books around. Hey, someone should tell Stephen King. If you remember, he said that his first reaction, on reading Jonathan Franzen's The Connections, was to heave it into a far corner of the room and then piss on it. (So vulgar.)

Irish for beginners

Roger Boylan is a writer who has a number of books to his credit, and he maintains a web site to tell the world about them.

The web site, Roger says, is maintained from Tokyo on an on-again, off-again basis. Because he lives in Texas, not Tokyo. (Look, I don't make this stuff up, OK? I just tell you what people tell me.)

Anyway, Roger is author of the Killoyle Trilogy, part one of which is Killoyle, published by the Dalkey Archive; part two is The Great Pint-Pulling Olympiad (Grove Press); and part three is Killoyle Wine and Cheese, which is being published this summer in Germany. In fact, says Roger, the other books have sold better, and had a better critical reception, in Germany than elsewhere. Which is a bit of a puzzle really, because they look to me as if they would be the divil to translate.

And you can't complain about a lack of opportunity to taste before you buy. Roger's web site gives lots of extracts to choose from. And I must say it all looks highly entertaining; though possibly something to be taken in small doses, like Irish whiskey, rather than swilled down like the Guinness.

In his spare time Roger writes real serious stuff about the likes of Ian McEwan, in an equally serious journal called the Boston Review. This is all several storeys above my head, and I get vertigo in the lift, so I don't go there. But there's more, I understand, in the archives.

In a possible attempt to ingratiate himself with a Wiltshire man, Roger tells me that in the late '70s he passed out under a tree in Warminster. Yes, a lot of people do, Roger. It's that sort of town.

I wonder if Roger is any relation to Blazes?

Odds and ends

Chris Abani

Truthdig is a US-based online magazine which deals with current affairs. By the look of it, it probably isn't funded by right-wing Republicans and born-again Christians. Not unless that lot have suddenly become critics of Bush and a whole lot more broad-minded than I take them to be.

As far as I can see, Truthdig does not cover the book beat to any significant degree, but it does have an essay by Chris Abani on how he came to write his novella Becoming Abigail. You can also read the first four chapters of the book.

Well, I guess all fiction has an origin in something or other, even if we don't know what it is. In my own most recent case, How and why Lisa's Dad got to be famous, the story came to me in a dream.

Yes, I dare say that does explain a great deal.

Publishers Lunch on Amazon

The Publishers Lunch yesterday carried a short article -- well, actually a long one by PL standards -- listing all the new innovations that Amazon 2.0 is beginning to offer. Such as: tagging (as in del.icio.us); customer discussion boards; ProductWikis (a sort of Wikipedia, for products); profile pages for customers; Squidoo-lens type services; podcasts; Flickr-type image posting facilities; fulfilment for dealers; interactivity; and, doubtless, more. Amazon sells groceries in the US, someone told me.

Publishers, meanwhile, seem to think it's still 1995. PL comments:

It's time -- or rather way past time -- for publishers to look at getting out of the controlled, static web page mode and into the visitor-focused, information and interaction driven world that defines today's Internet. Today's world provides for, and practically demands, more dynamic 'publication' via the Internet. As we've mentioned before in other more limited discussions, if you're not the primary open-source source for readers then someone else will be -- Amazon, Google, MSN, BN.com, MySpace, and so on, and whomever you allow to develop those relationships in your place will be the entity holding the leveraging (and charging the fees) in the future, until at some point they really are the publishers.

See also Lynne Scanlon, below.

Stephen Sheppard

From time to time there are writers who experience a substantial success, and then they kind of disappear from view. For example, Robert McCrum did a piece in the Observer a couple of years ago about Desmond Hogan. And then there's James Adams, a high-powered Sunday Times journalist who wrote three thrillers in the 1990s ('One of the world's best defence journalists makes a stellar debut' -- Tom Clancy), but hasn't written any fiction since. Finding out what happened to him is almost impossible because the name James Adams is so common.

But the one who really used to puzzle me was Stephen Sheppard. He was perhaps the first UK writer to get a really massive advance out of a publisher. His novel The Four Hundred was signed, if memory serves, for £40,000 -- which was a lot of money in the late 1970s.

I kind of had it in the back of my mind that The Four Hundred was something of a flop, and that Stephen Sheppard had never written anything else. But it seems I was quite wrong. There is a blog -- well, actually more of a blog used as a web page -- called Kingdom. This explains everything. It seems that Stephen Sheppard did very nicely by most writers' standards.

Lynne Scanlon's survey

Lynne Scanlon has published (20 April) the results of her survey. Not perhaps conducted according to the most rigorous methodology that I've ever come across, the survey throws up some interesting data.

General conclusions: people read bestsellers but don't like to admit it; for all practical purposes, no one gives a shit about iUniverse and Lulu; no one reads free PDFs; no one pays much attention to author's web sites/blogs (except other authors with web sites and blogs); no one gives a repeat shit about publishers' web sites.

As for the last point, Lynne says:

The truth is, publishing companies don’t really care about their online sites. Author’s online web sites are a measure of desperation and determination. Publishing industry vanity web sites are the sweet arm candy of self-satisfied, rich guys on 345’ yachts pulling up to dock at Little Palm Island: irrelevant, but pretty, and good for the ego.

Which is pretty much what Michael Cader of Publishers Lunch thinks too (see above).

Maddox and all like that

The International Herald Tribune has joined in the chorus of stuff about Tucker Max, Maddox, and so forth. This will go on now, because newspapers, like bloggers, feed off each other. (Link from booktrade.info.)

Excerpt 15

Here is the latest excerpt from my new novel, How and why Lisa's Dad got to be famous. Please remember that, if this excerpt is of the slightest interest, a free pdf copy of the entire book can be obtained through this link. Also, should you be overwhelmed by an irresistible urge to buy a copy of the book, you can obtain one (in the UK) from any bookshop. Theoretically that should also be possible in the US. If you wish to order online, UK retailers such Tesco.com and Play.com both offer the book with prompt delivery. American readers can buy from Amazon.com. Delivery times on Amazon.co.uk are at present unaccceptable, despite what it says about 'usually despatched within 24 hours'.

Debbie cooks me dinner

It was late when I’d finished writing the letter. After midnight. But I thought I’d better get on with things, so I took it round to Debbie’s flat that night, and pushed it through the letter box. Then I went to bed.

Funnily enough I didn’t see Con at all the next day. But that didn’t bother me, because I had things to do. Not in the church, for once. It was an old lady who needed some odd jobs done around the house.

People tell me I’ve cornered the market in old ladies. The pensioners seem to like me, and my name gets passed around at the post office when they pick up their money. Anyway, I was busy that day.

When I got home I started to have a think about what to eat. I was standing there with my head in the fridge when who should walk in the back door but Debbie.

‘Yoohoo,’ she said. ‘Anybody in?’

She was another one who came in without so much as a by your leave. But I didn’t complain. Not likely. I just wondered what she was going to do. Hit me on the head with a brick, or what?

‘Ah,’ she said. ‘There you are. You eaten yet?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I was just beginning to think I ought to go shopping.’

‘Don’t bother. I’ve got it all here.’ And she started to unpack a shopping bag.

I didn’t say anything much. To tell the truth I was a bit staggered. I just did what I was told. Like laying the table. And taking the cork out of a bottle of red wine. Debbie did us a stir-fry, with fruit for afters.

Not a word was said about yesterday. Nothing. And I didn’t raise it.

While we ate we talked about other things. There’s an old industrial site in the town. Due for redevelopment, if and when anyone can agree what to put there. So we talked about that for a bit.

And then we talked about diet. ‘We’re going to have to sort out your diet, you know, Harry.’

‘Are we?’

‘Oh yes. Diet’s very important for people with HIV. Not that you seem to do too badly as it is. You seem to have the right idea about food. But I’m sure we can improve it even so.’

I was quite touched by that. All that ‘we must do this’ and ‘we must do that.’ That was all right by me.

After the meal I made us some coffee and we sat down in the living room.

I didn’t have any doubt that Debbie wanted to talk about something serious. I’d thought that since she produced the shopping bag.

‘Now then, Harry,’ she said. ‘Tell me about this TV show.’

So I told her. I started at the beginning and told her more or less everything I’ve told you.

Some of it seemed to come as a surprise to her. But she didn’t seem shocked.

I thought she might get really mad when I explained about how I was supposed to find a woman who would go to bed with me. Even though I have HIV. But I did explain that I’d intended to tell her all these things. It was just that I was going to do them one at a time. And Con – being an impatient sort of man – had beaten me to it.

‘Hmm,’ said Debbie. More than once. ‘Hmm. Interesting.’ And then she would ask me some more questions.

Now, say what you like about Con – and I have said quite a lot in my time – but he’s a pretty good judge of character. Isn’t he? I mean he’d said that Debbie would be interested. Said she would see ‘possibilities’ – whatever they are. And she did.

Oh – and while we were talking I warned her that the house was bugged. Wired was the word Con used. Anyway, it meant that he could see and hear everything that was said, wherever we were. I warned Debbie about that. Made sure she understood.

Didn’t seem to bother her.

‘What do you know about TV people, Harry?’

‘Not much.’

‘Well I know a fair bit. I’ve worked with them, on and off. Done their interviews, watched them try to stitch me up, put their own spin on things. And once or twice I’ve managed to get the better of them. But they usually win in the end, because they can go away and alter things afterwards. Cut out bits that you said, put them in a different order. Ask you different questions even. Do you know what sort of people they are, Harry?’

‘No.’

‘A bunch of weirdo crackpot brain-dead losers, most of ‘em. Limpdicks, Harry. Wankers. Couldn’t get it up with a splint on. Talk fancy and know nothing. Lying, cheating, thieving bastards. Would fit up their own grandmother with a fifteen-year prison sentence if it would get them a bigger share of the audience. Can’t tell Stork from butter and think they understand everything. Take it from me, Harry, you can’t trust them an inch.’

Of course she knew and I knew that Con could hear all this. And I knew why she was doing it. To get her own back on Con. For what happened the previous night, when his boys went poking around in her flat.

It made me laugh. I just sat there and enjoyed it, while she went on and on. And on. She has a real way with words, does Debbie, and it all just flows out. And some of it was really crude. I told you she could swear like a trouper.

Anyway after a bit she got tired of teasing Con and we talked about other things. We talked about Lisa.

I’d explained to Debbie that I wanted to win the million pounds for Lisa. And how I didn’t really expect to do that but I was hoping to get the twenty-five thousand pound fee just for doing the show.

‘Do you ever see Lisa, Harry?’

‘No. Not officially.’

‘Do you ever phone her?’

‘No.’

I wondered if I ought to say anything else. And I decided that I’d better tell Debbie anyway, so that she knew all about me.

‘Only in my head. I talk to Lisa in my head. I have quite long conversations with her sometimes. And with my brother Dave.’

Debbie didn’t look at me as if I was barmy. She didn’t say I was barmy either. Which a lot of other people might have done. So I was pleased about that. She just asked if it helped me to talk to Lisa in my head.

‘Oh yes. Helps me a lot.’

She nodded. ‘Good. And you say you’ve signed a contract with Con.’

‘Yes.’

‘Can I see it?’

I got up and went to the desk where I keep a few papers. Bills and that. I gave her the contract and the sheet of paper that Con had given me, the one giving a summary of what the show was all about.

Debbie leafed through the contract. I told you it was about half an inch thick. ‘Hellfire,’ she said, ‘talk about verbal bloody diarrhoea. Have you read this?’

I laughed. ‘No.’

‘But you signed it.’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

You know, that was a really good question. ‘Well, Debbie, because it seemed like a good idea at a time. I’d just been told that I’d got HIV, and Con told me I might be able to win a million pounds for Lisa before I died. So I thought I’d have a go. Didn’t think I had anything to lose.’

Debbie nodded. ‘Do you mind if I take this away and read it?’

‘No, not at all.’

And, after a bit, she left.

And you know what? When she went she kissed me on the cheek again.

I had a little dance about that. After she’d gone. Felt like a teenager.

Ten minutes later Con came round. I’d already poured him a glass of whisky, because I knew he’d turn up, and he had a good drink of it before he said anything. Then he sat back in his chair.

‘See?’ he said. ‘I told you she’d want to talk.’

‘No thanks to you,’ I told him.

‘Maybe not. But I was right…. So she took the contract with her, did she?’

‘Yes.’

‘Shouldn’t have done that really, Harry. Commercially confidential document, that is.’ But he took one look at my face and decided not to press it. ‘However, in the circumstances we’ll say no more about it. Might help, actually. Might help a lot. She’s no fool, you know, your Debbie. I reckon she can probably read a contract as well as any of us.’

Better than you, Con, I thought. And definitely better than me.

Paul Dorrell: Living the Artist's Life

You may remember that we noted in a couple of previous posts, 9 March 2006 and 21 February 2006, that Paul Dorrell's publisher was giving away (to established bloggers only) 250 copies of his non-fiction book Living the Artist's Life. Well, eventually a copy landed on my desk, and I've been reading it with some interest.

Living the Artist's Life was first published in hardback, by Hillstead Publishing of Kansas City, in 2004. The second, paperback, edition came out in March 2005. The book has a dedicated web site, and you can see from the lengthy list of reviews that it attracted a fair amount of attention and praise.

Essentially, this is a book written by an art gallery owner to provide advice to visual artists on how to further their careers. More to the point, perhaps, as far as this blog is concerned, is the fact that while Paul Dorrell is not a visual artist himself, he is very definitely a writer -- to be specific, a novelist. And the book itself makes clear that much of what Dorrell has to say is also relevant to writers.

On the very first page of the book, Dorrell tells us that he has been a gallery owner and art consultant since 1991. In that field he is considered a success. 'That's cool, but what I am first is an artist myself -- a novelist. That is the primary passion of my life.'

Fortunately, from the point of view of visual artists, Dorrell then goes on to give masses of useful advice to those who are desperately trying to get their work taken up by a gallery -- much as writers pester publishers. In the process, he is amazingly frank about the economics of running a gallery. His own, for example, ran at a considerable loss for a long time. At one point, when about $100,000 in debt, he could not afford to renew the fire insurance... and, yes, there was then a fire. However, he staggered on.

In addition to all that, Dorrell reveals his painful frustrations in trying to get his career as a writer off the ground. It took him six novels and fifteen years to land an agent, and when he did he became a classic case of 'We loved this book but...' The agent had 36 rejections before he gave up trying to sell a novel which many editors admired but could not figure out how to market.

Dorrell is brutally frank about the effect which all this had on his own state of mind. He tells us that at least twice a year he suffers from bouts of clinical depression which last a couple of months.

Overall this is a brave book. It is more self-revelatory than most people would be comfortable with.

As far as I am aware, Paul Dorrell has yet to see one of his novels in print, and at the very end of the book, he has things to say about failure.

What happens if you 'fail' and have to join the business world, or some world similar to it? The truth is, you haven't failed. All those years of struggle, adversity and wrestling with the muse have brought, in return, these years of growth and a hopefully mature outlook. Without the struggle you wouldn't have had the growth.

In other words, Paul Dorrell is very much of the 'you can do it if you just stick at it long enough' school of thought. To which the response of this rather world-weary old reader is: Hmm. Well. Yes. Maybe.

But it's worth noting, I think, that, before he found Hillstead Publishing, Dorrell had Living the Artist's Life rejected 177 times. So for him, at least, perseverance paid.

Excerpt 14

Here is the latest excerpt from my new novel, How and why Lisa's Dad got to be famous. Please remember that, if this excerpt is of the slightest interest, a free pdf copy of the entire book can be obtained through this link. Also, should you be overwhelmed by an irresistible urge to buy a copy of the book, you can obtain one (in the UK) from any bookshop. Theoretically that should also be possible in the US. If you wish to order online, UK retailers such Tesco.com and Play.com both offer the book with prompt delivery. American readers can buy from Amazon.com. Delivery times on Amazon.co.uk are at present unaccceptable, despite what it says about 'usually despatched within 24 hours'.

Con gives advice

Con was waiting for me when I got back home. And I was surprised to find that he didn’t make me nervous any longer. Perhaps I was getting used to him. Or perhaps I just didn’t care.

I don’t know how Con got in. I’d locked up before I went out, and I certainly hadn’t given him a key. But he’s a very determined man is Con. If he wants to do something he will find a way. So I didn’t question him.

I just came in and sat down. Con was sitting there with the telly on.

When I came in Con looked up and nodded at me. ‘Evening, Harry. How was the pub?’ He was letting me know, you see, that he knew where I’d been. He’d probably put one of those James Bond tracker things in my trousers.

I didn’t even bother to answer him, and he went back to watching the telly.

‘Amazing,’ he said, after a bit. ‘Amazing experience, watching your telly, Harry. Do you know who I’ve just seen? Richard Dimbleby on Panorama. And it’s Sooty and Sweep on next. The late-night version. X certificate.’

He roared with laughter about that.

‘You didn’t know they were gay, did you, Harry? Eh? Sooty and Sweep – couple of poofters, Harry!’ And off he went again. Merry as you like.

I didn’t say anything. I had no idea what he was talking about, but I knew he was making fun of me. I didn’t mind, so long as it kept him happy. Con had brought another bottle of whisky with him, and he’d had just enough to make him cheerful but not enough to make him nasty. And that was fine by me.

After a while we reached the end of what he’d been watching and he switched the telly off.

‘Very good programme, that, Harry,’ he said. ‘Very well produced. Not a patch on what ours will be though. Nothing like. Ours is going to be sensational, Harry. Abso-fucking-lutely sensational.’

He paused and grinned at me. ‘Had a bit of a ding-ding with your Debbie, eh? Earlier on tonight.’

He winked and laughed. She wasn’t my Debbie, of course, but he never took any notice. No matter how many times I told him.

‘We can use that, Harry,’ he told me. ‘Bloody marvellous. Got it all on tape, you see. Every fucking word, clear as a bloody bell. She can’t half go on a bit, eh? Your Debbie. Bloody hell, you’d want to stay well clear of her if she had a knife in her hand. Might end up with some important bits on the floor.’ And he roared with laughter again.

Neither of us said anything for a minute. Then he said: ‘What do you propose to do now, Harry?’

That was the key question, of course. What were we going to do now?

I decided to play stupid. Which wasn’t difficult. That way I’d let him come up with some ideas, because I didn’t have any.

‘Do?’ I said. ‘How do you mean, do?’

Con didn’t seem to have any trouble believing I was that thick. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘what do you think is the best way to get your Debbie back onside? Because you know a bit more about her than I do, when all’s said and done.’

Actually I didn’t know very much about Debbie at all, really. And anyway, I thought that side of things was all over.

‘I don’t think we can do anything about that,’ I said. ‘Not with Debbie. I reckon she’s out of it.’

‘Nah,’ said Con. ‘Not a bit of it. She’s just upset, that’s all. Nice bunch of flowers, or whatever turns her on, and she’ll come round.’

I wasn’t at all sure about that.

‘You know what I reckon?’

‘No, Con. What do you reckon?’ He was going to tell me anyway.

‘I reckon you should write her a letter. Nice little letter. Apologising for the mix-up and that. Tell her how sorry you are. Mention the show, of course. Tell her that I’d like to see her.’

‘You?’

‘Yes. Got a lot to say to her, Harry. Lots of business to discuss. And she’s no bloody fool, your Debbie.’

Unlike me. I was a fool. He didn’t say that, but he might have done.

‘No sort of fool at all,’ he said again. ‘She’s been there and done that, Harry. Mixed with some good uns. When she calms down a bit she’ll begin to see possibilities.’

‘What sort of possibilities?’

‘Leave that to me, old son. Leave that to me. In the meantime, you write her a nice letter. I’ll help you if you like.’

‘No you won’t,’ I said. ‘I can write my own letters.’

Actually I hadn’t been intending to write to Debbie at all. Well, not with the aim of getting her back onside, as Con called it. I’d sort of thought that I ought to apologise to her, one way or another. But now that Con mentioned it, I could see that perhaps the right sort of letter might do us all a bit of good. And I did want to keep on good terms with Debbie if I could. I was very fond of her. And she had treated me very well. Lots of women might have told me to get lost. Because I couldn’t kid myself that I was any sort of a catch.

Of course, even when she got the letter Debbie could still refuse to read it. Tear it up or burn it. And even when she’d read it she could still think I was a complete tosser and want nothing more to do with me. But from what I knew of her, Debbie seemed a pretty reasonable sort of person. OK, so she’d got steaming mad. But she was entitled to. People pushing camera lenses into her face when she wasn’t prepared for it. That’s enough to upset anyone.

So, this letter idea of Con’s was a good one. It was certainly worth a try.

‘OK, then,’ I said. ‘That’s what I’ll do. I’ll write her a letter.’

‘Great,’ said Con. ‘Find some paper and we’ll get started.’

‘There’s no we about it,’ I told him. ‘I’ll write the letter, Con. You can push off home.’

And rather to my surprise he did. Not without quite a lot to say, of course. He hung around for a few minutes, giving me the benefit of his wisdom. ‘Give it some thought, Harry,’ he said. ‘Give it some thought. Don’t just say the first thing that comes into your head.’

But actually that was exactly what I was going to do. Say the first things that came into my head. Because I thought they would be the most important ones.

‘Leave the letter-writing to me,’ I said. ‘And leave the whisky bottle too.’ And funnily enough he did that too.

After Con had gone I sat down and wrote Debbie a letter. I had a little think first, and then I wrote it. This is what I said:

Dear Debbie,

I am writing to say how sorry I am that you were pestered by the TV crew this evening. You had every right to get mad, and I don’t blame you.

Perhaps it will help if I explain to you what was going on.

There are three things in my life that have gone badly wrong. Three very important things. And I can’t blame anyone but myself for any of them.

First, my marriage went wrong. Perhaps Carol and I were badly matched from the start. She only came out with me because she was on the rebound. And looking back on it, I can see that we didn’t really have much in common. She is much better suited with her new man, and she is very happy.

Carol thinks it is best for Lisa if I don’t see anything of her. And perhaps she is right. But not being able to see Lisa is something that breaks my heart. And I want to do everything I can to help Lisa as she is growing up.

The second thing that has gone wrong in my life is me getting HIV. You know all about that, so I don’t have to tell you any more. And obviously I must take responsibility for getting myself into that particular mess.

And the third thing that was very important to me is my relationship with you. That seems to have come off the rails too, at least for a bit. I had hoped that you and I might get to know each other better. And I hope we still can. Even though you are still mad at me for the moment.

What I should have explained to you, before you found out any other way, is that I have signed a contract to take part in a TV show. We haven’t got very far with it yet, but that is why the TV crew were hanging around your flat. They shouldn’t have been there until I had told you what is going on. And, obviously, if you want nothing to do with me, or the TV show, then they should never come anywhere near you.

I would still like to talk to you about all that, so that at least you understand how things went wrong. I realise that you may not want to, but I will call you in a day or two and see how you feel. If you would be willing to go out for a drink somewhere I could at least explain things a bit better than I can on paper.

Yours,

Harry

Shorts

Pulitzer prizes

The Pulitzer prizes for 2006 have been announced. I said my bit about this last year and I won't repeat it here. Sufficient to say that the fiction winner is March by Geraldine Brooks. Unsurprisingly I have never previously heard of either writer or book.

Fulfilment with Amazon

Or fulfillment, if you're American. Anyway, whatever you call it, Amazon are offering a new service to their third-party vendors. I'm not entirely sure how it works, but a number of writers have noticed that Amazon starts offering 'new and used' copies of a book, at cheaper than Amazon prices, almost as soon as the book appears, if not actually before the damn thing is officially published. (See for instance, my own latest offering.) How does this work?

Well, I think it works because some small-time operators, without Amazon's overheads, are able to use Amazon to advertise/sell new books, sourced from the same suppliers as Amazon. And -- because these small operators don't have the overheads -- they are able to cut the price even below Amazon. (See Clive Keeble's comment on my post of 14 April 2006.)

What does this mean? Trouble for small booksellers, for a start.

Viktor Janis

Viktor Janis recently sent me an entertaining email to let me know about a device available from Palm, a PDA or handheld reader which he has found more than useful.

One of Viktor's jobs is to review mss for Czech publishers, and he drew my attention to Gordon Dahlquist's forthcoming The Glass Book of the Dream Eaters. I hadn't heard of this before but NY publishers certainly have. Publishers Weekly reported that Bantam paid $2 million for the rights (plus a $500,000 bonus on a two-book deal), and it's out next August. A mere 768 pages, it has been described as 'Philip Pullman for adults'. Penguin UK have paid a reported £400,000.

Viktor thinks that Dahlquist will soon become as famous as Susanna Clarke. And he should know, because he is currently translating Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell into Czech. (That book, by the way, weighs a good three pounds in print, but only one tenth of that weight when read on a PDA.)

Speaking of PDAs (again), Viktor's view, with which I wholeheartedly agree, is that publishers are still doing it all wrong when it comes to selling ebooks, or ebook versions of successful novels. Their prices are way too high.

And who is Viktor Janis, you may be wondering. Answer, he is a freelance literary translator and editor from Prague. Radio Prague has interviewed him in English in 2002, and again in 2005. He has translated 45 books, mainly by big names such as Margaret Atwood, Neil Gaiman, Grahame Greene, et cetera. He says that he has edited more books than he can remember, including the Czech version of Banville's The Sea -- which he says is the longest 200-page book that he ever read in his life.

Yes indeed, Viktor. That's rather the way I feel. And I haven't even read it.

Posh Bingo

Professor John Sutherland has an eminently sensible article in the Telegraph about the Booker Prize (link from booktrade.info). Quoting Julian Barnes's dismissive remark that the prize is a form of posh bingo, Sutherland concludes: 'Given the diversity of the contending novels, and the necessary subjectivity of readers, it could hardly be otherwise.' Thus Sutherland recognises, at least implicitly, that success in the Booker is, to a large extent, determined by randomness.

Of course the problem -- if problem there be -- is not how the prizewinner is selected; it is how the public and press react. Sensible people like Sutherland know perfectly well that the 'best' novel in any given year -- even the best literary novel -- cannot be decided in the same way that the longest piece of string can be decided, by measuring it with a ruler. But, once the winner is announced, the press and public proceed to behave as if the winner is the best novel of the year, in some absolute scientific sense. And it is the fortunate winner who enjoys the benefits of this winner-take-all reaction.

All of which was discussed in some detail in my post of 24 January 2005. That essay, incidentally, was included in Tim Worstall's anthology of bloggery, 2005: Blogged.

Excerpt 13

Here is the latest excerpt from my new novel, How and why Lisa's Dad got to be famous. Please remember that, if this excerpt is of the slightest interest, a free pdf copy of the entire book can be obtained through this link. Also, should you be overwhelmed by an irresistible urge to buy a copy of the book, you can obtain one (in the UK) from any bookshop. Theoretically that should also be possible in the US. If you wish to order online, UK retailers such Tesco.com and Play.com both offer the book with prompt delivery. American readers can buy from Amazon.com, but delivery times on Amazon.co.uk are at present unaccceptable.

Debbie gets mad

I was feeling a good deal more cheerful for the rest of that day. But my good mood didn’t last long.

Soon after I got home, the phone rang.

It was Debbie. And she was not happy.

Earlier that day she’d noticed some men making a film in the street. They’d been pointing the camera at her. Or near her. So naturally she just assumed they were filming a building or something.

But now she’d just got home, and she had found the same men – Con’s men of course – filming her flat. Not quite in it, but very nearly. Actually I think they probably had been in it. Or had tried to get in.

Anyway, there they were. And when she asked them what the bloody hell they thought they were doing, they said something about her being Harry’s bird. For the TV show. And she, not surprisingly, said what TV show. And they said, the one with Harry in it. We thought you knew.

And a lot more like that.

So Debbie was absolutely steaming mad. As you can imagine. Anyone would be. There’d been a good deal of yelling and shouting and what the bloody hell’s going on sort of thing.

I haven’t told you yet, but Debbie is one of those people who can lose their temper and talk sense at the same time. Most people can’t do that. I can’t. But when Debbie gets mad at you, you’d better stand well back and take cover. Believe me.

Also she is not too fussy about the words she uses. I’ve known a few blokes who could eff and blind a bit, but Debbie can match any of them. Swearing like a trooper doesn’t even come close.

In some ways I wish I’d been there to hear Debbie rip into those technician guys. I would have enjoyed that. One of them told me later that he still had nightmares about it. He was joking, of course. But he hadn’t forgotten. And this was months afterwards.

What wasn’t any fun at all was having Debbie let fly at me on the phone. She hadn’t got a lot of sense out of the TV boys. They were probably doing what Con told them to do, which was act innocent. So now Debbie was having a go at me. She was yelling so loud I had to hold the receiver away from my ear.

‘What’s all this crap about a TV programme?’ she wanted to know. ‘What the hell are they on about, Harry?’

Well, you know me. No, perhaps you don’t. But I’m not one of the world’s fastest thinkers. And I’m not good at rows. So I was standing there quaking in my boots, and thinking This has torn it. Though I wasn’t surprised.

But I wasn’t making any sense either. I was just going, ‘Well, I was going to tell you about that, Debbie.’

‘Tell me about what?’ she yelled. ‘They were in my bloody bedroom. Did you put them up to this? I blame you for all this, Harry. You seem to be involved somehow. And who’s this son of a bitch Con they keep talking about? If I find this bloody Con I’ll eat him for fucking breakfast.’

Actually it was a bit of an exaggeration to say that the boys had been in Debbie’s bedroom. Though knowing Con and the way he works I wouldn’t have put it past him.

That phone call was really dreadful. And to tell you the truth I don’t want to think about it any more. It’s too upsetting to think about, even though it’s well over a year ago.

Let’s just say that Debbie was very angry. She had every right to be. I should have told her what I had let myself in for. And I should have told Con to lay off before I got Debbie up to speed.

Not that he would have listened.

I know now what the bastard did. I knew it that night when Debbie phoned.

Con had told me to get on with it. He had told me to tell Debbie what was going on. And I hadn’t done that. So he had done it for me. Sort of. He had arranged for Debbie to find his men poking their cameras into her private life. And he had known that it would lead to a row. Con likes rows. He says they’re good copy. Whatever that means. He did explain it to me once.

And I knew what he would do next, after Debbie had told me what she thought of me and put the phone down. Con had my house wired, so I knew that he would have heard the conversation between me and Debbie. Well, actually it wasn’t a conversation. It was her yelling at me, and me mumbling. The way I do. Trying to get a word in edgeways. But within ten minutes of it ending Con would be round at my place. ‘What you going to do now, Harry? Suppose you do this.’ And so on and so forth.

Well, blow that for a game of soldiers, I thought. I went out quick, before he could appear at my house.

I went down to the pub and had a couple of quiet pints and a game of darts. There’s nothing like a game of darts for getting your blood pressure back to normal. Because if you’re not calm you can’t even hit the board.

I’m quite good at darts. I play for the pub team when they want me, but I don’t try too hard to get on the team because it’s a social event really. When they travel to another pub all the wives and girlfriends go.

I half expected Con to call in at the pub before the night was out. He knew all about my local. Probably had the pub wired too, I shouldn’t wonder. But he didn’t appear. He left me alone. For a while anyway.

After my game of darts I just sat there and had a bit of a think. Most of the other people in the pub were watching the football on the telly, so I didn’t have to talk to anyone.

Well, I thought, that’s done it. Con’s men turning up and taking film of Debbie, without her knowing what they were up to, had really messed things up. Any chance I ever had of getting to know Debbie better had gone out the window. And, as usual, I couldn’t blame anyone but myself.

I realised, as I sat there, that I was going to have do better at this explaining lark. I did seem to be committed to doing something for my twenty-five thousand pound fee. So before long all the people in the pub would know what I was up to. It’s pretty difficult to miss a TV crew when they tag along behind you. And once a few people knew, word would spread quickly enough. It might be a good idea if I explained to a few people before anything happened.

I sat there and looked at them all. The pub regulars. Most of them are people I’ve known for a long time. And I wondered how they would feel about it.

They’d probably be interested, I thought. Quite interested at first. They would ask me lots of questions for the first day or two, but after that they would lose interest. Some of them would be dead keen to get themselves filmed, so that they could say they’d been on the telly. And others would run a mile as soon as a camera appeared.

And then I thought about Lisa. As I sat there in the pub, I didn’t actually have one of my make-believe conversations with Lisa. But I did wonder what she would say about all this. The TV show and that. On the whole I thought she might be quite thrilled. So long as the programme didn’t turn out to be too crappy. She’d be able to tell her friends that her Daddy was on TV.

It was a pity, I thought, that I’d made such a mess of the Debbie business. But probably she was too nice a girl to get involved in a TV programme anyway. So perhaps it was a good thing on the whole.

By the end of the evening I’d got over being too worried about having Debbie yell my head off. And I began to think about other ways of doing things. I would have to ask Con for some ideas, I thought. He was sure to have some.

The more I thought about it, the less worried I became. Debbie was well out of that business, I thought. And as for me – well, what did I have to lose? Not much.

I’d been told I had a very serious illness. And although I’d also been told that I could live for years and years, if I got the right treatment, I still didn’t put my chances very high. So one way and another it really didn’t matter what people thought of me. What was important was getting as much money together for Lisa as I could.

I quite began looking forward to doing the TV show. I thought it might turn out to be fun.

Michelle Lovric: The Remedy

The Remedy, by Michelle Lovric, is a story about life in the underworld of London and Venice; it is set in the late eighteenth century.

The book is a sublime example of the novelist's art; I warmly recommend it to anyone with a taste for fiction and some interest in Europe and its history. And the book nicely illustrates, as we shall see, the plight of the contemporary writer.

The principal characters in The Remedy are two lovers: the successful criminal Valentine Greatrakes, whom no one but a foreigner would mistake for a gentleman; and Catarina Venier, who was born to a noble Venetian family but who finds herself working as a common actress under the name Mimosina Dolcezza. She also doubles as a spy for the Venetian authorities.

What we have here is a book which is difficult to categorise. It is a highly romantic story, but the book is by no means a typical romance. There are many crimes in it, including a murder mystery, the solution to which is provided in the last chapter; but it is not a whodunit. The story involves espionage, but we do not have here a thriller. It is a historical novel, obviously. And it is, to a point, literary; though not quite literary enough, I suspect, to appeal to purist readers of that genre; it is a tad too commercial for them, and yet not commercial enough for, say, the Josephine Cox fans.

In brief, we have here a book which some would call gothic (though not me because I don't really understand what that means), but which in my view fits neatly into no pigeonhole: it is, I suspect, a marketing person's nightmare, in that it is a traditional mainstream novel, magnificently well done. But how can you sell that, in today's market?

In order to write a book such as this, the writer must bring to the table (or the word-processor) a multitude of skills: a capacity for detailed research into period and place; a well-founded knowledge of human nature; an assured grasp of narrative technique; a mastery (or mistressy?) of the use of language; patience; stamina; self-belief; and a love for the characters portrayed -- even when, like the grossly overweight and spoilt teenager, Pevenche, they are difficult to love. It is a measure, by the way, of this writer's skill that, by the end of the book, I had come to feel affection and sympathy for Pevenche, who is as unlovable a character as ever stamped her petulant little foot; or, in Pevenche's case, big flat foot.

There are many high points in the book, and it is invidious to pick out any. But I particularly enjoyed the section which deals with the quack doctor -- Dottore Velena -- who sells amazing 'medicines' on the streets of London. The Dottore's sales spiel is as fine a piece of sustained brilliance in the use of language as you are likely to come across in many a long year of reading.

Overall, the story is told without haste, in prose of a languorous nature. It is an extraordinary display of virtuosity, featuring passion, hate, fear, revenge, brutality, and kindness. It is a pleasure and a delight to read; I would be proud, myself, to have written anything half as good.

And yet... And yet...

My reservations are not about the book -- I hope I have made that clear -- but about the cruel and heartless world in which it has to make its way. What, I wonder, will be its ultimate reception and fate?

The Remedy was first published by Virago in the UK in 2005, as a trade paperback. A hardback edition was published by Regan Books in New York later that year. The UK mass-market paperback comes out in May, the US one in October.

Reviews? Publishers Marketplace reveals none in the US. The author's own web site quotes the Sunday Times from the UK, and a few Australian papers; the Amazon.com entry quotes Publishers Weekly and Booklist. All are polite, even enthusiastic. But the book has not, it seems, set the world alight.

So. The author has done a prodigious amount of research (see the book's appendix). She has spent several hundred hours exercising her not inconsiderable talents. And while I have not had the cheek to ask her publisher or agent how many copies Virago have so far sold in the UK (and almost certainly wouldn't get a straight answer if I did), you would not surprise me if you told me that the publisher had struggled to sell a thousand copies so far.

And that, dear Reader, is what I meant when I said that this book illustrates, to a nicety, the plight of the modern writer. Michelle Lovric has written a book which is every bit as good as those by Sarah Waters (whom she admires); but unlike Sarah she has not yet taken off.

Of course, it might yet happen. The television boys might film The Remedy (but it's wickedly expensive to do these costume things). But at present, all this author has to show for her effort and talent is a couple of modest (one suspects) advances (UK and USA), plus the admiration and respect of a boring old man in Wiltshire.

Not a lot, is it?

Handnotes

The Big Bad Book Blog

How did I miss this one? Especially as they link to me. Anyway, Galleycat finally made me notice the Big Bad Book Blog, which I've now added to the blogroll. Aimed, perhaps, more at publishers than writers, the BBBB nevertheless contains a lot of useful information. Try, for instance, their piece about the interior design of books -- something which, in my judgement, Americans are much better at than us Brits.

More Maddox

Well, as promised earlier, the New York Times did indeed take note of the Maddox phenomenon. The NYT thinks that there may be a new trend -- a masculine version of chick-lit which they suggest might be called fratire. Apparently mainstream publishers were dead scared of it when they first saw what it looked like.

Newsweek also considered this business newsworthy.

Libby Rees

By the way, Libby Rees was on Sky News last night (Monday) talking about 'her new TV show'. The only sensible aspect of the report came from Virginia Ironside, who suggested that it wasn't a good idea for children who have suffered during a divorce to be encouraged to go on thinking about it.

Why it's getting harder to sell books

The Times this morning (read over me porridge) has an article about how the TV boys (and girls) in America are getting smarter by the minute. (Would that this were true of publishers; rather the reverse applies there, one feels.) Apparently, during 2005 the average American household tuned in to TV for eight hours and 11 minutes per day. This is 2.7% longer than in the previous year, 12.5% longer than ten years ago, and, for good measure, the longest reported since Nielsen Media Research began monitoring such things in the 1950s.

What with that, iPods, CDs, DVDs, Uncle TC and all, no wonder publishers are sucking their teeth and wondering about early retirement.

Excerpt 12

Here is the latest excerpt from my new novel, How and why Lisa's Dad got to be famous. Please remember that, if this excerpt is of the slightest interest, a free pdf copy of the entire book can be obtained through this link. Also, should you be overwhelmed by an irresistible urge to buy a copy of the book, you can obtain one (in the UK) from any bookshop. Theoretically that should also be possible in the US. If you wish to order online, UK retailers such Tesco.com and Play.com both offer the book with prompt delivery. American readers can buy from Amazon.com, but delivery times on Amazon.co.uk are at present unaccceptable.

Talking to Mr Redmond

Fortunately I’ve always been able to sleep. I’m not one of those people who lie awake half the night worrying about things. And usually, when I wake up the next day, I’m ready to get on with life.

And that was the way it was the day after I had that bit of an argument with Con. Well, it wasn’t an argument really. And it wasn’t his fault, so I was being unfair when I bit his head off. But I had felt bad about deceiving Debbie. And fortunately the next morning, when I woke up, I thought I would be able to deal with it.

I didn’t have the faintest idea how I would deal with it. But I felt as if I could work something out.

I was working in the church that day. But I would have gone to the church anyway, even if I hadn’t been working there. And what I hoped would happen did happen.

About lunchtime the Vicar came in. Mr Redmond. He often does come in about lunchtime. Well, once a week, anyway. And he’s always interested in what I’ve been doing. So I show him the latest work, and we generally keep in touch.

That particular day we had our usual chat. And then I asked him if he could spare me a few minutes. And he said he could. I told him that I really wanted it to be in private, so he took me over to the vicarage and we went into his study.

It’s a nice old house, the vicarage. Victorian. I’ve done some work in there over the years.

Anyway we sat down, and I began to talk. It wasn’t particularly easy for me, because I’d made mistakes and I was going to have to admit to them. But I wasn’t embarrassed or anything like that, because I knew Mr Redmond was pretty broadminded. It’s not that he approves of what people get up to. But he understands that people are human.

Another thing I like about Mr Redmond is that he doesn’t push himself on to you. He just lets you know that you can talk to him if you want to. He told me once that he always wears a dog collar because he wants people to know that he’s a clergyman. That way, if they happen to be feeling desperate, and even if they’ve never set eyes on him before, they can stop him in the street and ask for help.

That afternoon, in Mr Redmond’s study, I started at the beginning, with my divorce. I explained how, when Carol was gone, I’d felt the need for someone to have sex with. And I’d ended up going to Dora Cartwright’s place.

Then I told him how Dora had warned me that I might have been infected with HIV. Which was pretty good of her really, because she could have kept her mouth shut. I might never have known – not for year and years, until it was too late to do anything. So I was grateful to her for that. And of course I told him that the tests showed I was HIV positive.

Next I told Mr Redmond about how Con had appeared out of the woodwork. I couldn’t say that Con had taken advantage of me, because I am a grown man. I make my own decisions, when all is said and done. But Con certainly caught me at a funny time. I wasn’t perhaps thinking as clearly as I might have been.

Mr Redmond asked me some questions about the TV show. So I filled in the details. Well, I say details. I didn’t really understand the details myself, at that stage. But I knew that to win the million pounds I had to find a woman who was willing to go to bed with me. And I didn’t expect the Vicar to be too thrilled about that part. But I did explain that I was doing it for Lisa and not for myself.

Mr Redmond listened to all that. He seemed a bit surprised in places, but he didn’t criticise. He never does. And although I kept it as short as possible, it took quite a long time.

Finally I told him that I had been hoping I might get to know Debbie better. I explained that I’d had my eye on her for some time, but hadn’t done anything about asking her out. It was only when Con began nagging me about the TV show that I actually did anything. And I ended up by saying that I felt really bad about not being entirely honest with Debbie.

What I didn’t do was ask the Vicar for advice. For one thing I’d already made up my mind that I would make my own decisions. And for another thing I knew that he never would offer advice anyway. All he would do was help you to put your finger on the things you had to decide for yourself.

I knew that was the way he worked because I’d talked things through with Mr Redmond before. I went to see him when my marriage was falling apart. He’s a married man himself, with a couple of kids at university. And that helps, I think. That first time I went to see him, he had kindly offered to speak to me and Carol together. But I hadn’t taken him up on it for several reasons.

For one thing Carol couldn’t stand clergymen. Used to say they got right up her nose. So somewhere along the line one of them must have said something nasty to her. I never did find out what was behind that. And for another thing my own talk with Mr Redmond was enough. I knew then what I had to decide for myself, and what Carol and I had to decide together.

I can’t say I was wonderfully pleased with the result of what Carol and I decided. But at least we hadn’t started throwing things and stabbing each other, the way some couples do.

Mr Redmond was very good when I told him all about my latest problems. I have a lot of respect for him.

‘I think you need to understand, Harry,’ he said, ‘that if you’re committed to doing this TV show – and from what you tell me you do seem to be legally committed – then pretty soon the whole town is going to know about it. So there’s little point in keeping that under wraps any longer.

‘As for whether Debbie will want to take part in the show – that remains to be seen. It’s a matter for her. But you should realise, Harry, that the whole point of the show is this: condom or no condom, a woman who has sex with you is effectively risking her life. And if, as you tell me, she can’t have any part of the money that you win, then she is going to be risking her life for nothing.’

Mr Redmond leaned back in his chair and looked at me rather seriously.

‘Now why would anyone do that, Harry? That’s the question you’ve got to ask yourself. And that’s the question that the viewers are going to be asking themselves. If either Debbie or some other person does go through with it, will it all be because of true love? Or what?’

Now that’s why I admire Mr Redmond so much, you see. He’s an educated man, and he’s a trained counsellor. And whenever I talk to him about a problem he always seems to be able to put his finger on the key points. And the key points are always things that you know really. But because they’re so difficult and uncomfortable, you’ve been pushing them to the back of your mind.

Everything he said to me that afternoon was stuff that I already understood. In fact most of it was stuff that I’d told him myself, earlier on. But he’d picked out the really important bits and shoved them under my nose.

What Mr Redmond had done was make me realise that we were talking about life and death here.

I told you earlier that Con had already told me that the name of the programme would be Harry – the Man with AIDS. Even though I don’t have AIDS. Not yet. But that’s the way the programme would be known. Harry – the Man with AIDS. And that’s what it was all about. Could a man with AIDS persuade a woman to go to bed with him? In three months. To help him to win a million pounds which she couldn’t have a share of.

Above all Mr Redmond had made me think about something that I already knew but had very carefully not been thinking about. The woman would be risking her life.

And all that is what I’d been dumb enough to sign up for.

And even if I decided that I wanted to change my mind and back out, I was in really deep trouble. Con had already as good as told me that if I tried to back out of it the TV company would sue my arse off. He hadn’t told me in so many words, of course – that’s not his way. But he had made it pretty darn clear. I certainly knew where I stood on that one.

Lesson to be learnt here. Understand what you’re signing before you put your name on it.

Well, I had taken up enough of Mr Redmond’s time. He had all sorts of people wanting to see him, at all hours of the day, and he had been very patient.

I thanked him very much indeed. And I meant it.

Before I left him I did raise one other thing. I said that, if I ended up doing this TV show, it seemed to me that I was going to have to take some time off. So I asked him if he would mind if the work in the church went on to the back burner for a while.

Mr Redmond gave me a little grin. ‘Harry,’ he said, ‘the church has been here for nigh on seven hundred years. So I think it can wait for a few more weeks while you turn yourself into a star.’

We both had a good laugh about that.

But actually it turned out to be true.

David Hooper on the Da Vinci case

Huge mountains of tosh have been talked about the Da Vinci case, but at last we have an article which talks sense. It's written by David Hooper and it can be found in Publishing News.

If I were ever -- God forbid -- in serious legal trouble over a book-related matter, David Hooper is the lawyer I would think of first (though I doubt that I could afford him). He is currently with Reynolds Porter Chamberlain, and he is the author of Reputations Under Fire, which is the book on libel in terms of English law (particularly dangerous law for writers). He has been mentioned here briefly from time to time.

Hooper's view is that Baigent and Leigh 'cannot have received encouraging legal advice as to their chances of success.' And he agrees with my own view that the third co-author, Henry Lincoln, was wise to stay out of it.

The outcome of the case demonstrates, says Hooper, that 'The law is as everyone thought it was. Unless you copy the means of expression of facts and ideas, you do not breach copyright.'

Baigent and Leigh must now pay their own legal costs plus 85% of Random House's costs -- not much change out of £2 million. This figure alone surely casts doubt on the idea that it was all a put-up job to increase the royalties from both books and to boost Random House's profits; plus, of course, the movie box office. I just don't think the arithmetic works. Hooper says that 'the cost of such litigation [for Baigent and Leigh] would easily outweigh even the large additional sales.'

As for the idea that it cost Random House nothing because they used in-house lawyers, who are being paid a salary anyway-- well, I hardly think so. The English legal system just does not work that way. Just by way of example, Richard Spearman QC, who represented Baigent and Leigh, cannot by any stretch of imagination be described as a Random House in-house lawyer. And I bet he ain't cheap.

At the end of the day, says Hooper, 'Baigent and Leigh made an unwise and ruinous decision to accuse Brown of plagiarism.' The winners? Dan Brown; Random House; Henry Lincoln (who gets increased royalties with no legal bills); and the Da Vinci movie. 'And, of course, the lawyers.'

Oh yes. We mustn't forget them.

Monday roundup

Dame Muriel Spark

Muriel Spark has died, aged 88. Maud Newton is a keen fan, and has done a nice tribute to her, with lots of links. One of Spark's last books, Aiding and Abetting, was recommended here on 23 February 2006.

Around the same time, Kelly Jane Torrance published an enthusiastic survey of Spark's work in Doublethink. I am inclined to agree with the view that, for all the many honours bestowed upon her, Spark's work is a bit undervalued.

Another old lady

Last week's Times recorded the death of another of those tough old British women -- the kind of person who combined character, brains, physical stamina and courage, erudition, and a whole lot more: the Dowager Lady Hesketh.

In her youth Kisty Hesketh was a noted horsewoman and a good shot with a rifle. Widowed at 25, with three sons, she lost an eye in a car crash at 33, and thereafter wore a black patch. She was a diligent researcher and historian, wrote a book on Scottish tartans which was published in 20 countries, and earned herself a proper PhD from London University and an honorary one from Leicester.

The Times reports that she was an intrepid traveller, often with her great friend Pamela, Lady Egremont. She once took the route from the Atlas Mountains to Gibraltar without a sleeping bag. 'One gets used to sleeping on the ground quite quickly,' she explained.

Well yes. Indeed. That's what I've always found.

Recycling titles

The Book Standard has a link to an AP article about books with the same titles. It's hardly news that many titles are used quite often, sometimes causing confusion. And lawyers will sometimes try complaining if you use a title that they don't think you should. But Otto Penzler describes how to deal with them.

Should you wish to check whether your own proposed title has been used before, you can use Amazon to review books in print. And in the UK you can check all books from the beginning of time by going to the British Library catalogue (available on COPAC). In the US, I guess you can use the Library of Congress.

Oddly enough, no one has used How and why Lisa's Dad got to be famous before. (See today's extract, below.)

Mover Mike

Not many blogs, I suspect, are written by retired stockbrokers with an interest in poetry, but Mover Mike's is. If you are interested in a mixture of financial comment, current affairs, and some literary stuff, this is the place.

Danuta Kean on the economics of the business

Clive Keeble kindly draws my attention to an article by Danuta Kean in The Independent. This is definitely one to print out and keep (click on the 'printable version' button at the bottom).

Danuta is an experienced and well connected journalist in book-world circles and she has much valuable data to offer you on the current economics of writing. Figures and examples relate to the UK, but you can be quite certain that the position is much the same elsewhere. Clive Keeble questions whether the figures offered are dead right, but they will inevitably vary from book to book and publisher to publisher.

Basically, the message for writers is: Don't give up the day job.

The Indie article is an edited extract from the cover story of the latest issue of Mslexia, the magazine for women who write. Could be worth buying the whole thing. For details see the mag's web site.

The Wicked Witch does survey

Lynne Scanlon invites you to participate in her survey of online publishing (14 April). Legamus ergo emomus. And all like that (read the comments).

Excerpt 11

Here is the latest excerpt from my new novel, How and why Lisa's Dad got to be famous. Please remember that, if this excerpt is of the slightest interest, a free pdf copy of the entire book can be obtained through this link. Also, should you be overwhelmed by an irresistible urge to buy a copy of the book, you can obtain one (in the UK) from any bookshop. Theoretically that should also be possible in the US. If you wish to order online, UK retailers such Tesco.com and Play.com both offer the book with prompt delivery. American readers can buy from Amazon.com, but delivery times on Amazon.co.uk are at present unaccceptable.

Con gets pushy

It was about ten o’clock when Debbie finally went home.

I wasn’t looking forward to her going, because there were several other things that I ought to say to her, but I knew I didn’t have the courage. Not that night. And I knew that after she’d gone I’d feel even worse than I did already.

I think Debbie must have seen that I was feeling bad, because when I came to the door to see her out she told me not to worry.

‘You’re not the only man I’ve met with HIV, Harry. Not by a long way. So you really mustn’t worry. I’m sure you’re going to be OK.’

Well, that was nice of her, even if we both knew it was a bit of a nonsense. But the thing that really upset me was, just before she went she kissed me on the cheek. I could hardly speak when she did that.

‘Thanks,’ I managed to say. ‘That’s very kind of you.’ And after she’d driven off I closed the door.

Then I went back into the living room and sat down.

To tell you the truth, it was as much as I could do not to have a damn good cry. I felt really awful. Not ill, you understand. I just felt really bad about deceiving Debbie. It seemed a rotten thing to do to such a nice girl. Especially after she’d been so kind to me.

So I just sat there for a while, trying to get my head straight. I knew full well that it would be a waste of time getting ready for bed because Con would be round any minute. And he was.

He just walked in as usual, without so much as a by your leave.

‘Oy,’ I said. And I said it sharply. ‘Knock the next time you want to come in, and I’ll come and answer the door. You don’t own this fucking place.’

I think he could see that I was upset because I don’t often swear. So he apologised.

‘Sorry, Harry,’ he said. ‘Sorry, mate. Didn’t mean to intrude. But the door was on the latch so I thought you were expecting me.’

‘I was,’ I said. ‘But that doesn’t mean I’m pleased to see you. What do you want?’

He could tell I was going to be difficult, because I’d never been so short with him before. So he took his time. He took his coat off, pulled a chair up and sat down. He rubbed his hands over his face.

‘OK, Harry,’ he said. ‘I’m not a completely hard case. I know you think I’m all business and that. Never give you a minute’s peace. But that’s the way I have to be. It’s my job. And because it’s my job I can understand you being pissed off with me. It happens in every show, actually. Sooner or later whoever’s out there in front of the camera will get really mad at me for nagging them. Some of them even take a swing at me. But that’s OK. I’m used to it. So I shan’t take offence.’

And then he started off on a great long rigmarole that I hardly even listened to.

It was all designed to change my mood. Make us pals again. I realised that. But the truth was I just wanted to have a little think, that’s all. Work things out for myself. And when I’d done that I would be all right again. So I let him prattle on for bit, while I switched off.

After a few minutes there was a pause. Then Con said, ‘I thought you handled the HIV thing really well, Harry. Couldn’t have scripted it better myself. You’ve got a bit of a bloody gift, you know. I don’t suppose you believe me. You’ll think I’m laying it on with a trowel, to get you back onside. But it’s true. You have got a bit of a gift. That’s why I chose you. I could see you had it in you, right from the start. Touch of the common man, Harry. Something like that. You speak in a language that ordinary people can understand. And I like that, Harry. I really do.’

I didn’t care what he liked or didn’t like. So I said nothing.

‘But you still didn’t tell her about the show, Harry. Didn’t tell her that you were signed up to win a million pounds. On TV. For Lisa.’

‘No, Con. I didn’t.’

He raised his eyebrows at me. ‘Got to be done, Harry. Got to be done. And better sooner than later.’

‘I’ll do it when I’m ready,’ I told him. ‘When the time is right.’ Actually I didn’t think I would ever be ready. Or that the time would ever be right. And, as it happened, it never was.

Con changed tack. ‘She’s one hell of a looker, Harry,’ he told me. ‘The camera loves her. Funny thing about TV. And the movies too, of course. Same thing there. You get some really beautiful people in real life, stick ‘em in front of the camera, and they look like cardboard. Whitewash and bloody cardboard. Unbelievable. Others, plain-looking people in real life, you throw a spot on ‘em, give ‘em a bit of light and shade, and they look like fucking Garbo. Absolutely amazing.’

I grunted. If that. I wasn’t interested in TV. Or the movies either, for that matter.

‘Mind you,’ he went on, ‘your Debbie’s both. I mean, she’s a bit of all right in the daylight. Absolutely fabulous figure. I sneaked a shot of her walking down the street the other day – shot it out of the back of a van – and she stacks up with the best of them. And that’s the thing, see, Harry. On the screen she’s a cracker too, as well as in real life. She even looked good in here, where the lighting’s nothing special.’

He looked around him. I don’t think he was too impressed by what he saw, but he kept his thoughts to himself.

‘You had a good chat tonight then?’

‘Yes thanks.’ I didn’t even look at him.

‘And you’re going to have a think about telling her about the show. Decide how to do it.’ He wasn’t asking me, he was telling me.

But I didn’t answer him. I just closed my eyes and put a hand over my forehead. My head was spinning. It really was. I didn’t think I could stand up without losing my balance. And I just wanted him to go. Piss off, Con, I felt like saying. Leave me alone.

‘Have a think about briefing her, Harry,’ he said again. ‘Because if you don’t do it, I’ll have to. But maybe you’d prefer it that way.’ He stood up to go. ‘Think about it, will you? And let me know which way you want to play it.’

And then, at last, he pushed off home.

Hot cross buns

Minx on definitions

Minx has some useful definitions of terms such as 'editor' and 'mss'.

The Never Ending Story

The Never Ending Story (with or without spaces between the words) describes itself as the 'world’s first interactive constantly evolving books website..... a unique new online facility that for the first time allows Internet users from anywhere in the world to read, and importantly contribute to, a range of online publications including fictional constantly evolving stories that are started by well-known authors and personalities.'

This project seems to be aimed at wannabe writers and has some backing from firms which provide services to new and self-publishing writers, so you would need to read the small print carefully -- which I haven't done.

Attitudes will vary, I'm sure. Some will think it a waste of time if not positively pernicious; others will think it fun. The founder is Arup Biswas, and he has hopes that it might become the next Friends Reunited.

Investing in business books

Publishers Lunch a day or two ago had a link to an article in BusinessWeek, wherein the results of a survey of writers of business books are presented.

Writing a book, we are told, pays dividends for the owners of small businesses. Most of the authors surveyed said that 'the indirect benefits -- generating more leads, closing more deals, charging higher fees, and getting better speaking engagements -- far outweighed the direct benefits of book publishing. Even if a business book sells 15,000 copies -- which is considered quite good [US market] -- an author getting royalties of $1 per book, minus percentages for book agents and ghostwriters, is not going to make much, considering the time they devote to the process.'

And, please note: Selling the book was recognised as absolutely vital, a task that 'involves significant investment -- both up front and after the book comes out. Writing a book takes at least nine months or a year and it's quite a difficult creative undertaking. Our survey showed that 51% of authors invested personal funds in marketing their books. The amount they invested ranged from under $1,000 up to $150,000. The median amount was $4,500.'

As little as that then.

Engineering, anyone?

Four UK engineering bodies are offering scriptwriters £35,000 if they feature a fictional engineering character in a positive light, either on stage, screen, radio or in print.

Andrew Ives, IMechE President, says that 'For too long, people have had misconceptions of what an engineer is and does. Remember, without medical engineers, the fictional doctors of ER and Casualty would not be able to save all their patients, or without aerospace engineers, Top Gun would be a rather less action-packed movie!' (Link from booktrade.info.)

Delivery times

I don't know about you, but when I decide to buy a book I want to get hold of it pretty damn quick. Which is how impulse buys come about. You see it, you buy it. Also, on Amazon, there is the one-click system. Very tempting.

However, it is worth just restraining yourself for a moment, particularly if you're an online buyer. Shopping around is sometimes worthwhile, particularly if it's an expensive illustrated book. A few clicks to comparative suppliers may result in a saving of £10 or $15.

What is more, it is sometimes instructive to compare delivery times. Theoretically, all retailers should be equal in this regard. But they ain't.

If you live in the UK, you might, perhaps, find it worthwhile to compare the obvious Amazon with some other kids on the block. The giant supermarket Tesco, for instance, run an interesting site. And yesterday I was recommended to look at another supplier that I'd never even heard of before: Play.com. Worth a look.

Specifically, I cannot advise you at present, to buy any Kingsfield Publications books, including my new novel (see below) from Amazon. Delivery times are simply unacceptable. For the moment at least it is better to use Tesco.com or Play.com, who actually can deliver promptly.

Excerpt 10

Here is the latest excerpt from my new novel, How and why Lisa's Dad got to be famous. Please remember that, if this excerpt is of the slightest interest, a free pdf copy of the entire book can be obtained through this link. Also, should you be overwhelmed by an irresistible urge to buy a copy of the book, you can obtain one at an amazingly low price from various online booksellers. At present, for UK readers, Tesco.com and Play.com both offer the book at a discount with prompt delivery. (Delivery times on Amazon orders for this book, in the UK, are at present unaccceptable.) American readers can buy from Amazon.com.

Telling Debbie the truth

The following evening, Debbie called round with the chicken that she’d promised me. It was a funny yellow colour, I remember. But she said that was because it had been fed on corn.

Anyway, I thanked her very much and paid her. And then I asked her if she’d like a cup of coffee. And she said yes. I realised later that she was making it easy for me to do what I had to do. But that’s typical of her.

I made the coffee and we sat and chatted for a while about this and that. The farm where she’d got the chicken, that sort of thing. And after a while I kind of decided that it was now or never. There was something I had to do, even if it ruined things between me and Debbie for ever.

‘Debbie,’ I said, ‘I enjoyed meeting you the other night at Jack and Sarah’s. And I enjoyed going to the lecture. And I’d like to ask you to go to other things with me. But before I do there’s something I ought to tell you.’

Actually there were at least three things I ought to have told her. One was that I had HIV. Another was that I’d signed the TV contract with Con. And the third was that the house was wired, so Con was hearing every word we said. But I thought that one nasty shock was enough for one evening, so I started with the HIV.

Or I was going to. But she stopped me.

‘Harry,’ she said, ‘if you’re going to tell me that you’re HIV positive, you needn’t bother. I already know that.’

Now that stopped me dead in my tracks. There I was, all geared up to tell her something difficult, and she’d beaten me to it. I sat there with my heart thumping because she’d given me a real shock. Whereas I’d expected to give her one.

I am never the world’s fastest thinker, but she had really stumped me. I couldn’t figure it out.

So after a bit I said, ‘How do you know that?’

‘Because I’m a friend of Dora’s.’

There was another pause while I worked that one out too. And eventually I got there. ‘You mean Dora Cartwright.’

‘That’s the one.’

So, now I have to explain it to you.

It goes back to when I was married. After Carol left me I was a bit depressed at first. Very upset in fact. But then after a while I got my breath back. I never got over having Lisa taken away from me, and I never enjoyed living alone. Although I could manage. But what did surprise me was that I missed the sex.

Whatever other problems Carol and I may have had, we never had any problems in bed. She was quite keen on it, as a matter of fact, and so was I. And so between us I suppose we prove that there’s more to marriage than sex. Because even when we were kicking lumps off each other and having rows about things we could usually still perform.

So, as I say, when Carol left I found I missed that. The bedroom stuff. I’d got used to it. And although there are always do-it-yourself alternatives I found I didn’t fancy any of them. So I began to look around.

I read the papers. Looked at these adverts for people wanting to meet people. And I didn’t fancy any of that. And I decided that I didn’t fancy any of these dating agencies either. I really didn’t want to get involved in any new relationship at all. I still had enough trouble trying to sort out the old one, what with seeing the lawyer and that – trying to sort out the money. So none of that dating stuff helped.

But there was one thing I did notice. After I’d been thinking about the sex thing for a while I noticed that there were adverts in the local paper for a massage parlour. It was about ten miles away, up near the motorway. And I’d heard a thing or two about massage parlours. Heard blokes talking in the pub and so forth. So I decided to find out if what they said was true.

And it turned out that it was true. Which surprised me really. I hadn’t expected to find a brothel, out here in darkest Westshire. But there was one. And you could get a massage there too, funnily enough. But mostly it was a brothel.

It was small, and quiet, and private. Just an ordinary sort of house really, in another small town a bit like the one I live in. Public car park nearby, so there was no constant coming and going to annoy the neighbours. You parked your car and walked about fifty yards, and there you were. Tiny little plate on the door, and that was it. You just went in and they looked after you.

There was some local trade in the place, or so the girls told me, but I never saw anyone there that I knew. And mostly, they said, it was blokes who were travelling. Men who are always on the road for their work. Those blokes get together too, just like men in pubs. They meet over meals, or they meet when they’re doing business. And they pass on hints and tips about massage parlours, just like other men pass on tips about good places to fish. So if they had a bit of time to spare, or they were staying overnight in the area, they’d call in.

The massage parlour was run by a Mrs Cartwright. Who’s a bit older than me. Quite a nice woman really. I know her better now than I did then, but she was always very friendly. Put you at your ease if it was your first time. Didn’t put you under any pressure.

Come to think of it, Dora Cartwright’s massage parlour was a typical little west-country business. Rather sleepy and friendly. Run on amateur lines. Customers coming from word of mouth. And cheap. Very cheap, compared with the big cities. But doing a good job.

Once I got used to the place I used to go there once a week. I became one of the regulars. Or so Dora said. The customers used to nip out fairly smartish afterwards, so I never got to know any of them.

Mrs Cartwright and I had a cup of tea now and then, and a bit of a laugh. The only thing was, I didn’t like her smoking. It used to make me cough.

There must have been half a dozen girls working there over the time I went there. But there was one in particular that I settled on. A dark-haired girl called Catherine. Known as Cath for short.

And so life went on, even though I was divorced, and even though I couldn’t see Lisa. Once I found Dora’s massage parlour I’d got the sex problem sorted. Or so I thought.

But then the day came when I turned up at the parlour and Dora called me into her office. She closed the door.

She looked absolutely shattered. Got me to sit down. And then she told me. Cath had discovered that she was HIV positive. And Dora thought it was only right to tell her regulars. Suggest that they got themselves checked.

Which I did of course.

That night when Debbie delivered the chicken, and told me that she already knew about the HIV – told me that Dora had told her about me – I took a minute or two to think about that. When I thought that I’d got it all sorted in my head I started talking to Debbie again.

‘So,’ I said, ‘Dora’s told you that I’m HIV positive.’

‘Yes.’

‘Has she told everyone?’

‘No. But she told me because I told her I was going to be seeing you at Sarah’s.’

‘Oh. Right. Well,’ I said, ‘I’m very sorry, Debbie. I should have told you earlier. I should have told Jack and Sarah really. But I’m afraid I funked it. I’m sorry.’

‘That’s all right.’

I didn’t know what to say next. I had sort of expected that Debbie would get up and go when I told her. And that I’d never hear from her again. But she’d put me all out of sorts because she knew already. And there she was. Still sitting there.

After a while I said, ‘How do you come to know Dora?’ Just for something to say really. It had gone a bit quiet.

‘We’re both interested in the fair-trade movement. Helping the people who live overseas to get a fair price for the goods they sell here. And we’re both interested in organic food. And women’s rights.’ She grinned. ‘That sort of thing. Not men’s stuff at all, Harry.’

I couldn’t help smiling.

‘Perhaps you can help me then,’ I said. ‘I’ve often wondered what’s happened to Cath. You know, the girl I used to go with. If I saw Dora in the street I would ask her. But she seems to have closed the massage parlour.’

‘Yes,’ said Debbie, ‘she has. The HIV thing killed it for her. She could have gone on – the business was there – but she lost heart at that point. Packed it in.’

‘Well, will you ask her, then?’ I said. ‘I worry about Cathy a bit. I don’t suppose there’s anything I can do to help. But you never know.’

Debbie said she would. But she still didn’t make any move to go. So we just sat there. And she asked me things. And I asked her things. And we ended up having a bit of a meal together. I cooked the main course and she did a dessert.

It turned out later that Cath had run away. Gone off to London because she was so upset when she found out about herself. And about infecting me. I don’t think there was anyone else involved. The reason being, I think, that Cath liked me a bit more than most of the customers, and she and I used to have unprotected sex. That’s how it happened.

After a month or two Debbie and Mrs Cartwright heard a rumour about where Cath had gone, and what she was up to. So they went off to London to find her.

It took them three days and a lot of walking, but eventually they found her. They brought her back home to her Mum.

After a while they got her sorted out. They got her head straight, and got her a job. She works on the cosmetics counter in Boots now. I say hello to her when I’m in there. She’s even found a new boyfriend, they tell me, and she looks very happy. So life does go on, even if you do have problems. For a while, anyway.

Pensioners who blog

Somebody wrote to me a few weeks ago and said that, at a seminar at the London Book Fair, there had been some discussion of blogging as a young person's game. In response, someone else had mentioned the GOB as an example of an older person who blogs. And now, lo, the mighty and esteemed NY Times has a whole article about pensioners who blog -- or Elderbloggers, as they're apparently known. (Link from Blogger Buzz.) The article doesn't mention the GOB, but we'll forgive them for that.

You have to register to read the NYT stuff, but you only need to do it once and then you're in. The NYT suggests that the internet is home to approximately 54.3 million blogs (double the previous highest figure that I've seen). Nearly 60% are written by people younger than 19, and just 0.3% of blogs are run by people aged 50 or older; yet that's still about 160,000 bloggers.

(How do they know this stuff? I mean I know the NYT is hot on fact checking, but I don't remember anyone ringing me up and asking how old I am. But I have been rung up by someone from the house magazine of American Airlines. There's fame for you.)

None of the bloggers specifically mentioned seems to write directly about books. But then there are other sides to life. Or so I'm told.

Worth looking at are Pete Lustig's blog -- he's 84 and thinks he may be the world's oldest blogger. Then there's Ronni Bennet, who's a mere 65. Ha! She has links to a hundred or so other oldies who blog. And Ronni, by the way, has an alter ego called Crabby Old Lady. Mort Reichek is another octogenarian. And finally Milt Rebman, who is surviving with prostate cancer and still has things to say. None of these people is any sort of slouch at the blogging business.

Libby Rees update

The arrival on the publishing scene of 10-year-old author Libby Rees was noted here on 16 December 2005. Libby, you may recall, is from the Aultbea stable of pre-pubescent authors, and Aultbea is a firm which is chiefly famous for getting newspapers to publish wildly exaggerated stories as if they were solid fact. For details, see my post on Dragon Tamers from June last year.

Then, on 10 March 2006, I noted with some scepticism the claim that Libby was soon to host her own Trisha-style TV chat show (think UK Oprah). And now there's more.

The BBC now tells us, with cute picture, that Libby is 'helping to develop her own TV show.' Libby, it seems, has 'signed a development contract with TV production company Redback Films.' The show, under the working title Ask Libby, has 'not been commissioned yet and is still in the early stages.' In other words, it's all just a gleam in someone's eye. An idea which might happen one day but stands about a 1% chance. Tops. More realistically, 0.1%.

And who, you may reasonably ask, are Redback Films? Well they aren't actually a brand-new company, which rather surprises me. They have made a number of TV documentaries, including one about Lockerbie.

Well, as a certain novel published recently makes clear, TV companies produce some odd programmes these days. And, according to yesterday's Sun, Chantelle is to marry Preston. So who knows. Libby may yet appear before your very eyes.

'To have a TV show,' says Libby, 'would be a bit surreal.'

Yyyyyup. I think you could say that.

I suppose it would be terribly boring of me to point out that this story isn't really news at all. It's idle gossip. And to find it coughed up as if it actually meant something, by an organisation like the BBC, is deeply depressing. The BBC was once the acknowledged the source of reliable news for the oppressed peoples of this world, but the organisation was well nigh destroyed in the 1990s by the 'management guru' John Birt, and now seems beyond rescue.

We really loved your stuff, but...

The Literary Saloon provides a link to yet another experiment on the reliability and validity of slush-pile readings. Mark Sanderson, a man who clearly has his ear to the ground, reports the case of John Howard, author of children's book The Key to Chintak, who began to suspect that those who sent him rejection slips weren't actually reading his ms.

How could he have even dreamed such a thing? He should, to quote Muhammad Ali, have apologised.

Anyway, John tested his hypothesis. He typed out a new ms, entitled The Tin Drum, and for the text used extracts from a washing-machine manual. And, as you would expect:

'Dear John, Thank you for your submission which I read and enjoyed. Unfortunately...'

If you visit John Howard's web site for The Key to Chintak, you will find that he has some formidably impressive quotations from trade professionals who actually did read his book and liked it. All in all, The Key to Chintak seems to be a self-published success story. The Bookseller says that it has sold 5,000 copies. And, as anyone in the UK book trade knows, selling even 10% of that number is not to be sniffed at.

Of course, the classic text on the slush-pile business (and on the writer/publisher relationship in general) is my own On the Survival of Rats in the Slush Pile, which is available as a free ebook. Essential reading if you wish to remain sane in a mad world.

Excerpt 9

Here is the latest excerpt from my new novel, How and why Lisa's Dad got to be famous. Please remember that, if this excerpt is of the slightest interest, a free pdf copy of the entire book can be obtained through this link. Also, should you be overwhelmed by an irresistible urge to buy a copy of the book, you can obtain one at an amazingly low price from Amazon.co.uk or, if you prefer, from Amazon.com.

Getting to know Debbie

Con nagged me again, as he always did. Nag nag nag. He could have given lessons to your mother-in-law.

‘Good start, Harry, good start.’ (He reminded me of Bruce Forsyth on the telly, when I was a kid. ‘Good game, good game!’) ‘But now you’ve got to build on it. Saturday night was just an introduction. Now you’ve got to follow up.’

I didn’t want to, of course. I thought it was too soon. But Con wouldn’t have that.

Then I told him I would have to find out Debbie’s telephone number. I thought that would take a couple of days. But Con told me not to bother. He already had it. He had two phone numbers for her in fact. One for the flat and one for her mobile. He probably had her bra size as well.

Con was so persistent, and such a pest, that eventually I did what he wanted. But I drew the line at letting him listen while I rang her up. I forgot, of course, that he had the house wired. So he heard every word anyway.

I rang up Debbie. Monday night I think it was. Might even have been Sunday.

During the dinner that Saturday night, the one that Jack and Sarah had kindly arranged for me, we’d talked quite a bit about food. It turned out that Debbie was very keen on organic food, local vegetables, that kind of thing. I already knew that Sarah was into that stuff. And I was too, up to a point. I often went to the farmer’s market, but that was only once a month. Most of the rest of the time I went to the supermarket.

Anyway, I’d discovered that Debbie knew lots of local farmers. Of course Con had told me that already, but I heard it direct from Debbie. So I knew that she had access to lots of good contacts for most of the basic foods. And I used that as an excuse. I rang her up and asked if she knew where I could buy a decent chicken. Something that hadn’t been stuck in a cage all its life. If I’m going to eat a chicken I like to think that it’s had bit of fresh air once in a while. Seen the sky.

So we had a chat about that. She was quite helpful.

Another thing we’d talked about at the dinner was wildlife. Jack and I are interested, in the sense that we’ve spent a lot of time fishing, particularly when we were young. And the kind of fishing we do is coarse fishing, where you put the fish back after you’ve caught them. Mainly because they’re not worth eating anyway, but also because if you enjoy the sport you want to help others to enjoy it too. And you don’t do that if you destroy the fish stock.

Anyway, while I was talking to Debbie about the chicken business, she mentioned that she was going to a wildlife trust meeting later on that evening. It was a lecture about the birds on Salisbury Plain. She asked me if I would like to go.

Well, once I got over my surprise I said I would. So she said she would pick me up at seven, and take me there.

Which she did. We drove there in her sports car, which was a pretty hairy experience. I was glad I was strapped in, to tell you the truth. And I don’t think she was showing off just for my benefit.

It was a very interesting lecture as a matter of fact. The bloke who gave it had spent a lot of time photographing birds on the Plain, and he had some amazing stuff. And during the interval Debbie talked me into becoming a member of the wildlife trust. I didn’t mind, because I always have been a supporter really. Just never got around to joining.

Debbie seemed to know most of the people there. It wasn’t a big audience – about twenty-five perhaps – and they were very friendly.

I felt quite proud of myself sitting there with Debbie. It had been a long time since I’d been out with a really good-looking woman. And I could see some of the blokes looking at me and wondering how I’d managed it. I was wondering that too. But it gave my confidence a bit of a boost.

One way and another I enjoyed the whole evening.

After the lecture Debbie and I went across the road for a drink. I looked around to see if Con was following us, but there was no sign of him. Knowing what I know now, I wouldn’t have put it past him to wire the entire pub.

So we sat and had a bit of a chat.

Well, I say a bit of a chat. It was Debbie who did most of the talking. I’m not exactly difficult to talk to – at least I don’t think so. But there were quite a few things I genuinely wanted to know. So I would ask her a question, and away she would go.

For instance I asked her about her work. And she gave me a rundown on all the farms she visits and what they specialise in, and what she does for them. I found that very interesting, because my Dad was a farm labourer for most of his life. So I know a bit about that sort of thing.

I didn’t ask Debbie about her life with GLAPSTOW. All the stuff that Con had mentioned to me. I didn’t want her to think I was being nosy.

She did ask me a few things about myself. Asked me what I was doing at the moment, and I told her about the church. As a matter of fact that’s about the only interesting thing I’ve ever done. Changing locks for old ladies, and screwing down floorboards so they don’t squeak, that’s not terribly exciting really.

And then she took me home. To be perfectly honest I didn’t think her car was very comfortable. But then my van isn’t exactly a Rolls-Royce either.

She dropped me off at home and told me that she’d call by the next night with a chicken. She was going to the farm where they bred them the next day, so that was quite handy. And then she went off.

As she drove off I stood for minute at the gate, watching the lights of her car until she turned the corner.

I suppose I should have felt pretty pleased with myself. It was, as Con would say, progress. But I didn’t feel good about it at all. I felt terrible.

The problem was, I was beginning to realise that I’d spent the whole evening deceiving her. Here I was, HIV positive and under contract to try to find a woman for Con’s TV show, and I’d been chatting her up and being nice, just as if I was an ordinary person.

But I wasn’t ordinary. And I wasn’t nice. I was different twice over. And either one of my secrets was enough to upset any normal woman.

So I felt bad about myself. Guilty.

Do I need to tell you that Con was waiting for me? That depressed me too.

There was still some whisky left in the bottle from the last time, and when I got indoors there he was, working his way through it.

‘Don’t have to drive to get home, Harry,’ he told me. ‘So I can sink a few with you. I’m only living just round the corner.’ As if I could forget.

He wanted a word for word report on what we’d done. I don’t think he was very interested in the bit about the birds on the Plain, but I told him anyway. In detail. He sighed a lot, and rolled his eyes, but he did let me finish.

‘Fascinating, Harry,’ he said when I’d told him everything I could think of. ‘Fascinating. But the million-pound question is, did you kiss her goodnight?’

‘No,’ I said, ‘I didn’t. And I didn’t shag her in the pub bog either.’

‘Ooh, we are touchy, aren’t we?’ said Con. And he roared with laughter. ‘That’s what I want to see, Harry,’ he said. ‘A bit of life. A bit of spark. The day when you tell me to go fuck myself, and punch me on the nose into the bargain, that’s the day when I shall feel we’re getting somewhere.’

I didn’t know it at the time, but the day when I would use violence against Con was not all that far off.

Jim Heath: Your Dog is Watching You

Quick guide to quality: I am not a dog lover; have never owned one; but have been bitten by one recently while out in the country and minding my own business. So I am not the most obviously suitable reader for Jim Heath's Your Dog is Watching You. Nevertheless, I read most of this book with some interest, so it must be pretty good.

It's fairly obvious, I suppose, that this is a non-fiction book, aimed at dog owners. The subtitle is 'A writer finds out about dog psychology the hard way'.

What happened was that Jim acquired a small dog, and, as you do, took it out for walks. This led to various unpleasant and alarming incidents in which Jim's dog was attacked by bigger ones. The dog (named Mono) was also a bit reluctant (I euphemise) to obey orders. Fortunately, Jim was lucky enough to come across a dog psychologist, Jacquie Humphrey, and it is her ideas and teachings which form most of the second half of the book.

What we have here is, in my view, the ideal birthday or Christmas present for anyone who owns a dog, or, better still, is thinking about acquiring one. It would have been immensely useful, for instance, to at least half a dozen dog owners of my own acquaintance, many of who tested my patience (not to mention my nerves) when their uncontrolled animals threatened my person.

I remember one rabid beast in particular, all of twelve inches high, which would bite fingers off anyone who tried to take it to the vet. Treatment could not begin until the vet had gone out into the car park, and, from a distance of some fifty yards or so, had fired an anaesthetic dart into it.

Crowds used to gather to watch this performance. But even then, when paralysed by a dose large enough to lay out the average cow, this dog would, like the dying Stalin, open one eye and snarl menacingly. Several people were seriously injured by being trampled underfoot in the ensuing panic.

All of that can be avoided by close study of Jim Heath's book. Not only will readers learn how to improve their dogs' manners, but they will also learn quite a lot of interesting stuff about how the present-day dogs were all bred from wolves -- and not so very long ago at that.

It is perhaps not surprising that Jim Heath should have written such a useful little book (129 pages), because he's done the job before. The back cover tells us that he has published books and long articles on electronic encryption, insects, the inside story of debt collection, water supplies, rare orchids, and a lot more. So he knows how to do the job. After travelling widely, he and his wife now live permanently in Australia.

Suppose, for example, that you also live in Australia, and you've been wondering about those damned flies. Fear not. Jim has written a book for you, and it's available free online. The original self-published version, by the way, sold out all 7,000 copies of its first edition and made a handsome profit.

Of course, just as some people are obsessed with doggies, my own obsession (as is well known by now) is with writing. And I did get the odd smile, here and there in Jim's book, when I compared the behaviour of dogs (and their owners) with the behaviour of writers.

On page 24, for example, he describes how you can more or less guarantee (usually inadvertently) that your dog will get into a fight. Ah yes, I thought, and we all know how writers can more or less guarantee that their hopes will be dashed.

And then there are references to the way in which dogs try to enhance their status by peeing higher up a tree trunk than the other dogs. Ye-es....

And then there are the dog owners who have read all the right stuff, know what they should be doing, but don't do it because it's all too time-consuming and too much effort.

Oh yes. All human life is there. Even if it is a book about dogs.

Jim Heath's Your Dog is Watching You is a classic example of the kind of book that I fully endorse. It is one man's hard-earned experience, put down on paper so that others can benefit. And it's published (since it's unlikely that anyone else would consider it cost-effective) at his own expense. This is another Booksurge effort, and a tidy enough example for its purpose. You can find it through any branch of Amazon (ISBN 1-921019-20-4), or through Booksurge's own bookstore.

Editing for beginners

For many young writers, the thought of having their work edited in a front-rank publishing house is a very distant prospect. At the moment they are far too busy trying to finish the book, trying to find an agent, and then hoping that someone might nibble.

For those who actually have a contract, however, the process of being edited (or not) is a matter of some concern. Once upon a time, editors seem to have played a major part in determining the overall shape, style, and content of particular books (Maxwell Perkins being the most famous example). Today, however, even friends of mine who have no connection with publishing at all tend to remark on how sloppily books are edited.

In fact it wasn't so long ago that a UK publisher -- name will come to me in a minute; ah yes, Nick Webb I think it was -- went on record as saying that as many as half the books published these days are not actually read by anyone in the publishing house at all. That was, he said, the only possible explanation for the standard of some of the stuff which was published. And I don't think he was entirely joking. Many a (non-fiction) book is bought on an outline, given a quick scan when it comes in, and then sent to some freelance for a bit of a polish. If she's not too busy. Then it goes to press.

I got on to this subject because Martin Goodman, over at So You Want to be a Writer, has some thoughts (11 April) on his own experience of editing, plus a few comments about the process in general. It's well worth a look, as is his interview with the publisher Ben Ball (now head of Penguin in Australia).

I can only say that my own experience of editors has been somewhere between painless and pleasant. But it is not always so.

A few years ago, the UK Society of Authors journal The Author published a horror story which, many subsequently claimed, was all too typical. Time has erased the details, but it involved a distinguished English writer with a dozen or so novels to her credit, and an American publisher who employed some moonlighting sophomore; said 'editor' proceeded to 'improve' the English writer's punctuation, choice of words, and phrasing. Only the most determined lobbying produced any reversion to the original, and then very grudgingly.

A friend of mine had a similar experience with a non-fiction book about business. This was edited for sale as a mass-market paperback, by one of the top half dozen UK houses, who employed a freelance mouth-frothing feminist for the job. She went through the book and made it politically correct. Thus every reference to the Chairman of a company was altered to read Chairperson.

My friend pointed out that, at the time (and probably now), there was not a single company quoted on the London Stock Exchange which had a 'Chairperson'; but they all had Chairmen. As I had been the person who sold the rights I got involved in this nonsense. Fortunately, the chief executive of the imprint concerned (female) was as fed up with feminist nonsense as we were, so all was well.

But it can be hard work and it's often the most dreadful waste of time.

The one thing a writer should pray for is a good copy editor, aka line editor -- someone who will spot spelling mistakes, notice when you've typed 'reign' and mean rein, or rain -- and who will suggest (heavily underline the suggest) points where a sentence could be shortened or a paragraph rewritten with advantage.

The art of editing is a difficult one. And since many publishers are unable/unwilling to pay the proper rate for the job, the best that you can hope for is that it will be done by a conscientious and skilled person who is actually enthusiastic about your book and isn't too bothered about the money.

Excerpt 8

Here is the latest excerpt from my new novel, How and why Lisa's Dad got to be famous. Please remember that, if this excerpt is of the slightest interest, a free pdf copy of the entire book can be obtained through this link. Also, should you be overwhelmed by an irresistible urge to buy a copy of the book, you can obtain one at an amazingly low price from Amazon.co.uk or, if you prefer, from Amazon.com.

Thinking about Lisa

The next day was a Sunday, as I recall. So I had one of my sort of chats with Lisa.

I say sort of chats because I didn’t really talk to her. I just pretended to in my head.

It’s the same with my brother. I should have made that clear. I can’t talk to my brother in real life because he’s dead. Killed in a motorbike accident. But I kind of have conversations with him anyway. Because if I put myself in his position I can tell what he would say.

Dave was older than me. Five years. I don’t know why there was a five-year gap between us, but there was. I don’t think there was any problem between my Mum and Dad. And I don’t suppose they were taking precautions. It just happened that way.

Anyway Dave was older than me, and when we were young he kept me out of trouble. He was quite good at that. That five-year gap meant that he’d always been there and done something before me, so he knew the drill. And when I talk to him I can hear his voice, clear as a bell. I know what he would say to me, but I don’t know until I start to talk to him. If you see what I mean.

And it’s the same with Lisa. Or it was then.

I wasn’t allowed to talk to her in real life. Well, I say wasn’t allowed. I suppose that’s not fair really. But Carol said that she thought it was best for Lisa if she didn’t have any contact with me. She thought Lisa might get confused about having two fathers.

I told Carol that Lisa didn’t have two fathers. She only had one. And that was me. But that was just me being difficult I suppose.

Carol didn’t argue. She just asked me to think about it. And when I did I could see her point of view. Carol did marry her new man after all. She did the decent thing. Made herself respectable, and I didn’t have to pay maintenance any longer. So she was trying to give Lisa a stable home life. And although I could have phoned Lisa if I’d really wanted to, I never did. Because I thought Carol had a point.

I did send Christmas presents and birthday presents though. And I always got a nice little letter back. Dear Daddy, it said. So work that one out. Either Lisa had remembered that I really was her Daddy, or else Carol had told her. And I gather that Lisa calls Carol’s new husband by his Christian name, which is Peter.

So, what with one thing and another I couldn’t see that it made any sense for me not to be able to ring Lisa once in a while. But I never did. I wasn’t one of those Dads who insisted on their rights.

Perhaps I should have been.

Sometimes I used to get really upset about not being able to see Lisa. And especially about not being able to give her a hug.

Sometimes it got really bad. I used to go out for long walks at night, in all sorts of weather. Walked miles. Got soaked once or twice. But then when I hit on this business of talking to her in my head I felt a lot better. That’s what made it bearable for me.

I used to tell her all sorts of things. Silly things really. I used to tell her about the work in the church. And people I’d met, who’d asked me about her.

That was a bit of a problem really – people asking me how Lisa was getting on. Because they remembered the problem with her foot. The women especially. And I never knew quite what to say really, except that I was sure that Lisa was fine.

I did get occasional bulletins from Carol. She hadn’t cut me out of her life altogether. And I’m sure she would have got in touch immediately if Lisa had ever been seriously ill. But she just didn’t think it was right that Lisa should come and stay with me or anything like that.

So Lisa – sort of – was the first person I told about the dinner with Jack and Sarah and Debbie. And she was almost the first person I told about the TV show and the million-pound prize. I think I told my brother earlier on, so Lisa was the second.

I found that very helpful. Because Lisa in my head asked me all the questions that children do ask. And that made me realise that there were lots of things I didn’t know. So I made a little list of things to ask Con.

And then Lisa told me that she didn’t really mind about the million pounds. And I said that was just as well because to tell the truth I didn’t think I could win it anyway. But I said I was going to get twenty-five thousand pounds, all being well, just for being on the show, so she could have that instead.

Twenty-five thousand after tax, of course. I assumed I would have to pay tax on it. And I was right.

Val Landi: A Woman from Cairo

I have been reading Val Landi's novel A Woman from Cairo, a book which has been mentioned on this blog many a time, and one which has, naturally, its very own web site.

A Woman from Cairo is a thriller, set in the present day, and for the moment Val Landi has published it himself, through Booksurge, the publishing arm of Amazon. (Booksurge have done a pretty good job, by the way. The text is very nicely laid out and well printed.)

Perhaps the easiest way to summarise this novel's quality is to say this: if you'd asked me to read it blind, without knowing anything about its origins, and if you had then told me that it was published by HarperCollins, and had got to number eight on the NY Times bestseller list, I wouldn't have at all been surprised. In other words, what we have here is a highly professional and polished piece of work.

That said, I do need to add that it is not absolutely out of the top drawer. It is not, for instance, as good as Martin Cruz Smith's Wolves Eat Dogs, Robert Littell's Legends, or Charles McCarry's Old Boys. But then all those guys have been doing the job for decades. If Val Landi sticks around, and goes on writing a book every year or two (as I hope he will), then in the course of time he will acquire just that little bit extra that the truly experienced writers have. But for a first book this is a strong one. I found it much more impressive, for instance, than the much-hyped The Traveller/Traveler.

Here's the Amazon summary:

A Woman from Cairo is a novel of suspense about a young Egyptian documentary filmmaker who accidentally films the assassination of a fictionalized Osama bin Laden. It is an absorbing tale of intrigue, orbiting around an axis of betrayal, love, passion, stolen identity, history and religion, murder and revenge. The landscape shifts from the peaks of the Hindu Kush to Cairo's Old City, Manhattan, and Madrid's Prado Museum to its startling conclusion at the Sundance Film Festival.

In essence, this is a novel about what we have come to call terrorism. And, of course, if you've been following the history of the book with even half an eye, you will know that that is the 'problem'.

Val Landi has worked both in publishing and in the wired world of internet technology. He also has a Master's degree in History and Literature from Harvard. So he is as well equipped as anyone on the planet to (a) write a good novel and (b) figure out how to market it effectively in the 21st century.

Not surprisingly, Val's ms soon found itself a top agent (Jean Naggar), but to date the major publishers have taken the view that 'This is fine, but...' And the but takes the form of a belief that the American public is not interested in buying novels about terrorism, and much prefers books about dogs and how to knit woolly sweaters. Well, maybe. But there are those of us, me for instance, who are more than ready to read a good thriller. Been reading them for well over fifty years. So for updates on what happens to A Woman from Cairo from here on in, keep an eye on Val's blog.

Of course, since A Woman from Cairo is the author's debut novel, it could be better. The book is, perhaps, too intelligent and thoughtful for many readers. There are, for my taste, a few too many viewpoint characters. And every one of the characters comes complete with a lengthy and detailed c.v. which explains how they came to be what they are. Which is fine, but it leads to a book which is very information-dense. Not all of that information, it seems to me, is absolutely essential, and some of it could have been sacrificed to speed with advantage. Facts are not necessarily emotionally involving; action does that better. And then there are one or two plot points which strained my credulity just a little.

These are, however, relatively minor points, and it will be enlightening to the rest of us to see whether Val Landi can force this one on to the public stage in a big way. I would like to think that the trick is at least capable of being performed, by those with the talent, energy, time, and (it has to be said) capital.

John Preston: My Life as a Pornographer

I don't often get excited when I read a non-fiction book, but I was certainly excited by John Preston's My Life as a Pornographer. And, in case you're wondering, I'm not talking about sexual excitement: I'm talking about the common-or-garden jump up and down variety of excitement. Actually, being English, and in my sixties, I didn't really jump up and down; but I rejoiced inwardly.

John Preston has been mentioned here before. He was American, a committedly gay man, and writer, and although he died in 1994 he is far from forgotten: he has a web site created by an enthusiast for his work. In fact it was Dusk Peterson, the creator of that web site, who recommended that I should read My Life as a Pornographer, which is a collection of Preston's essays. It was published by Richard Kasak/Masquerade Books in 1993, and is now out of print, but used copies are plentiful and cheap. (Dusk Peterson is also a writer, and has his own web site.)

The first essay in John Preston's collection, which gives the book its title, is actually the text of a speech that Preston gave at Harvard University. It was later published in the gay magazine Inches, and was, as Preston dryly remarks, the first Harvard lecture to be given that honour.

The first thing that has to be said about Preston is that he was completely honest with his readers/audience. He did not use euphemisms. He believed in frankness and a lack of ambiguity. And a writer with such an attitude is, more or less by definition, bound to cause offence in some quarters. I mention that because you may wish to stop reading right now.

Almost the first point that Preston makes is that, when he wrote fiction, he wrote pure, or impure, out-and-out pornography. It was intended, no other way to put it, to generate an erection in his gay readers. And to me, the wonderfully exciting thing about that is that Preston, better than anyone else I can (immediately) think of, knew exactly what he was trying to do. He knew what the medium could do, and he understood to whom he was trying to do it.

Preston, you see, had realised something that it took me a few decades to figure out. Namely that the thing that fiction does best is arouse emotion. True, it can convey information, but non-fiction does that better. True, it can make people think, but again non-fiction (such as his own essays) can accomplish so much more.

Preston knew too that strong emotions generate powerful physical responses. Comedy makes us laugh; tragedy makes us cry; and pornography gives men erections. Preston's stated intention was to give gay men an irresistible urge to masturbate.

And, finally, Preston had clearly identified the target audience for his pornography. He was not writing for fancypants literary critics, or even the readers of what is politely called 'erotica'. Preston was writing, as he himself puts it, for the boys in black leather jackets and the dirty old men in raincoats.

I've probably lost you already, but I can only say that such clarity of purpose is something that I find profoundly impressive. And, just for the record, let me say that I have never read any of Preston's pornography because it definitely isn't my thing. My thing, if you're interested, is Victorian heterosexual pornography, but if you're thinking of dipping into that yourself, be warned: there's a lot of fake stuff about. But that's a topic for another time.

Once Preston sorted out, in his own mind, what he was trying to do, he proved to be enormously effective at it. He wrote a short story called Mr Benson, which appeared in Drummer; and the editor asked him to extend it into a serial. This serial became something of a legend. Large numbers of denim- and leather-clad men (and women) would stand in line in San Francisco and other cities when a new issue appeared. Well, OK, J.K. Rowling had that effect too. But it doesn't often happen. What is more, there was a group of readers in New Orleans who acted out each chapter of Mr Benson as it appeared.

Another important point that Preston makes is that, from Mr Benson onwards, he listened very carefuly to the feedback from his target audience. And here are a few more of Preston's dictums:

• The belief that pornographers make a great deal of money is one of the great lies of publishing.
• Publishing is a crass business, much more so than we like to admit.
• Whatever it is that you write, be like a pornographer and learn to write for an audience; take them seriously, listen to them seriously when they respond to you. Learn to entertain them, and don't be embarrassed to seduce them.

And all of that is just in the first 26 pages. At the end of that first piece in the book, my notes say that 'This may just be the best short piece about writing that I've ever read.'

There's a whole lot more, of course. And some of the most interesting sections contain Preston's thoughts about the need for a young man to find a helpful guide. Preston describes his own sexual initiation, at the age of fifteen. He simply went to the Boston bus station and waited for someone to pick him up. Fortunately the man who did pick him up proceeded to give him not only a full demonstration of all the various homosexual acts, requiring him to take both active and passive roles, but also gave him much good advice on how to avoid disease and various other dangers of the gay life. In later years, Preston also took on the role of mentor, in the sense that he involved himself heavily in sex education.

Preston's experience reminds me of a conversation I had with a gay man some forty years ago. He told me that he had a new boyfriend who was a little rough around the edges, so he was taking him to places and showing him how to behave: how to read a menu, which knife and fork to use, how to order wine. 'It was done for me,' he said, 'when I was a young man. And now I take pleasure in doing it for someone else.' It seems to me that all young people, boys and girls, should be so lucky as to find a sexual and social mentor (other than their parents, who often fill the role lamentably).

Another revealing essay is the one in which Preston interviews a dominatrix. This woman eventually makes the point that there are men today who are in many respects pillars of the community: they run a business, are involved in the church, look after their family, work for charities, and so forth. And yet some of these men simply cannot stand the pace: they have to find a situation in which they, for once, are absolutely not in charge. Now if that is not of any interest to you, then you're probably reading the wrong blog.

Some of the essays which are collected in My Life as a Pornographer are now out of date, in the sense that they describes circumstances which no longer apply. And many of the essays deal with material that many readers will consider not only distasteful but positively disgusting. I myself, for instance, chose to skim through the essay in which Preston enthuses about the various styles of men's underwear. But it would be a pity to overlook the book altogether, because Preston has much to say that is valuable, particularly about the nature of masculinity in modern society.

I can only urge the more broad-minded of you to take a look at this book for yourself.

Dale Peck speaks out

Maud Newton reports that Dale Peck is none too impressed with either Ian McEwan's Saturday or Ali Smith's The Accidental.

Mr Peck is the guy who wrote Hatchet Jobs, in which (I gather) he takes apart a number of big names. And of McEwan and Smith he says: 'It takes two to tango. Writers wouldn’t be producing this twaddle if you weren’t reading it.'

Hmm, well... I dunno about that. I hold no brief for Smith and McEwan, not having read either, and having absolutely no plans to do so. But some of us persist in writing twaddle whether anyone reads it or not.

Northern Rock Prize

Booktrade.info has a link to an Observer report about the Northern Rock Prize, under the heading Sent from Heaven. Yes indeed. It does sound like the answer to a writer's prayers.

What has happened is that the UK's Northern Rock Foundation has handed £60,000 to Andrew Crumey, so that he can get on with writing books.

Mr Crumey, you may recall, is the author of Mobius Dick, which was reviewed here, without much enthusiasm, on 3 August 2004. He is also the literary editor of Scotland on Sunday.

Why is Andrew Crumey honoured in this way, as opposed to any one of about 14,000 other writers? Pass. Ask me another. And in any case, as gentlemen's nannies used to say, If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.

Excerpt 7

Here is the latest excerpt from my new novel, How and why Lisa's Dad got to be famous. Please remember that, if this excerpt is of the slightest interest, a free pdf copy of the entire book can be obtained through this link. Also, should you be overwhelmed by an irresistible urge to buy a copy of the book, you can obtain one at an amazingly low price from Amazon.co.uk or, if you prefer, from Amazon.com.

Con's dossier on Debbie

I’m not sure about the order of the things that happened in the next few days. It’s about fifteen months ago now. And I was under a bit of a strain at the time.

Some people have said to me that they don’t understand how I stayed so calm. But I wasn’t really calm. I was bewildered.

I’d been told I had a disease that would kill me. But lots of people are told that. My mother was told it. My father wasn’t really told. But he knew he had a bad heart – he knew he didn’t have long. And they both just got on with it. If they were sorry for themselves they didn’t let it show. They both said the same thing. They’d had a good innings, they said. Enjoyed it. Didn’t want to go, of course. But there wasn’t anything they could do.

Same with me. There wasn’t anything I could do, so I just got on with it. And getting on with it meant trying to win that million pounds for Lisa.

I saw a lot of Con. Naturally. And he saw even more of me, because he had the house wired.

He kept on bullying me about ‘chatting someone up’ as he called it. For the first two or three times he mentioned it I did nothing about it. But then he got a bit cross. ‘Move your arse, Harry,’ he told me. ‘You’re committed, remember? You signed the fucking contract.’

Well, fair point. And I did realise that I had to go through the motions, even though I didn’t expect anything to happen. So I lay awake one night and had a think about how to get to know Debbie Randall.

The best man at my wedding, a bloke I’ve known since our first day at school, was Jack Woodman. And Jack still lives in the town. He’s never moved, any more than I have, though he has a much better job than me. Works for the Council. He was good at passing exams.

Anyway, I knew that Jack’s wife Sarah was a friend of Debbie’s. I’d heard Sarah mention Debbie more than once. So, to cut a long story short, I went to see Jack.

I told him that I’d been thinking things over, and I’d decided that it was time I got out a bit more. Time I found myself a girlfriend, perhaps. If anyone would have me.

Jack grinned like a loony. ‘Wondered how long it would take, Harry.’ And he laughed.

I tried to laugh back. But I felt bad really. Because I didn’t tell him anything about the TV programme. Not at first. Con advised against it, for one thing. And for another I didn’t feel comfortable about telling people. Not yet.

So, I just said that I thought it would be nice to meet someone. And I mentioned that I’d had my eye on Debbie Randall. Jack practically wet himself laughing when I mentioned her name.

‘What’s so funny?’ I said. I knew him too well to be angry with him, but I was a bit taken aback.

‘Nothing, Harry,’ he said. ‘Nothing.’ But he went on giggling and I didn’t believe him.

‘What’s the matter?’ I said. ‘Is she spoken for?’

‘No,’ he said, ‘as a matter of fact she isn’t. Though I wish I had a quid for every man who’s been sniffing around.’

‘Not a lesbian, is she?’

Jack fairly roared again. Laughed so much it brought tears to his eyes. ‘No, Harry,’ he said, ‘I can say for absolute certain that she is not a lesbian. Not that I’ve been there myself,’ he added hastily. ‘But she and Sarah don’t have many secrets, and I know that Debbie is into men all right. It’s just that she’s had enough of shacking up with people. Lives on her own. For the moment, anyway.’

So, one way or another, I asked Jack if he and Sarah would introduce me to Debbie, and they agreed. They invited us both round for a meal on the next Saturday evening. And it was a very nice meal. And I got to meet Debbie for the first time. Well, the first time to talk to. I knew her by sight, of course, and she knew me. It’s a small town.

Meanwhile – and this is where I don’t remember the exact order of things – somewhere along the line Con came to see me. He wanted to brief me, as he put it. And he had, needless to say, been doing some research.

He came round to my house one evening and brought his dossier with him. That’s what he called it. A dossier. And I tell no lie – this thing was an inch thick. It made a real bang when he dropped it on my kitchen table.

‘Right, Harry,’ he said. And he was all businesslike. ‘Briefing time….’ He hitched up his trouser legs. ‘Your Debbie has a bit of history, Harry. Did you know that?’

I didn’t know what he meant by a history, but I just said no.

‘Well she has. Age, twenty-eight. Best friend, your Jack’s missus. Though she’s also quite close to Mrs Cartwright.’ He looked at me. ‘Remember her?’

Oh yes. I remembered Mrs Cartwright.

‘Dresses casual does Debbie, but always looks smart. People remark on it. For business she often wears a two-piece suit, but she’s got the legs for a miniskirt if the mood takes her.

‘State of health, excellent. Swims regularly. There when the pool opens, at seven o’clock in the fucking morning.’ He shuddered. Con is not keen on exercise. ‘Also walks, which is good, because you’re a walker too, Harry.’

Actually I didn’t need him to tell me that, but Con always did treat me as if I was a bit thick. I suppose it was just a habit.

‘Her Mum and Dad live locally. Dad teaches at the tech. Mum is area manager for Oxfam. Runs fourteen shops, Harry.’ He sounded impressed.

‘Debbie’s profession. At present is a self-employed bookkeeper for small farmers. Keeps the books for about a dozen of them. Gives them roughly half a day a week each, deals with paperwork, fills in the VAT and does the taxes too, in some cases. Clever girl.

‘Speaking of clever, she went to uni, did a business studies course, decided that business was the last thing she wanted to go into, and became a green campaigner.’

Con looked up from his notes and stared at me. ‘What we have here, Harry,’ he said, ‘is a bit of a goer. In the nicest possible way, of course. This girl has been around, Harry. Want to hear the details?’

He was going to give them to me, of course. Con hadn’t burnt the midnight oil over his laptop just to keep it to himself.

‘After uni she joined an organisation called GLAPSTOW. Ever heard of it?’

I hadn’t.

‘Very famous, Harry. Very famous.’ Treating me as thick again, you see. Well perhaps he was right. I was ignorant, anyway. Still am.

When he realised that I knew nothing about GLAPSTOW he gave me a history of it. It turns out that GLAPSTOW stands for ‘global peace and save the world’, or something like that. And that’s what it does. It saves the world. Or tries to. It campaigns against the dumping of nuclear waste, campaigns for pure food, tries to eliminate poverty, foster fair trade, abolish child labour. And a lot more of the same.

‘Your Debbie got to be quite famous in GLAPSTOW, Harry.’

She wasn’t my Debbie, but I didn’t correct him.

‘She was the one who would go one step further than most of them. Remember those shots of GLAPSTOW’s little rubber dinghy cutting in front of that Japanese whaling ship, trying to prevent it leaving port?’

He looked at me.

‘No, no, you wouldn’t, would you, you not having a decent telly and only watching the footie. But take my word for it, Harry, it was great TV and it made all the world’s news bulletins.’

He turned over another sheet of paper. ‘Oh yes. When the Americans tried to restart their underground nuclear testing in Nevada, your Debbie was one of the twenty volunteers who broke into the test area and hoped that the surveillance systems would pick them up before the bomb went off.

‘Your Debbie, Harry, was involved in some major demo’s in her day, some of them mighty dangerous, and one way or another she proved she has balls. Wouldn’t surprise me if MI5 has a file on her. Probably thicker than mine.

‘However…. All did not go smoothly, Harry. There were policy differences in GLAPSTOW. Personality clashes, too. She was shacked up for a while with a bloke called Jensen – Dutch or Danish or something. But then he seems to have dumped her, or two-timed her, or something. Anyway, she seems to have become disillusioned. Decided that some of them were dangerous loonies and she didn’t like their company. So she left GLAPSTOW and came home to live with Mum for a while.

‘Back home in darkest Westshire she set herself up as a freelance bookkeeper, got herself a nice little flat, and ran through a number of blokes, some of whom found out that they’d bitten off more than they could chew.

‘Now that she’s settled down in the old home town – here to stay, they reckon – she’s got herself involved in some local issues. Nothing political, you understand. She’s too canny to join any of the parties, and who can blame her. But she takes an interest in fair deals for farmers, women’s rights. That sort of thing. She is pro hunting, funnily enough. Thinks about things, Harry. Not sure I would want a woman who thinks about things personally, but there we are. Everyone to his own taste.’

Con paused and looked at me again. ‘You’ve got a live one here, Harry. Believe me. A real live one.’

Well, by now I was beginning to get the picture. And you will have too. I was thinking that this was a woman way out of my class. I’d thought that anyway, before he told me all this stuff. But she was the one woman I fancied, and so I’d started by mentioning her name. It was a bit silly really.

When Jack and Sarah were kind enough to invite me to dinner, with Debbie there as well, I went along, of course. But I couldn’t see myself getting very far. And I didn’t. Not that night.

We had a lovely meal. Sarah had gone to a lot of trouble. And once again I felt bad about not telling them the truth. But I thought it would lead nowhere anyway, so I just kind of relaxed and enjoyed myself.

As I expected, Sarah and Debbie did most of the talking. And Jack and I talked about fishing. It wasn’t all men/men and women/women, but I can’t say that I dazzled Debbie with the force of my personality.

After I came home Con was there waiting for me. Sitting in front of my fire, if you please. OK, so he had brought a bottle of whisky, which I seldom buy for myself, but I thought he was a bit cheeky really.

As soon as I came in, Con was on his feet, grinning like a loony, as he always was when I had any contact with Debbie. ‘How did it go, then, Harry?’ he said. He stood there rubbing his hands together. ‘How did it go? Eh? Eh?’

And he kind of leered at me. As if I’d been bedding the woman already.

I did my best to tell him about the evening, and he seemed very pleased. Which surprised me really, because I thought we had done nothing.

‘Progress, Harry, progress. Mr Patel will be very pleased, I’m sure.’

Mr Patel was the man who ran the TV channel that Con was working for. And to tell you the truth I never used to believe Con when he said that he’d talked to Mr Patel. What would the boss of a great big TV company be doing talking to Con? That’s what I used to think.

But now I sometimes wonder. Perhaps Con really did have to report back to Mr Patel. Maybe the man really did take that close an interest. But according to Con, Mr Patel has TV companies and newspapers all over the world, so I used to think that Con was just name-dropping.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘Mr Patel will be very pleased. It’s progress, Harry, progress. And he’s really thrilled about Debbie. Mr Patel thinks she’s bloody marvellous, Harry. Great copy. Bloody marvellous.’

Well, yes. I thought she was marvellous too. And that was the problem. I couldn’t see anyone that marvellous wanting to have much to do with me. But I kept that to myself.

Con suddenly went all serious on me. ‘Just one problem, Harry. One very serious problem.’

I looked at him.

‘You didn’t tell me you had a criminal record.’

‘Criminal record?’ I said. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘It’s in the file, Harry. In the file. And my files do not lie, old son.’

'I don’t remember any criminal record.’

‘Parking ticket,’ said Con. ‘In 1996. Fined thirty quid.’

‘Oh, that.’

‘Yes,’ he said, frowning fiercely. ‘That. You want to watch that kind of thing, Harry. Start of the slippery slope, that is. You know what parking tickets lead on to, don’t you?’

‘No, what?’

‘Smoking cigarettes, that’s what. And then before you know where you are, you’re smoking exotic cheroots. And then it’s drinking. And pubs. And playing darts, Harry. A life of vice. And we can’t be doing with that kind of thing, Harry. This is a family programme.’

He was frowning at me all the time he was saying this stuff, and wagging his finger like old Miss Platt used to when Jack and I first went to school. But I don’t think he really meant it.

Notes from the weekend

First kill the lawyers...

...then burn the bookshops. Clive Keeble draws attention to a report from Baghdad about determined attempts to destroy bookshops which sell newspapers.

Heady stuff

Lynne Scanlon has been having breakfast (4 April) with Steve Murphy, who runs Rodale, and has been suggesting to him, very politely, that his business's days are numbered. This is known, I believe, as chutzpah.

The Needle award

Gee and I thought I was keeping up with this stuff. Poddy Girl is a reader who has been searching through the self-published print-on-demand (POD) books of this world, seeing if she could find an overlooked gem. Well, she found two.

One was Brian Agincourt Massey's Morning Glory's Long Lost Order of Worship (literary fiction), published by iUniverse. This was highighted by Poddy Girl as long ago as 15 August 2005. Another is Isn't That Bigamy? (commercial fiction), by Mike Vogel, published by Lulu, and noted on 13 June 2005.

On his own site, Brian Agincourt Massey notes that Poddy had 6,000 nominations to choose from, looked at 1,400, and chose two. Mike Vogel also has his own little corner of the web.

Now you and I, dear reader, may or may not like the look of either of these books. But the point is, there are people out there looking for the good stuff, despite the needle in a haystack model. This is noble work.

Both Needle award winners, by the way, now have agents who are looking after them.

MNW feedback

Boyd Tonkin has a few things to say about the MNW initiative, officially launched last Thursday evening. He demands to be astonished, which is a bit cheeky considering how seldom that happens even with experienced names.

Aviation and photography

UK based? Looking for books on aviation and/or photography? John and Jan Lewis specialise in these topics respectively. They always have hard-copy catalogues available and are open to visits in Alton, Hampshire, by appointment.

Sara Gran has a hard time

Sara Gran is an experienced writer with some reviews that most of us would cheerfully give a couple of teeth for, but even for her life does not go smoothly. To find out what's going on, visit her blog and read the various posts about the fate of Come Closer. (I was led there, incidentally, by Maxine Clarke, who saw references to the situation on Jenny Davidson's Light Reading.)

James Aach

James Aach, and the online publication of his techno-thriller Rad Decision, were noted here on 6 January 2006. Now James has written an interesting set of reflections on publishing's attitude towards techno material on Lablit.com. (Link from Maxine Clarke again.)

Elaine Pomm: Edinburgh Knights

If you've finished The Da Vinci Code and want to explore more of the same, you might try Elaine Pomm's Edinburgh Knights. Yes, it is another self-published work (Authorhouse), but why not live dangerously? Available from Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com.

Scott Pack to join The Friday Project

Scott Pack, described by some as the most powerful man in UK publishing, made it known a while back that, of his own volition, he would be leaving Waterstone's and heading for pastures new. Now it has been announced that he will join new publishers The Friday Project. He will have overall responsibility for the Project's commercial strategy.

'Most people know,' says Scott Pack, 'that I am a huge fan of the independent publishing sector. It is where the most imaginative and innovative publishing is happening at the moment and The Friday Project are very much at the forefront of that activity. I can't wait to start on this exciting new adventure but hope someone there knows how to make a decent cup of tea.'

I must say that I find this a very surprising announcement (the first para, not the bit about the tea), and Ihave no doubt that it will generate a fair bit of comment this week.

More Maddox

Publishers Weekly has noticed the Maddox phenomenon and adds a few details re print run et cetera. More to come, I am told, in the NY Times on Thursday.

Even Smaller

Carmel Morgan's new play, Smaller, was discussed here on 20 February 2006. Now it has gone into the West End, and the critics have been taking a look at it. Most of the notices have been OK to reasonable, though not the kind of money notices that set the phones ringing. Jon Peter, of the Sunday Times, however, really didn't like the play at all.

He has nothing against the play, he says, 'except it being in a West End theatre. Any theatre. It’s a half-hour sitcom thinly stretched out as a two-hour play, full of flat, cutesy writing and plodding jokes.... For God's sake,' he concludes, 'no more celebrity theatre.'

Ah yes, you see, but that's what brings in the punters, Jon. As I remarked in the first place.

Excerpt 6

Here is the latest excerpt from my new novel, How and why Lisa's Dad got to be famous. Please remember that, if this excerpt is of the slightest interest, a free pdf copy of the entire book can be obtained through this link. Also, should you be overwhelmed by an irresistible urge to buy a copy of the book, you can obtain one at an amazingly low price from Amazon.co.uk or, if you prefer, from Amazon.com.

Getting wired up

After I signed Con’s contract I went home and made myself a meal. I’m a pretty reasonable cook I suppose. I’ve had to be, one way and another.

After that I went to the pub and played darts for a bit. I didn’t tell anyone about the contract. But later, when I got home, I discussed it with my brother.

As usual, he asked me a lot of questions that I hadn’t thought of at the time. And I didn’t know any of the answers. But that didn’t really bother me. I thought it would be weeks before anything happened. In fact I wouldn’t really have been surprised if I’d never heard from Con again. People who offer you twenty-five thousand pounds for doing next to nothing don’t turn up very often. And if you’d told me that it was all a joke – that someone was winding me up – then I wouldn’t have been too surprised by that either. Or disappointed. I know myself well enough to know that I’m easily fooled.

But of course it wasn’t somebody winding me up. It was real.

The very next day, soon after lunch, Con turned up at the church again. And, as usual, he wanted something.

He looked pleased with himself that day. I remember that. But then he normally is a cheerful sort. Con seems to think that life is a load of fun, he really does. Especially when things go right.

‘Everyone back at HQ is very pleased to have you on board, Harry,’ he told me.

It took me a minute or two to work out what he meant. And he noticed that. Because he notices everything.

‘Everyone at the TV company is very pleased, Harry,’ he explained. ‘Pleased that you signed the contract.’

Oh, right.

‘How you feeling, OK?’ He rubbed his hands together briskly, as if he was getting ready for action.

‘Yes, fine, thank you.’

‘Had a think about anyone suitable yet? Hmm? Like I suggested.’ He nudged me in the ribs and grinned.

I hadn’t thought about anything very much, actually. Apart from talking to my brother. Who had made me realise that there were lots of things I hadn’t thought to ask.

Con could see that I was drawing blanks here, so he went prattling along. Didn’t let it throw him. He just went on talking, doing my thinking for me. Occasionally he would stop and ask me a question. Or raise an eyebrow. And I would try to think of something sensible to say.

‘Thing is this, Harry, you’ve only got three months and the clock is ticking. Filming starts officially next Monday, but unofficially, don’t tell the unions, we’re off and running today. Know what I mean, Harry?’ He winked at me. ‘Back at HQ they’re dying to know who the lucky girl is, and so am I, come to that. Got any names for us yet, Harry?’

I suppose Con must have thought I was a complete fool that afternoon. Perhaps he even began to wonder whether he’d got the right man after all. Or perhaps not. Perhaps Con is smarter even than I give him credit for.

Yes, come to think of it, Con probably knew all along that he’d have to do my thinking for me. Leading me by the hand every step of the way. Because otherwise we’d have got nowhere.

Gradually, with him helping me along like some sort of mental cripple, Con got me thinking in the right direction.

What I had to do, of course, was think of some attractive young woman – preferably a right bloody cracker, as Con put it – who I would choose as the one I was going to try to get to go to bed with me. So that I could win the million. For Lisa. But for poor old Con it was uphill work.

Eventually he got me to stop working on the job I was doing, and start thinking. So I said well, there was this girl I really fancied. I’d fancied her something rotten for ages. Seen her around the town and that. But I’d never actually spoken to her.

‘Name?’

‘Debbie Randall.’

‘Debbie, eh?’ said Con. ‘Blonde, brunette, age, vital statistics?’

I told him she was dark haired. Late twenties I thought. Good figure. Really rather beautiful. I always thought so, from the first time I saw her. And I’d been seeing her, on and off, for years. Seen her in the distance, you understand. Or in her car. She drives a red MG, often with the top down, so she’s hard to miss.

‘How come you’ve never chatted her up then, Harry?’ said Con, grinning at me. He never let himself seem bad-tempered or impatient, but he must have been at times. But then I suppose that’s how he earns his money.

I scratched my head. ‘Well, I dunno really. When I first began to notice her I was married. And when I became single again I suppose I’ve always thought that she must be with someone else.’

‘But you’ve never troubled to find out.’

‘No.’

‘Well, sounds promising, Harry, promising. How about a couple more.’

After a lot more head-scratching and umming and ahing on my part, I came up with a couple more names. Two women that I knew were divorced, or separated, or had just split from their boyfriends. I didn’t fancy either of them. In fact I would have gone quite a long way to avoid going out with them. One was a right bloody cow. But Con pressed me for names and so I gave them to him.

He seemed pleased. ‘Right, Harry, here’s what we’ll do. I’ll begin to do some research on these three.’ Oh, he loved his research did Con. Absolutely loved it. ‘And I want you to think about how you’re going to make a start on chatting up these women. Think of a few ideas, Harry. Come up with something original, eh?’

He grinned and winked again, apparently quite happy. But I’m sure that when he walked away he must have said to himself that it was going to be a real problem working with this chap.

Oh, and one other thing he told me, that afternoon. ‘I’ve rented a house, Harry,’ he said. ‘Not too far away from you. Couple of streets. So we can keep in touch regular. Liaise over the details, OK?’ He gave me the address, and the telephone number of the house. ‘I might pop round and see you tonight,’ he said. ‘There’s quite a lot to discuss.’

Wonderful. All I wanted to do when I got home was have a meal, have a bit of a rest, and perhaps a pint down the pub. I didn’t want to discuss Con’s television contract. But I was beginning to understand that if you going around signing bits of paper, without reading the details, you can end up doing lots of things you’d much rather not do.

I sometimes wondered, in those first few weeks, how it was that Con was able to get things moving so fast. But then I finally realised that he’d actually had two or three weeks to prepare.

As I told you before, Con had wired the clinic for sound and vision. And the very first time I went to see the doctor there, Con had been watching. He’d heard everything I said. And I bet you a penny to a pound that he’d also seen all the forms I filled in. Because they asked you to do that, at the clinic – fill in forms. They were doing research too.

I don’t suppose Con would ever admit it, but from the very first time he saw me, on a TV screen in that clinic, Con had been poking his nose into my background. Finding things out about me.

And he definitely wouldn’t admit this bit either – but I bet you that Con was really, really hoping that my HIV test would turn out positive. After all, he’d already spent weeks in London, trying to find someone to appear in his crazy TV show. And he’d probably been in the clinic a few more weeks. And time is money. God knows what he was looking for, but he always said that he’d know it when he found it. And then he found me. So he must have been really hoping that I would qualify with a positive reading.

While we were waiting for the result of my test, Con was doing two things. First he was clicking the keys on that computer of his. I bet he sleeps with it. And second he was out in the town, buying people drinks and quietly, without them realising it, asking them if they knew this bloke Harry Brown. Local carpenter, know who I mean? What do you make of him? Is he any good?

If I hadn’t been HIV positive, Con would have been up the creek without a paddle. He told me so himself, one night when he’d had a few. ‘Up the creek without a paddle, my old son. Not only without a paddle, but with cannibals lining the banks, and piranhas in the water. I’m not much of a one for believing in God, Harry, but if there is a God he did me a good turn when he sent me you.’

Well, perhaps that’s true. You see, in me Con had someone who would put up with quite a lot without complaining.

Take that night, for instance. The night of the day when Con told me to start thinking about women I might chat up. When I got home a found a van outside and two or three technicians working inside the house. Inside the house. Some people would have gone bananas about that. But I didn’t. I couldn’t summon the energy.

I don’t know to this day how they got in. Con probably stole a key. And if you ask me, they were well used to people getting absolutely furious with them.

As soon as one of them clapped eyes on me he looked a bit nervous and called for Pete. Pete was the one in charge.

Pete appeared double quick. ‘Ah, hello, Harry,’ he said. ‘We work with Con, on the technical side.’ Taking a leaf from Con’s book, he talked very fast, so that I couldn’t get a word in edgeways. ‘This is Bert,’ he said, ‘and this is Fred.’ Or some such. I forget the real names. ‘We’re from…’ and he rattled off a lot of details. ‘What we’re doing here is…’

Talk about baffling you with science. I don’t think I said a word for ten minutes. Pete did all the talking.

What it boiled down to was this. The technical boys were doing to my house what they had done to the clinic in Bristol. They were installing tiny cameras and microphones in every room. Apart from the loo. They didn’t put one in there. Or so they said. I wouldn’t put it past them.

I got to know Pete quite well over the next few months, and I know that Con sometimes got him into difficult situations. But he didn’t get any trouble from me.

I was absolutely stunned, to tell you the truth. I didn’t know what had hit me. I just sat there. Not quite with my mouth hanging open, but nearly. I think the technical boys felt a bit sorry for me.

One thing I do remember that Pete told me that night. He was trying, I think, to get a smile out of me.

After explaining that every room in the house was now wired for sound and vision, he said, ‘Not so much Big Brother as Little Sisters revisited, eh?’

I had no idea what he was talking about. Big Brother I did remember hearing about, vaguely. It was some sort of TV show from a few years back. But Little Sisters I knew nothing about.

Pete and his boys could hardly believe it. ‘You’ve never heard of Little Sisters?’ they said. They gathered round me to look at this freak.

‘What is it?’ I said.

Pete looked around to make sure that Con hadn’t sneaked in while he wasn’t watching. ‘It’s the show that made Con’s name,’ he said. And he said it as if he was saying, it’s the show that God gave his personal blessing to.

‘So what was it about?’

‘It was about a team of twelve nuns who were trying to win a million pounds for their nunnery.’

‘Oh. Right.’

‘And…’

‘And what?’

‘How do you think they had to do it?’

I had no idea.

‘At least of six of them had to get themselves jobs as lap dancers in Soho. Within three months.’

‘Oh yes?’ I didn’t know what to think of that. But I suppose I must have asked if the nuns managed to do it. And apparently they did.

‘It was a big hit, Harry,’ the technical boys all told me. They were clearly dead impressed. ‘Mr Patel really liked that one. It made Con his blue-eyed boy. Don’t for Christ’s sake tell Con you’d never heard of it. He’d be really upset.’

Actually I doubt that, where I was concerned. Con knew well enough that I was dead ignorant. That’s partly why he chose me.

Anyway, the technicians eventually finished their installation and pushed off back to wherever they came from.

‘Don’t forget, Harry,’ said Pete as he left. ‘From now on, every time you cough or spit, Con will know about it. You can call him a cunt if you like – we often do – but if you do it indoors, you can expect him to come round and punch you on the nose ten minutes later, because he misses nothing. And he’s got himself a house just around the corner from here, so he doesn’t have far to come.’

Now there was a happy thought.

Dan Brown wins da Vinci case

Dan Brown, author of The Da Vinci Code, has successfully defended himself in the English courts against the charge of plagiarism. (Actually it was his publisher who was being sued, but you get the idea. And he did have to go into the witness box.)

Well, as the children say in English playgrounds, Told you. I told you the claimants would lose, and that Dan Brown would emerge smiling broadly.

To be precise, Told you on 1 March 2006, when the case started. And in any case, I had already Told you on 24 September 2004, which is 18 months ago.

It is also now clear (as predicted here on 1 March 2006), that the only smart guy in this whole silly mess is Henry Lincoln, third author in the Baigent/Leigh/Lincoln team, who declined to join his two colleagues in going to court in the first place. Baigent and Leigh now have to pay 85% of Random House's costs of almost £1.3 million. That's over half a million each. They have been refused right of appeal, and have to cough up £350,000 by 5 May.

Leigh says he feels vindicated. But it's an expensive way to buy a nice warm feeling, even if it's true.

Macmillan New Writing launch

Yesterday evening to Macmillan HQ for the launch party of the Macmillan New Writing (MNW) imprint.

There were, at a guess, about 150 assembled in the Macmillan atrium for the usual wine and nibbles. The first six books in the MNW series are officially published today, and the good and the great were invited to wish them well.

I gathered, from Richard Charkin no less, that literary agents had been invited, but most had not turned up. Similarly, all the journalists who had written hard things about the scheme had also been sent invitations, but they too were notable by their absence. Pity. But then they go to so many of these things, and at the MNW do they might have been asked to justify their position.

It was a very pleasant occasion, and I think I managed to meet most of the first six authors, plus several other interesting people. One such was a lady I have met before, who is a writer of radio plays (among other things). I asked her if she was still able to get her plays produced on the BBC. She smiled. No, she said. They have got rid of all the real producers, and now there are just bunny rabbits, who favour young writers because they're cheap.

Ah, the joys, as I have remarked before, of the writer's life. Well, at least if you write prose you can just stick it on the internet. But if you write plays it's harder.

Amidst all the natural, and perfectly proper, euphoria of the launch, two people helped to put the matter into perspective. One was Michael Barnard, the onlie begetter of MNW. He pointed out that this year the Macmillan company as a whole will publish (if I heard correctly) about 6,500 titles. MNW will publish 14.

The other person to administer a little corrective, if only to me, was a man who was there just as a friend of one of the authors; he was not a writer himself. I had quite a long chat with him and as we were leaving he leaned forward and said to me, confidentially, 'Of course, in the end, you know, it's only words on paper.'

Pierrepoint

I gather that someone has made a film about the life of Albert Pierrepoint, who was the UK's most famous executioner. Capital punishment has now been abandoned in the UK, but for several hundred years executions were carried out by hanging; and Pierrepoint was the acknowledged master of the craft.

After his retirement, Pierrepoint wrote an autobiography called Executioner: Pierrepoint. I've read it twice: once soon after its publication, in 1974, and again about ten years ago, when I was researching a novel. It's a very readable book, and not nearly as macabre as you might imagine. A paperback edition seems to be still in print.

Pierrepoint seems to have been a remarkably calm and balanced individual, continuing in the family tradition (his uncle, Thomas, and his father, Henry, preceded him). He took a great pride in doing the job properly, and was none too impressed by the American military hangmen, who had, shall we say, a number of unfortunate accidents. Properly performed, the act of hanging will exert 1260 lbs of 'striking force' on the second and third cervical vertebrae, severing the spinal cord and producing almost instantaneous death. James Inglis was declared dead only 7 seconds after Pierrepoint pulled the lever.

Altogether, Pierrepoint is said to have dispatched 433 men and 17 women, over a 24-year period (1932-56); this included some 200 Nazi war criminals.

Excerpt 5

Here is the latest excerpt from my new novel, How and why Lisa's Dad got to be famous. Please remember that, if this excerpt is of the slightest interest, a free pdf copy of the entire book can be obtained through this link. Also, should you be overwhelmed by an irresistible urge to buy a copy of the book, you can obtain one at an amazingly low price from Amazon.co.uk or, if you prefer, from Amazon.com.

A simple explanation

The truth is, I don’t really have AIDS at all. But nobody ever believes that.

When it all first started – the TV programme I mean – I used to try to explain to people about AIDS. But nobody ever understood, so I soon gave up.

I wasn’t even going to bother writing anything about it here. But since this is the official version of what happened – at least according to me – I think I’ll give it one more go. Especially as I want Lisa to understand.

What happens is this.

You start with an ordinary healthy human being. Let’s say it’s a man called John.

John goes off one night and he has sex with a woman who’s got a virus in her bloodstream. A virus is a sort of germ that gives you an illness. It might be a flu virus, in which case John might get the flu. But let’s say that this particular woman that John has sex with has got the HIV virus.

Not everyone who has sex with a person who has the HIV virus is going to catch it. They may not get infected the first time. But they may.

So, let’s say that it happens to John. John now has the HIV virus living in his bloodstream.

John may not have the faintest clue that he’s been infected. It’s possible that he might feel a bit poorly, in the first few days. He may feel as if he’s got a dose of flu. Or he may feel sick. Or have diarrhoea. Or he may feel nothing at all.

In my case I don’t remember feeling anything much. I think I remember feeling a bit seedy, but not bad enough to stay at home. I just felt a bit off-colour for a few days.

Once John has recovered from feeling poorly, if he ever does, he feels just the same way as he always did. He goes on with life as usual. But meanwhile, in his body, things are happening.

Fortunately, things usually happen very slowly. What happens is, the HIV virus begins to try to attack the body. It begins trying to damage John’s system, and make him really ill. But it doesn’t succeed, because the body has various ways of fighting off viruses and bugs, and usually our defence systems win.

This can continue for years and years. Perhaps ten years. Fifteen. Even longer. And while it’s happening you don’t feel any different. You just get on with your life, and you may not know that you’ve got the virus. Most people don’t.

And now we come to the AIDS bit. So far, John has not got AIDS. He’s just been what the doctors call HIV positive. In other words, if they tested his blood, they would find the virus there, even though John feels perfectly well.

It seems that, the younger and fitter and stronger you are to start with, the longer it takes for the HIV virus to do any real damage.

But, as the years go by, the virus usually gets stronger and stronger, and the body’s defences gradually get weaker. In the end, usually, the virus wins.

What happens then is that the patient begins to feel really ill. John will begin to suffer from a variety of nasty conditions, which his system can’t deal with. And it is then, and only then, that John actually has AIDS.

My situation is that after I was divorced I had sex with someone who was HIV positive, and I caught the virus off her. So now I’m HIV positive too. The only reason I know this is because someone warned me about it. They told me that I might have been infected. So I went off to the clinic in Bristol and got myself tested. It seemed the best thing to do. Although some people prefer not to know.

Personally I wanted to be sure, one way or the other. Because I wanted to do a bit of planning. I had Lisa to think about.

So that’s how the HIV and AIDS business works. It seems fairly simple to me, and I’m not a genius, so I don’t see why people find it so hard to understand. But they do.

The whole world seems to know me as Harry, the man with AIDS. (Thanks, Con.) And they write to me from all over the place, asking for help and advice. I reply to as many people as I can, and I know Con deals with a lot more.

I’ve had letters from Iceland, China, Brazil, Denmark, you name it. Most people write to me c/o the TV company, but I even had one that was just addressed to Harry – the Man with AIDS, England. The postman delivered it. No problem. He did say he would have preferred it to have a postcode, if the person was going to write to me again, but it got to me just the same.

Subsidiary rights and wrongs

Poddy Girl reports that iUniverse has hired a subsidiary-rights expert to provide an extra service for some of those writers who choose to publish their books through the iUniverse machine.

Poddy Girl says, and she ought to know, that iUniverse is the only POD publisher (other than small presses) who has taken this step, and she wants to know why PublishAmerica, for one, hasn't followed suit. Good question.

The new service applies, it seems, only to those books which pass a quality test and get on to the iUniverse Star Program. In other words, by the look of it, you can't just pay to get in on the deal.

The person hired to carry out this extra marketing is Judy Klein, who spent 12 years with prestigious publishing house Farrar, Straus & Giroux. During that time, she served as vice president, director of subsidiary rights, director of paperback publishing and director of audio books. Klein is also the former editor-in-chief of the Literary Guild Book Club and the Booksonline Book Clubs. In other words, an absolutely top-drawer professional.

Poddy Girl also reports that Klein has already sold such rights for a number of iUniverse titles, including Torpedo by Jeff Edwards (including audio rights), Vlad Dracula by Michael Augustyn, and Mark Alan Morris's The Ghost Next Door, as well as others.

By the way, if you're interested in iUniverse, you ought to take a look at Pubguy.

Catch-ups and comments

Here are a few notes arising from previous posts, email messages, et cetera.

My piece about Maddox the other day has generated some lively comment, particularly from Darryl Pierce, who acts as Maddox's p.r. person. Darryl is a very firm believer in the new publishing model, where the internet rules and is about to kick the whatsit out of old-time publishing. Whereas there are others, e.g. Clive Keeble, who think that the old gorillas -- old, but still weighing 600 lbs -- are going to prove too tough. On the whole I'm with the new guys, but it's not going to be easy, and both models will be with us for a long time to come. Win or lose, Maddox is, as I said at the beginning, a name to watch.

Then there's Cantara Christopher, who has read Henry Baum's North of Sunset and been highly impressed by it. (See her comments on my review.) And, since she is putting her money and effort where her mouth is, and running a proper publishing company on a shoestring, I think her views need to be regarded with a good deal of respect.

To my mind, what Cantara's review proves is that if you produce a piece of professional work, make it available somewhere, and spread the word a bit, you will probably find an appreciative audience sooner or later. It may take time, and the audience may not be large. But, who knows, one thing may lead to another.

Then we have news of another small press -- otherwise defined as a smile of optimists. This one is UK-based Tonto Press. Their first collection of short stories is just out, and it seems to be available almost everywhere. I see that the project was supported by the Arts Council of England, so it presumably has a lit'ry flavour. One of the contributors to the first collection is Jolene Hui, of San Diego, an 'actress and model' who seems alarmingly photogenic, as you can see for yourself.

Wisely or otherwise, Tonto have advertised that they're looking for novels. Let's hope the postman has a strong back. And, yes, they are named after that Tonto. The one who said What do you mean we, Paleface?

Last, but not least, the ever-thoughtful Bill Liversidge has an interesting idea about how publishers might do themselves a bit of good. And actually it seems to me that there is an opportunity here for an entrepreneur with a good working knowledge of (a) the publishing world and (b) html. Take and look and see what you think. And if you go further, and look at the Free Online Novels site that Bill mentions, you will see that there are a surprising number of free books posted there.

Excerpt 4

Here is the latest excerpt from my new novel, How and why Lisa's Dad got to be famous. Please remember that, if this excerpt is of the slightest interest, a free pdf copy of the entire book can be obtained through this link. Also, should you be overwhelmed by an irresistible urge to buy a copy of the book, you can obtain one at an amazingly low price from Amazon.co.uk or, if you prefer, from Amazon.com.

Signing the contract

In fact, Con turned up again much sooner than I expected. And when he did arrive, he asked me a question which would change my life for ever – whichever way I answered it.

When I got home I had a big breakfast, because I’d got my appetite back. Then I went to work.

At that time I was doing a lot of work in a church. St Aleph’s. It’s not far from where I live, but it’s out in the country, in a small village. It’s too small a place to have its own Vicar – they have to share one with several other churches – but there are services there every Sunday.

St Aleph’s is fourteenth century, and quite a lot of it is original. So not surprisingly the woodwork is beginning to get a bit dodgy in places.

Fortunately, the Vicar, Mr Medford, is quite a lively sort of chap and he’s good at fundraising. And somehow or other he managed to find a sponsor to get the place brought up to date. And one of the things he wanted doing was the woodwork.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m just a carpenter. I can do some wood carving, after a fashion, but I’m not a sculptor or anything like that. I like to work with proper wood. I like to take the time to do things properly. And I like to work in old places. So to make sure that I get the chance to work in places I like, I don’t charge too much. And I take on jobs that other people aren’t interested in.

Because of all that, when Mr Redmond got the money to do some work in St Aleph’s, he asked me if I would do it. And I agreed. Between us we decided that I would work there three days a week until the job was done. I thought it would take a couple of years, when I began, and actually it’s going to take a bit longer. Because of various interruptions.

So, that day in the autumn of 2010, there I was, working away in St Aleph’s. All on my own, of course, but I don’t mind that. In fact I like it. It’s peaceful.

At lunchtime I sat there and had my sandwiches, and that gave me a chance to think about what I’d been told in the last twenty-four hours. And the more I thought about it, the more easily I accepted it.

I wasn’t exactly pleased, you understand. Far from it. But I knew I could cope.

After I’d had my lunch, I did what I quite often do when I’m on my own in a church. I went over to the lectern, where the Bible was lying open, and I read aloud from the text.

I quite like doing that. It sounds good when you read aloud in a church.

But don’t get the wrong idea. I’m not a religious man. Far from it. I never go to church on Sundays, and I haven’t said my prayers since I was about four. But I just like old places. And the stillness. The peacefulness.

And then in the afternoon I did some more work.

Round about five o’clock I was thinking of knocking off for the day. It was well dark by that time, and getting too cold to work comfortably. In any case I was tired.

I was just clearing up when the church door opened and someone came in. I couldn’t see who it was at first. But then, somehow, I knew. Oh, I thought. It’s him.

And it was too. It was Con.

He was wearing a thick black coat with the collar turned up, and his hands stuck in the pockets. He grinned at me. ‘Hello, Harry,’ he said. ‘How’re you doing?’

‘OK,’ I said. And I got on with packing up the tools.

I wondered how he’d known where to find me. And normally I wouldn’t have bothered saying that out loud. I would just have let the other fellow talk. But Con did one of his clever little silences and I filled it in for him.

‘How did you know where to find me?’

‘Oh, I know a lot about you, Harry. That’s my business. Getting to know about people. Finding out where they work. What they like to drink. Whether they owe any money. For instance, you take a size nine shoe, right?’

He was right.

‘And a fifteen and a half collar, when you bother to wear a tie. Which isn’t often.’

He was right again, but I didn’t tell him so.

Con began to look around the church, as if he was really interested. Which he may have been. But then again, he would have pretended to be, even if he wasn’t. Because he wanted something from me.

‘How long have you been working here?’ he asked.

I told him. About six months.

And then he began to ask me questions about whereabouts I’d been working in the church, and what I’d done, and what I was going to do next. And of course I, being a bit of a fool, I got quite keen and enthusiastic. I showed him around.

We had a look in the chancel, where I’d done some fancy repair work on the choir stalls. I was pretty pleased with it, and I talked a lot. For me.

Then, when he’d got me warmed up, Con suggested that we should sit down for a minute. And by then I wasn’t geared up to tell him to push off, because he’d shown such an interest in things that I care about.

‘I wanted to have another talk to you,’ he said. ‘About this TV show of ours.’

I said nothing.

‘Now you’ve had a chance to look at our information sheet, so you know what it’s all about.’

I didn’t, of course. I’d read his sheet of paper, after a fashion, but that was last night. And the words had seemed to dance on the page.

‘But is there anything else you’d like to ask me?’

I smiled, because in my memory I was starting from a blank sheet of paper. I couldn’t really remember a damn thing. ‘Tell me about it again,’ I said. ‘From the beginning.’

So he did.

Con made it all sound simple. And easy. The idea was, he said, this was to be a TV programme about a single man, who wasn’t married and didn’t have a girl friend. And the programme would follow this man while he tried to find someone who was willing to go to bed with him. And if he managed that, within three months, he would win a million pounds.

One of the rules was that the man couldn’t offer the woman any money. And he couldn’t use any of the money so that she would cooperate.

Apart from that there seemed to be nothing to it.

But there had to be a snag somewhere. And I tried to work out what it was. First of all, why me?

‘Ah well, Harry, that’s a good question. See, it’s my job to find the principal contestant, and because we’re based in London, I started there. Spent a month there, actually. And we began by inviting people to volunteer.’

He sighed.

‘Big mistake, Harry. Big mistake. Advertising for volunteers works with a lot of TV shows, but not with this one. You wouldn’t believe some of the deadbeats and layabouts who turned up. Druggies, thieves, liars, poofters making out they could screw women, you name it we had ‘em.

‘So then I decided that I was looking in the wrong place. I decided that we didn’t need a city man at all. What we needed was a country man – someone like you, Harry. So that’s why I came to Bristol.’

‘Bristol isn’t the country,’ I told him.

‘No, it sure ain’t, but that clinic trawls over a wide area. And country people turn up there.’

I found out later – months later – what Con had been up to in the clinic. And it was then that I realised why Dr Meadows had been worried. When I turned up that morning, before the clinic was open, he was really nervous. And that’s because he was afraid I might complain about Con.

I met a technician who’d been working with Con in Bristol. And what they’d done there was what they did everywhere. They put in secret cameras and microphones. So every time I’d been seen by the doctor, thinking we were on our own, and that everything was confidential, Con had actually been listening and watching. And not just watching me, but watching scores of other people too.

And that was why Dr Meadows was twitchy. In case I found out about that.

As it happens I didn’t mind. In the end. But I suppose it was wrong really. And that’s Con all over, you see. He’d found this clinic, done a bit of research – he’s very hot on research is Con – and he’d discovered that the clinic was short of money. So then he’d offered them money if they would do what he wanted.

Officially, Con’s nosey-parker cameras and microphones were there to make training films to help other doctors. Officially. In fact they were just there to help him to find the mug for his TV show.

‘It’s a different rhythm out here in darkest Westshire,’ said Con. ‘Different rhythm entirely. Slow. Easy going. People don’t ruffle easy. Nice…. I like it.’

But I still hadn’t figured out the snag. I was interested, because of the idea that I could leave some money to Lisa. But I wasn’t at all sure about it.

‘Suppose I sign up with you,’ I said. ‘I’ll be filmed for three months, will I?’

‘Not all the time, Harry. It won’t be a problem to you. A lot of the stuff we set up in advance. Do a week’s filming in one day, you know. Repeat stuff that you’ve already done in real life.’

Fake it, is what he meant.

‘So the actual filming won’t be a nuisance to you or anyone else.’

‘And who are you anyway?’ I said. ‘Are you the BBC, or ITV, or what?’

He laughed. ‘No, Harry, we aren’t the BBC. Or What. We’re part of Mr Patel’s empire.’

‘And who’s Mr Patel when he’s at home?’

‘Oh, he’s a big man in communications, Harry. Owns newspapers and television stations all over the world.’

‘So which one of his stations is going to show your programme?’

‘The Asteroid channel, Harry. Home of the stars.’

I’d never heard of it, and said so.

‘No, well, that’s coz your set is obsolete, Harry. You’re still watching on 405-line black and white – or one notch up. But if you had a decent home-cinema setup, with all the bells and whistles, Asteroid would be your favourite channel, Harry. Newspapers are full of it.’

So I was none the wiser. ‘And what about this woman I’m supposed to be finding. How does she fit in?’

‘Ah, right. Well, it can’t be someone you already know. And it can’t be a member of your family, however remote. No cheating allowed, Harry. So you can’t use your ex wife.’

I told him there was no danger of that.

‘But you have three months to find her. Find someone suitable. Preferably a right bloody cracker. And then you have to court her, as they used to say in the old days. Chat her up, as we say now. And wangle her into your bed.’

Ah. I was a bit slow, but I eventually got it.

‘Will she be told about my illness?’

‘Oh yes.’

‘Who will tell her?’

‘You will, Harry. Part of the deal. In the contract.’

And then, for the first time, he brought out his famous contract and laid it on the seat between us. It was about half an inch thick.

‘The thing to concentrate your mind on, Harry, is this. If you agree to take part in our show, we will guarantee to pay you, win lose or draw, twenty-five thousand pounds. Guaranteed. And on top of that, if you do what we all hope you will do, you get to win a million.’

He shifted his position.

‘Now, this is really none of my business, Harry, but like I say, it is my business to find out about people. And I know how much you love your daughter. And I also know that Lisa is going to need a little bit of extra help. All her life.’

He looked at me.

‘Isn’t she?’

He was right. Of course.

My Lisa is as bright as a button. Nothing wrong with her mentally. But she was born without a left foot. Everything else perfectly normal and healthy. But no left foot.

No one knows why that should have happened. Debbie says that two hundred years of chemical pollution have done all sorts of damage. But I don’t know anything about that.

What I do know is that from the time when Lisa was a baby onwards, Carol and I spent a lot of time in hospitals and clinics, getting her fitted with an artificial foot. And of course because she’s growing all the time, it needs changing all the time.

So that’s what Con was talking about. Lisa was going to have to live with that, all her life. So far we’ve had a lot of help from the NHS. But the money would definitely be useful.

There was a pause, and Con looked at me. ‘I think that’s about it,’ he said. ‘I’ve told you all the key points. And of course they look pretty good from your point of view. You can’t really lose. So what do you think, Harry? Can I sign you up for a million?’

I thought about it.

I wasn’t remotely interested in appearing on television. In fact I disliked the idea. But you don’t get anything for nothing, I realised that.

Besides, it seemed to me that almost everybody gets to go on television sooner or later. Our darts team was on one night, when we came top of the league. So I wasn’t bothered by the camera. It hadn’t seemed any sort of a big deal when they filmed the darts match. And with five hundred channels or whatever there are, I kind of thought that no one would notice the programme about me. It would be just another show.

The main thing was, Con had told me that I would get twenty-five thousand anyway, whatever happened. And in ten years’ time Lisa will be thinking about going to university. I hope. And with twenty-five thousand in her pocket she wouldn’t need to go into debt. So that was worth having.

I did think about what I was doing. But perhaps I wasn’t really thinking all that clearly.

‘OK,’ I said. ‘I’ll sign.’ And when I said that I felt really, really pleased. All that money, I thought. Twenty-five thousand, and forget the crap about the million. I’m never going to win that. But the basic fee would be great. And no one deserved it more than Lisa did.

Over the next few months I didn’t always feel as pleased about the deal as I did that night. Con, as usual, had done a good job for his company. He’d been very clever. He’d told me as much as he needed to tell me, to get me hooked, and he’d left out all the awkward stuff. Anything that might put me off, he’d glided over. He’s no sort of mug is Con.

Maybe, maybe…. If I’d been cleverer, or asked more questions, it might have been different. Maybe I wouldn’t have done the show. Or maybe I would. I don’t know.

Anyway, after we’d talked a bit more, we went down the road and found the Vicar, and he acted as the witness while I signed the contract. He didn’t ask what it was about, and I didn’t tell him. And he didn’t ask me whether I’d read it or not. And of course I hadn’t.

Sixty pages. Would you have read it?

After we’d left the vicarage we walked back to the church. Con had parked his Mercedes behind my old van, right under a street light. There was already a bit of a frost, and the car shone beautifully bright, as if he’d just cleaned it. And at that point a thought popped into my head.

‘By the way, Con,’ I said. ‘What will this programme be called?’

Con grinned. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘That’s easy. It will be called Harry – the Man with AIDS .’

The man who cut off cocks

If the crudeness of the heading offends you, my apologies. But the subject today is Jimmy Donahue, and Donahue was a man who always used the bluntest and frankest language, so for the moment at least we will do the same. This will be a longish post, but it's an interesting story.

Jimmy Donahue, you say -- who he? Well, he was the archetypal rich American playboy -- except that he was flagrantly homosexual in a time when homosexuality was still illegal. Even in New York.

I first learnt of Jimmy Donahue about ten years ago, when I was researching a novel which was later published as Beautiful Lady, under the pen-name Patrick Read. But recently I came across a biography of Donahue, Dancing with the Devil (2000), by Christopher Wilson; and so I now know a great deal more than I once did. In particular, Wilson concentrates on the unlikely love affair between Jimmy Donahue and the Duchess of Windsor.

Jimmy Donahue was an American. Born in 1915, he was the second son of Jessie Donahue, who was the daughter of Frank Woolworth, the founder of the Woolworth's retail empire. Jessie was massively, unbelievably rich: she had huge houses, scores of servants, gold plate, you name it; and she flashed her money around.

Jessie's husband, Jim Donahue senior, was not from a poor family by any means, but he was socially and financially Jessie's inferior. Nevertheless, she loved him dearly, and she gave him $5 million as a wedding present.

Neither parent was a good role model for their sons. Jim Donahue was bisexual and a chronic gambler. Jessie allowed him a credit limit of $50,000 a night. This was in the 1920s, remember, and the present-day equivalent would be about $440,000. A night. Jim seldom got up from the table without losing all of it. It was estimated that he was losing $1.5 million a year, in 1920s money.

Jim senior was also very keen on the young men. Eventually, in 1931, he committed suicide. He was driven to it by increasing anxiety about his financial position (hardly surprising) and by unrequited love. He had fallen for a young sailor, one who, after accepting Jim's lavish gifts, rebuffed him. The ungrateful bastard. Some people just don't know when they're well off, do they?

Jessie was also a gambler, but she set herself limits. When she went to France each year she allowed herself $300,000 of gambling money. In the 1950s, the UK Daily Express described her as sitting at the table, staking £200 (modern equivalent some £3,000) on each turn of the cards. Win or lose, said the Express, 'the sad expression on her chalk-white face never alters.'

Young Jimmy Donahue was Jessie's favourite son. But she spoilt him rotten. Ruined him beyond repair. His education, for a start, was sporadic at best. Clearly he was never going to do a job of work, because having a job was ineffably vulgar in Jessie's eyes, so she saw no need for him to be educated. He was sent to Choate, probably the poshest of American boarding schools, but he showed no interest in academic work; and anyway Jessie was for ever finding reasons why she needed him at home. Or he was 'ill'. Sinus trouble was a favourite. Eventually Choate grew weary of Jimmy Donahue and kicked him out.

Jessie was in Palm Beach at the time, so the 17-year-old Jimmy, his education over, stayed in the family's rooms at the Hotel Pierre in New York. On his own. He had already embarked on his homosexual adventures, aided by the fact that he had unlimited money, and he began his lifelong activity of going to nightclubs and staying up till dawn.

There are endless scandalous and shocking stories about Jimmy Donahue, but here are a couple. The first story is available in several versions, but typically it goes as related by Charles Higham in his book Wallis -- Secret Lives of the Duchess of Windsor (1988).

On 18 March 1946, says Higham, Jimmy took a number of sailors, soldiers and Marines to a party at his mother's apartment. There Jimmy and his pals stripped a GI naked and began to shave off his body hair, using an old-fashioned cut-throat razor. Well, you know how it is, accidents can happen, and Jimmy 'accidentally' castrated the soldier. Mrs Donahue paid the man close to a quarter of a million dollars to drop charges, and Jimmy fled to Mexico for two years. That's the Higham version.

Christopher Wilson, in Dancing with the Devil, quotes the version of the story which was sworn to by Truman Capote, no less. In that version, the young soldier also passed out from too much booze, and Jimmy and his pals took advantage of the man's unconsciousness. 'They were all drunk and stoned,' said Capote, 'and someone accidentally cut off his prick.... As I understand it, it was all Jimmy Donahue.'

The true story, as revealed by Christopher Wilson, is not quite so horrible, though still bad enough. Wilson gives the date as 1945. Yes, there was a man at one of Jimmy's gay parties who passed out from drink. But no, he was not a soldier; he as a 32-year-old salesman. Yes, Jimmy and his pals did strip him naked, and yes, he did get a few nicks and cuts. But no, he did not lose his cock. Or his balls. What he did lose was part of an ear, probably bitten off in a moment of passion when someone fucked him while he was unconscious. And yes, $200,000 of Jessie's money (1945 values) was used to shut him up. The man lived on that money, quite comfortably, for the rest of his life. He bought a big hat to cover his ear.

Jimmy did not have to go to Mexico because the court case was dropped. (By and large, rich men do not go to jail. Think of your own examples. Any bets on the Enron two?) Jimmy was, in any case, serving in the army at the time. But the case did result in the army kicking him out. Not that Jimmy cared. And he never bothered to deny the gory version of the tale which eventually, despite Jessie splashing money around, appeared in Confidential.

There's another story about Jimmy Donahue which, when you think of it, is rather similar to the first one, but it demonstrates Jimmy's fondest for the practical joke.

Shortly after the 1945 VJ-Day celebrations in New York, Jimmy went to a butcher's shop and bought himself a cow's udder. Then he took a walk down fashionable Fifth Avenue with the cow's udder sticking out from his flies. This, as you can imagine, created a bit of a stir. When halted by a policeman and asked to explain himself, Jimmy apologised, took out a pair of scissors, and snipped off the udder at its base. One eyewitness said that several ladies of gentle birth fainted clean away.

Oh, he was a laugh a minute was our Jimmy.

This then, was the handsome, rich Jimmy Donahue. By 1951, when he was 36 years old, Jimmy's sexual tastes were notorious throughout New York society. Despite determined efforts on the part of his mother's press agents, who arranged dates for him with some beautiful women, no one in society doubted for one second that he was a fully committed gay man.

Jimmy did not, apparently, draw his sexual partners from his own social class; he preferred the rough end of town. But society people could hardly fail to know about his tastes, since Jimmy talked about little else. 'He was as bright as a dime,' said one of his cousins, 'and very witty, but his sense of humour was the washroom variety, full of cloacal references and four-letter words. He never stopped talking about orifices, of what went into and came out of them.'

He was charming (when he chose to be), amusing (if you liked that kind of thing), and although he had no real money of his own, his mother had it by the truckload. He epitomised the idle rich. And, just as many a famous woman today may find it convenient to be escorted at times by a financially independent and sophisticated man whom everyone knows to be gay, so Jimmy was about to become the close and intimate friend of a woman who, at the time, was arguably the most famous woman in the world, even including Hollywood. She was the Duchess of Windsor.

No one over 50 years of age will need to be told who the Duchess of Windsor was, but younger readers will probably never have heard of her. So here's a quick rundown.

In January 1936, England acquired a new King: Edward VIII. Lord Simon once wrote that 'When Edward VIII ascended the throne he was the most widely known and the most universally popular personality in the world.' And he was single.

The question was, who was he going to marry? Ideally, of course, a King needs an heir, and a spare, pretty damn quick. So there was pressure to get on with it. And in fact, the King had already made his mind up. He was utterly determined to marry an American woman. A married woman. And her name was Wallis Simpson.

When the King made this wish known, it soon became apparent that there were few people to whom the proposed marriage was acceptable. From the point of view of the Government, the Church of England, and the ordinary British public, it was completely catastrophic. Divorce was then a rare event in the UK, and was strongly disapproved of; and this woman had not just been married once, but twice! Furthermore, in the summer of 1936 she was 41 years old (though she claimed to be younger because her parents hadn't actually been married when she was born), so she was hardly likely to produce children. And, to cap it all, she was American.

To cut a long story short, there was a bloody great row. And eventually the King realised that he could either dump Mrs Simpson, and stay on as King, or he could marry Mrs Simpson and bugger off. He chose the latter. In December 1936 Edward VIII abdicated, i.e. he resigned from the office of King. He and Mrs Simpson left England (part of the deal) and went into exile abroad. The King got a new title: the Duke of Windsor, and his wife became the Duchess.

There were many influential men and women in the UK who breathed a great sigh of relief when the Duke had gone. For one thing, he was almost as badly educated as Jimmy Donahue, and he understood nothing of the British constitution. As King, he had been showing an alarming desire to get involved in matters of state. Indeed he seemed to think that he ought to have extensive executive powers, rather like that Hitler chappie in Germany. So the good and the great in the UK were glad to see the back of him.

The women of the world, however, particularly in the US, knew nothing of that. What they saw, and heard, was the most romantic story they'd ever come across in their lives. A King! Who gave up his throne to be able to marry the woman he loved!! And she was an American!!! Wow. This went down pretty bloody well in Boise, Idaho.

Of course, nothing in life is ever quite as simple as it seems. And the 'love affair of the century', as it became known, was not simple either. In his bachelor days, the Duke of Windsor had had a number of affairs with married women, in the royal tradition, but none of these had proved very satisfactory to him or to the women. So what was it that Wallis Simpson had that the other women didn't have?

To answer that question we have to look into Wallis's early life, a life which has been the subject of many books. In brief, Wallis was not your average mousy housewife. Her first husband had been a Navy pilot, and the US government seems to have selected Wallis for espionage duties. She was sent to the Far East, Hong Kong and Shanghai, and she may also have dabbled in intelligence on her own behalf, selling information to the Russians.

Both during and after her first marriage, Wallis had affairs with some powerful people, such as the Italian ambassador to the US, Gelasio Caetani. While in Hong Kong, she may or may not have worked in a Chinese brothel, as later rumour had it. But she seems to have been a woman who was available to any rich man who would bankroll her. In other words, Wallis had knocked around a bit. She was well travelled, highly sophisticated, and quite an operator. No wonder she beat off all those pathetic 20-year old English virgins when they tried to attract the King's attention.

In the 1930s and '40s there was much speculation as to what, exactly, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor did together in the bedroom. Whatever it was, it certainly wasn't missionary-position sex of the vanilla variety. The probability is that she acted as his dominatrix in various sordid ways. And it was certainly one-way traffic. The Duke was totally obsessed with her, because she delivered complete sexual satisfaction in a way that no other woman ever could. But when it was Wallis's turn, so to speak, he could do nothing for her.

That was the position as the years went by. To pass the time, the Windsors travelled constantly. They were often in America, where they were treated like... well, like royalty. Society hostesses queued up to have them as guests. And the Windsors, I regret to say, were always very happy for someone else to pick up the tab.

By 1951, the Windsors had been living their life of exiled travel, ever in search of something to stimulate their jaded palates, for fifteen years; and Wallis had endured fifteen years of sexless existence. She was, it is true, in her mid-fifties. She was post-menopausal, and had survived cancer. But she still liked to feel that she had it. You know? She who had once landed the biggest catch of all, she still liked to feel that she could pull men if she wanted to.

And that was when she met Jimmy Donahue. Not quite for the first time, it's true. But this time the stars were right. The Duchess and Jimmy began to see a great deal of each other, which was not difficult, because they both lived their lives in expensive restaurants and nightclubs.

At first, as you would expect, people just assumed that the Duchess had become a fag-hag in her advancing years. But gradually, particularly after she and Jimmy were seen kissing passionately on the dance floor, the realisation sank in that this was a real live sexually active love affair. And the word spread, causing the Duke enormous anguish.

Avert your eyes if you don't want to know what they did together. Basically, she sucked Jimmy's cock for him. Simple as that. Jimmy never made any secret of it, because he was not a gentleman. Whether he reciprocated by providing oral sex for the Duchess, Christopher Wilson does not say, but it doesn't matter. Whatever they did together, it is quite clear that the Duchess was almost unhinged by the physical pleasure that Jimmy Donahue gave her. At one point she even talked of divorcing the Duke and marrying Jimmy.

After four years it all fell apart, as such affairs always do.

Afterwards, Jimmy became involved, to some extent, in good works, through the Roman Catholic Church; but he was in no way a reformed character. And scandal pursued him, as ever: a boyfriend died in mysterious circumstances and gossip said that Jimmy had killed him with drugs.

On the morning of 8 December 1966, Jimmy Donahue was found dead in bed. He had choked to death on his own vomit, after yet another night of too much booze and Seconal. Thus died the man who cut off cocks -- allegedly.

At the time of Jimmy's death, the only adornment in his bedroom was thirteen framed photographs of the Duchess of Windsor. And so the relationship between the Duke and Duchess of Windsor may indeed, from some points of view, have been the love affair of the century; but the love affair between Jimmy and the Duchess was evidently, in its own peculiar way, just as intense. And Jimmy may have been the one who was left with the deepest regrets.

Finally, since this is a book blog, a word about books.

If you want to know more about the Duchess of Windsor, there is ample choice. You might try Charles Higham's lengthy and carefully researched book, already mentioned. The Duchess's life story was written up as a very readable novel, by Anne Edwards, under the title Wallis (1991). And in Caroline Blackwood's The Last of the Duchess, a number of elderly English ladies get to tell us what they really thought about Wallis Simpson, all those years ago.

So far as I know, Christopher Wilson's book is the only biography of Jimmy Donahue. It is the product of extensive research and tells an extraordinary story rather well.

Excerpt 3

Here is the latest excerpt from my new novel, How and why Lisa's Dad got to be famous. Please remember that, if this excerpt is of the slightest interest, a free pdf copy of the entire book can be obtained through this link. Also, should you be overwhelmed by an irresistible urge to buy a copy of the book, you can obtain one at an amazingly low price from Amazon.co.uk or, if you prefer, from Amazon.com.

Back to the Doctor

In spite of having such a vivid dream, I hardly slept at all that night. And I woke up early. So I decided I’d better get on with it. There was a whole lot of questions I wanted answered. In fact I made a list of them.

I got in the van and drove back to Bristol. The weather was cold, but at least it was dry, and I waited on the steps of the clinic until someone appeared.

First man up was Dr Meadows, the doc who had seen me the day before. He looked a bit surprised to see me again. In fact he looked more than surprised – he looked worried. And it wasn’t until much later that I realised why. He’s a young man – quite a bit younger than me – and he was afraid that I’d come to complain about Con. But I hadn’t.

While he was unlocking the door I asked him if he could spare me a few minutes and he agreed. He took me inside and sat me down while he opened up the rest of the place. Then, when one or two other people appeared, he closed his office door and spoke to me.

I told him that I remembered some of what he’d said, and understood bits of it. But there were lots of things I didn’t understand.

He nodded. He didn’t exactly smile, but he almost did. ‘Most people have to come back, Harry,’ he said. ‘It’s a lot to take in all at once. In some places they record the conversation on a tape cassette, and give it to you to take away with you. We’re thinking of doing that here. But I think people would still need to come back, even so.’

So we went through it all again, and this time it was much clearer. I made some notes, writing down the answers on my list of questions.

Once I’d got it all straight in my head I felt much better. Much more relaxed. Of course it was still bad news. Nothing had changed. But I felt I could cope with it.

Sometimes, when I was watching my father and mother die, I had sort of thought that I would never let myself get into that position. I wouldn’t let it get so far that I wasn’t able to help myself.

I hadn’t really worked out a detailed plan. But I’d kind of decided that if was told I was going to die, I would go as far as I could while I was still able to look after myself. And then, before it got so bad that I was too weak, I would get out the motorbike and go for one last ride.

It would feel good, that last ride. I hoped it would be summer. Warm. A blue sky. I would go out on the downs first. Go on Salisbury Plain. Visit some of the old places. Avebury. Stonehenge. Wayland’s Smithy. The Vale of Pewsey.

And then, when I’d tasted the flavour of all the things I like best, I would take the bike up to a hundred or so and find myself a nice stone wall. Something really solid. Located somewhere out of the way, where I couldn’t hurt anyone else. I know a couple of places like that.

So that was how I felt when the doc had explained it all to me. The second time. I knew I had plenty of time to get things sorted out, and I knew what to do when the time came. So I was quite relaxed really.

The doctor seemed to notice that. He remarked on it. So I told him what I was thinking. Not everything, but a bit. I didn’t tell him about my plans for a last bike ride.

‘Everybody’s got to die,’ I told him. ‘I’ve lost quite a few people in my own family. So I don’t have any problem with that. And I’ve had a very good life really. Lived in a nice place. Met some good friends. My marriage didn’t work out, and I feel bad about that. And I worry about my little girl, Lisa. But my wife – wife that was – she seems to be happy again. Settled down. So I don’t need to worry about her. So it’s all sorted, really.’

The doctor nodded. ‘Good. I’m pleased to hear it.’

He began to shuffle through the papers on his desk, and I could tell he wanted me to go. It was good of him to see me, really, without an appointment. But then he said something else. And he looked a bit awkward – a bit embarrassed – when he said it.

‘Did you, er, did you have a word with anyone after you left here?’

‘No,’ I said, forgetting at first. But then I remembered. ‘Oh, well, yes. There was that chap Con. Is that who you mean?’

The doctor nodded. ‘Yes. Conor McDonald. How did you get on with him?’

‘Oh.’ I had to think about it. ‘All right, I suppose. I haven’t really thought about him, to tell you the truth. More concerned about the other thing.’

The doctor nodded again. ‘Yes, well, I dare say you’ll see him again, Harry. He’s a persistent fellow, is Con.’

I stood up to go, but the doc seemed to want to tell me something.

‘In the ordinary way,’ he said, ‘I wouldn’t have given Conor house-room. But the fact is we’re heavily underfunded here. And when someone comes along who is prepared to help, we have little choice but to accept.’

I said nothing, because I had no idea what he was talking about.

The doc still looked at me, still a bit embarrassed. ‘He didn’t annoy you, then.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Not at all.’

He seemed relieved. ‘Good. Well, as I say, I’m sure you’ll hear from him again. He’s a man who never gives up, is Con. And he has some persuasive arguments, Harry. Very persuasive indeed.’

So I can’t say I wasn’t warned.

The UK National Short Story Prize -- update

Last September, when the UK National Short Story Prize was announced, I greeted it with something less than three cheers. In a lengthy piece I set out my reasons for feeling uncomfortable about it.

Well, now we've got to the shortlist stage. There were 1,400 entries, which the organisers seem to think is a large number. More than expected. But, just to remind you, this was not an 'open' competition. Entries were limited to writers who had previously been published, with self-publishers rigidly excluded.

The Guardian has details (link from booktrade.info.)

Writing the Other

Carole McDonnell has written a review of Writing the Other, by Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward. (Link from Locus.) It's a book aimed primarily at writers, and it considers (apparently) the problems involved in writing about characters who are different from yourself in terms of age, class, race, education, et cetera.

Well, I think I'm happy to leave the reviewing of this one to Carole. I don't think, at my age, that I want to read a book which goes on about the 'dominant paradigm'. Neither do I feel much enthusiasm for a book which is recommended 'for schools, colleges, and creativity workshops, and sociology classes.'

On the other hand, for all I know, it might have a transforming effect on your fiction. Take a look at the review and see.

Colin Greenland: The Hour of the Thin Ox

The Hour of the Thin Ox, by Colin Greenland is, I have to admit, an obscure book. It was published in the UK, in 1987, both in hardback and paperback, and, er, that was about it. Why mention it then?

Well, for one thing it's an early work by a man who has gone on to become pretty distinguished in the field of science fiction, even though he is not, I suggest, a household name. For example, his 1990 novel Take Back Plenty was winner of all three major British science-fiction awards: the Eastercon, Arthur C. Clarke, and the British SF Association. So if you're exploring the science-fiction field he's a writer you ought to look out for.

As for The Hour of the Thin Ox itself, I am inclined to think that it's a novel of ideas. I suspected that just from reading the book, but when I found out that Greenland did a PhD on Michael Moorcock and the New Wave, I inclined further to that view. The PhD, by the way, was published as The Entropy Exhibition.

The Hour of the Thin Ox is set in a kind of parallel universe (and, incidentally, some commentators classify the book as fantasy rather than SF). It's one of those worlds where they do things differently, which I ought to be able to accept easily enough, but I find myself faintly resistant to books where the characters have odd names, such as Ky varan and Bi tok. Why can't they just be George and Mildred, like sensible people? Anyway, this is a world where technology is not very far advanced, and they are only just beginning to have guns.

The plot is a sort of adventure story, with various sympathetic characters finding themselves in various kinds of peril. There's a war on. Several different wars, actually. And along the way you are invited by the author (implicitly, I hasten to add) to contemplate the folly of war and the possibility that 'primitive' tribes are actually a good deal smarter than we give them credit for.

The bit I liked best came on page 158, where one character tells the young boy, Bi tok, that 'life only begins when you stop planning.' She points out to him that absolutely nothing in his recent life has worked out the way it was supposed to.

You're travelling with your father but he doesn't even know he is your father. He's supposed to take you to New Bright Rock and look after you, but there's an accident and then he's killed before you get there.... You're life isn't over, Bi tok, it's just beginning. You must understand: you're free.

Hmm, I thought. Now how does this relate to writing, do you think?

Very few things that a writer plans for actually work out the way she intended. Books, by and large, do not leap to the top of the bestseller charts and win the Booker/Nobel in the same year. So does that make us free, do you think? Is it liberating?

I can only speak for myself. And it seems to me that, once you get used to the idea that none of those wonderful things that you imagined for yourself in your callow youth are actually going to happen, then it lifts a great burden from you. You don't have to bother about trying to find an agent, or what the agent says if you have one. You can just do your own thing. For instance, you can write a blog post about a book that hardly anyone's heard of.

I recommend it. The approach, that is. And the book too, if you like that kind of thing and have suitably modest expectations, because this is, after all, an early work.

By the way, since we are all interested in gossip, you may care to know that Colin Greenland's partner (they have been together since 1996) is Susanna Clarke. Yea verily, she of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell.

Excerpt 2

Here is the latest excerpt from my new novel, How and why Lisa's Dad got to be famous. Please remember that, if this excerpt is of the slightest interest, a free pdf copy of the entire book can be obtained through this link. Also, should you be overwhelmed by an irresistible urge to buy a copy of the book, you can obtain one at an amazingly low price from Amazon.co.uk or, if you prefer, from Amazon.com.

Talking to Dave

It was pouring with rain, and when I got back to the van I was pretty wet. And it didn’t ease up as I drove home in the dark. Nothing but shiny roads and bright lights. By the time I got home I had a bad headache.

It was late, and I should have made myself something to eat. But I couldn’t face it. I didn’t even want to put a light on. I just sat there in the dark for a bit and had a think.

The doctor in the clinic had told me that I was ill. And now I felt ill. I hadn’t had any problems at all really, up to that point, but I felt dreadful that night.

One way and another the doctor had told me that I was going to die. I understood that much. Well, all right. Everyone’s going to die. No big deal about that. But it seemed that my time was going to come a bit sooner than I expected.

I hope I’m not much of a one to feel sorry for myself, but I couldn’t help feeling a bit depressed. The doc had knocked me for six. A lot of things had gone wrong in my life in the last few years, and I was beginning to suspect that they were all my own fault. I felt I had messed things up.

And then there was that business with Con. That had upset me too. It frightened me. I couldn’t make head or tale of it. Con seemed to be genuine. And he’d offered me the chance to win a million pounds. For Lisa. That was a serious matter. So what was I going to do about it?

In fact, what was I going to do about anything? What could I do?

I was thirty-nine then, that rainy night in November. I’d had a few ups and downs. Getting married. Getting divorced. And it seemed to me that all you can do is go through life and do the best you can. Obviously you always hope that things will turn out well, and sometimes they do. But sometimes they don’t. Sometimes you make mistakes.

So I sat there for a bit and thought about how I might have done things differently. And better. But of course that doesn’t change anything.

So then I had a chat with my brother. He was born five years before me, and as a kid I looked up to him. I always talk to him when I’ve had some bad news. And we’ve had a fair bit of bad news in our family, what with my mother and father dying and that sort of thing.

My Dad was a smoker – he died in his fifties. And my Mum had breast cancer. She did nothing about it. Told nobody. And then it was far too late.

Also I talked to Dave a lot about the time when I was married, and particularly around the time when Lisa was born. We had a lot of problems then, Carol and I.

Of course I realise now that Carol and I should never have got married really. We both understand that now. But at the time we didn’t.

Carol was twenty-five, and she’d been living with a bloke called Bill. Lived with him for six years. They had a nice little flat. But he never married her and I think she felt bad about that. Anyway, in the course of time that arrangement came to an end, and Carol went back to live with her Mum. But she didn’t like that much so she was looking round for someone else. On the rebound really.

As for me. Well, I was just turned thirty, and I was thinking it was about time I got married. I’d had enough of being single. I wanted a proper home, with a wife and family, like everyone else. Well, like most people anyway. So I was definitely looking. And one way and another Carol and I met up. It was in the pub, actually. Where you meet most people. She used to drop in there for a drink with her girl friends. After that they would get on the train and go off clubbing somewhere.

Carol and I started going out together and we seemed to hit it off. But really we were quite different people.

I’m a quiet sort of person. Someone who likes simple things. Working with my hands. Fishing in the river. Going for walks in the country.

And Carol is really a city girl. She’s never lived in the city, of course – she’s always lived round here. In a small town in darkest Westshire, as Con calls it. But Carol likes city things. She’s an outgoing, bubbly sort of person. Likes discos and going clubbing. Watches TV a lot. Sees all the latest movies, buys the records, even reads the books. In paperback. Oh – and she wanted holidays abroad.

And all that of course costs money. Which is one of the things we fell out about. It’s not that Carol was greedy, or silly. She wasn’t. She was a lovely girl, and I’m still very fond of her. But she wanted all the things that every girl her age wants. She wanted a four-bedroom house on a nice estate. And a decent car instead of my old van. And she wanted a home cinema TV, and a decent sound system, and stuff like that. None of which interested me at all.

So that’s where things started to go wrong. She wanted me to get better paid jobs, doing work for the big builders on new estates and stuff like that. And I didn’t want to do that. If you do that sort of thing you never work with proper wood at all, it’s all MDF. Medium-density fibre. Man-made stuff.

I like working round here, in the town. Doing jobs for old ladies – the kind of jobs that most tradesmen don’t want to do, because they’re too small. Putting new locks on people’s doors, mending their windows, repairing their floors. Because I’m a carpenter by trade. I should have mentioned that.

And another thing Carol and I fell out about was her being a parent. When she realised that I wasn’t earning all that much money Carol wanted to get a job. I didn’t want her to do that. I thought she ought to be at home, looking after Lisa. But she got a job anyway, full-time at that, and her Mum looked after Lisa. Which admittedly she loved doing, and was good at. But it wasn’t right.

Anyway, as I say, things began to go wrong fairly soon after we were married, so I discussed all that with my brother Dave. And then when Carol was pregnant we had problems. Things to decide. After the first scan the doctors told us to think about whether we should let the pregnancy continue. And of course we did. But it took some thinking about. And I found it useful to talk to Dave then.

As for when Carol told me she wanted a divorce. Well, I think talking to Dave was just about the only thing that stopped me going spare. It wasn’t so much losing Carol. I’d realised by then that we hadn’t got much in common. Apart from the sex, of course. We were all right there. But if Carol left me, then I would lose Lisa. And I didn’t think I could bear that.

Carol was clever though. I wouldn’t call it devious. But anyway she told me that I would always be able to see Lisa, and she promised this and promised me that. So she won me round in the end. I agreed to let her go. But it broke my heart even at the time.

And then when her new man got a promotion and they moved away I nearly lost it again. It was Dave who held me together. But the time came when Carol said she thought it was best if I didn’t see Lisa any more, not even at weekends, because it was confusing her, having two Dads. I said she didn’t have two Dads. Only me. But Carol won in the end.

Between Carol and Lisa moving away, and the night I met Con, I’d only seen Lisa once. And then only in the distance, when she came to see her Granny. I stood under the trees, out of sight, at the end of the road, and I watched her go up the path. And she skipped. That’s what she did. She skipped up the path. And that’s what got me. I had to walk away, crying my eyes out.

And so now, that night after I went to the clinic in Bristol, and the first time I met Con, I talked to Dave about all that. There was a lot to say, and it took a while, but he’s a good listener is Dave.

I almost forgot about Con, to tell you the truth. That was an afterthought, compared with the other stuff. Telling Dave about the clinic and the doctor. But then I fished out the business card that Con had given me, and the sheet of paper that told me about the TV show. But I wasn’t much wiser when I’d read it. My head wasn’t straight, because of the medical stuff, so I let it lie.

The main thing I realised, when I told Dave all about the clinic, was that I didn’t understand what I’d been told. The doctor had explained it all, I’m quite sure, but I didn’t remember any of it. He’d asked me if I understood, and of course I said that I did. But I didn’t. So I realised that I’d have to go back.

I would have liked to have spoken to Lisa that night too. But of course that was impossible.

I didn’t get to sleep very soon. I lay there thinking about Lisa and wishing I could give her a hug. And when I did nod off at last, Lisa came to see me in my dreams. She kissed me and told me not to worry. ‘Everything’s going to be all right, Daddy,’ she said. ‘I promise.’

Dreams.

Maddox: a name to watch

I have received an email from Darryl Pierce, who is (presumably) the publicist for a guy called Maddox. Chances are, says Darryl, that you've never heard of Maddox. Well, that's true. Anyway, it seems that Maddox's hardback book The Alphabet of Manliness, which is not due to be published till 6 June, has just leapt to number one on the Amazon.com sales list. Well, actually, when I wrote this, it was number two. Here's what Darryl says:

With the release date three months away, and not a single review or synopsis published anywhere, the book went to #1 on Amazon on the strength of a short, simple email from Maddox to his many fans and friends. The cover photo wasn't even on the site until a few hours ago. It experienced a ridiculous 573200% increase in 24 hours. Look at that number again and realize it's not a typo. I'd also venture to say that at least 95% of the people who have preordered have little to no idea what the book is about, as Maddox has been very secretive about it. They just know it's by Maddox, and know it will be superb....

I fully expect his book to debut in the Top 5 of the NYTimes Best-seller list, if not at #1, which will be nothing short of astounding, as Maddox is as "outsider" as it gets. There have already been some grumblings in NYC publishing circles of "who the hell is this guy" and "where did he come from?" and "why didn't we sign him?" All too typical, of course.

Well, somebody seems to be ordering the damn thing. To try to figure out why, go to Maddox's web site. My own take is that it is robust humour from a man who knows how to handle html. How it will transfer to the book format remains to be seen. The publisher is Citadel.

Manliness, by the way, seems to be the buzzword de nos jours. See yesterday's Sunday Times on Harvard Professor Harvey Mansfield, who is, it seems, in search of lost manliness.

Itsy bitsies

Don't try this at home

The Sunday Times had a paragraph over the weekend about a wannabe in Moscow who got so frustrated by writer's block that he picked up his typewriter and heaved it out of the window. Relieved his feelings, no doubt, but he injured someone outside.

Mike Segretto web site

Mike Segretto has set up a web site which will enable him, he says, 'to promote my Contemporary Press novels (The Bride of Trash, How to Smash Everyone to Pieces, etc.), provide news about releases and readings, and post my latest sick little stories.' Sounds like fun.

I see that one of his thirteen favourite films is the Kubrick version of Lolita. And, in case you're wondering, that is not a film about paedophilia; it's a film about love. Quite different.

Kate Allan's new novel

Kate Allan's Perfidy and Perfection is just out. It's about an early nineteenth-century rector's daughter who has a shameful secret. She's a novelist.

There's also going to be an online launch party, if you're organised enough to think three weeks ahead. Games, chatter, prizes and special guests. Kate is a serious student of book marketing, so it might be worth keeping an eye on what she does to plug this one.

Jonathan Freedland plugs Sam Bourne

In the recent past we have noted here the absence of reviews for Sam Bourne's The Righteous Men, despite the fact that Sam Bourne is the pseudonym of the Guardian's political columnist Jonathan Freedland. Well, now Freedland has started to do his own reviews. Sort of.

What he has done is write a couple of articles which have appeared in the mainstream press, complete with implicit and explicit mentions of his own work. Examples: in his own paper, the Guardian, Freedland explains why people use pseudonyms, mentioning his own, of course (link from Ian Hocking). And then, in yesterday's Sunday Times, he had an article about the development of the modern thriller, of which The Righteous Men is, it would seem, a prime example.

I do wonder, sometimes, if I am not being a bit hard on Freedland by banging on about all this Fleet Street mafia stuff, and the cashing in of markers for favours past. I dare say you and I would do a bit of it if we had the chance. But there is a serious point here. It is one which I set out at great length when Freedland got his contract, namely that writing a good book is far from sufficient on its own. Indeed, if you have the right connections, you don't even need a book to get a contract. And a pretty handsome contract at that.

There is little point in bleating about this situation. But equally, there is little point in a young, naive writer settling down to two or three years' hard work while suffering from the delusion that brilliance alone will be enough.

Million Writers Award

The top ten online short stories of 2005 have now been selected and voting on the top story of the year has begun. To find out what it's all about, go to storySouth.

John Barlow on hardback/paperback

Did I mention that John Barlow has been pondering the virtues of hardback publication for the emerging writer? (Noticed by Maud Newton.)

Blooker prizes

The 2006 Blooker prizes (for books based on blogs) have been announced, and the Guardian has an article about them. (Link from booktrade.info.)

Prepare to reveal your darkest secrets

OK, so after years of effort you finally managed to sell a book to a publisher. And now you realise, sort of vaguely, that you're going to have to do a few things to help sell it. OK? You do realise that, don't you?

Actually, you probably don't realise the full extent of the joys that await you.

Every month I take a look at the web site run by the UK Publishers Publicity Circle. The Circle is one of those professional talking shops, where people exchange ideas and experiences. In this case the talking is done by book publicists.

The site is not, in my opinion, wonderfully well organised, but it is presumably maintained by enthusiasts, in their spare time, so we will forgive them. Anyway, on the home page you will usually see a box labelled 'Last meeting'. And if you click on that you will (as of the day when I am writing this) be taken to a set of notes on the November meeting. Which is not what you want if you go there in April.

However, there is a menu of meetings, top left, and if you click on March you get some notes on what was said recently about Promoting the Unpromotable. Here are a few gems.

The author is also vital in the ‘mix’. If not a celebrity and with no outstanding features, need to explore all events in their life in case there is something that you can use as a ‘sell in’ to journalists – not necessarily to do with the book. Find a different angle to pitch to a journalist even though author may not be comfortable with you ‘digging’ so deep... Authors must realise that getting ‘out there’ with the customers is important so they can share their passion and enthusiasm for the book.

The author must have something to say. Need to ‘milk’ everything from the author; get them to tell their darkest secrets. They are not going to get something for nothing.

There are several types of tricky to promote books, the first two being: a book from a small publisher that is not like any other and a book which is exactly like lots of other books.

Oh well. That's it for my latest then.

Excerpt 1

Here, as promised last Friday, is the first excerpt from my new novel, How and why Lisa's Dad got to be famous. Please remember that, if this excerpt is of the slightest interest, a free pdf copy of the entire book can be obtained through this link. Also, should you be overwhelmed by a irresistible urge to buy a copy of the book, you can obtain one at an amazingly low price from Amazon.co.uk or, if you prefer, from Amazon.com.

Greetings

Hello Lisa. This is for you.

And hello to everyone else too.

Lisa is my daughter. I don’t see her as much as I’d like because she lives with her Mum. We used to be married, Lisa’s Mum and me, but now we’re not.

Lisa is still quite young. She’s eight now. Seven when this business started. She’s a bit too young to understand all of this just yet. But one day she’ll be grown up, and when she is I want her to be able to read this story. If I’m not around to tell her myself.

Of course, Lisa may understand more than I think, already. They grow up quick these days. And I know she’s seen all the TV shows – even when they first went out, late at night. But there’ve been a lot of lies and foolishness printed about me and Debbie, and I don’t want her to believe all that.

And there haven’t been just stories in the papers, either. There’ve been books and CDs and DVDs and documentaries, and endless stuff like that. Con tells me there have even been pirate copies of the TV programmes. Which means that people are selling the TV series without paying the company a fee. They sell them in the Far East, and Africa. It’s very big in Africa.

So there’s been a lot of fuss and – well, nonsense. So I want Lisa to know what really happened.

This is my side of the story. The true story.


Meeting Con

I sometimes wonder how my life would have gone if I’d never met Con McDonald. Would it have been better, or worse?

One thing is sure: if I hadn’t met Con I would never have got around to asking Debbie to go out with me. For a start I thought she was too good for me. And she’s so beautiful that I was sure she would be living with someone else. So I suppose I owe Con a favour for that.

Con kind of introduced himself to me one horrible night in November, the year before last. The twenty-second it was. Twenty-second of November 2010. I’m not likely to forget it.

He’s a very determined man, is Con. Persistent, clever, and good with people. Well, he’s had a lot of practice. That particular night Con had one thing on his mind. And when Con sets his mind to something it usually gets done. As for me, all I wanted to do that night was get home, go to bed, and pull the blankets over my head.

I’d gone over to Bristol to see a specialist. It’s a fair old way to Bristol. When I came out of the clinic, I found it was raining, so I pulled a woolly cap down over my ears. And then I set off for the van.

I suppose I heard the clinic door bang for a second time as I was walking along, but I didn’t pay much attention to it. The doctor had given me a lot to think about.

And then this bloke appeared beside me. Short, and a bit tubby. Not much hair. He was wearing jeans and a leather jacket.

‘Fancy a drink, Harry?’ he said. ‘I could do with one myself. I’ve been in the clinic too, like you.’

It never occurred to me to ask how he knew my name. As I said, I was a bit worried at the time, so I just assumed that he’d heard a nurse mention my name or something. Or perhaps we’d played darts and he remembered me from that.

Anyway, I certainly didn’t want a drink. ‘No thanks,’ I said. And kept walking.

Con, of course, didn’t give up. He never does. He just trotted along, keeping up with me, and went on prattling away. Can’t remember now what he said. But eventually he said, ‘Hard to take it all in really, isn’t it Harry?’

So I stopped and looked at him. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Well,’ he said, ‘I was in the clinic too, you know. Been there lots of times. And when you’ve had bad news it’s a good idea to stop and have a drink. Let your mind settle for a bit – especially before you drive. That’s what I always think.’

And before I knew where I was he’d wheeled me into a pub.

Con’s good at that. Good at getting people to do what he wants.

At the time I thought it was just another pub. But now that I know Con better I realise that he would have checked out every pub for a quarter of a mile in each direction. He knew immediately where he was going – in this case into a small bar called the snug, where we were the only people. It wouldn’t surprise me if Con had slipped the landlord a few quid in advance, to keep it clear for us.

Con bought me a drink, which I didn’t mind because my head was still spinning. I only had a half because I was going to drive. And we sat there for a bit while Con chatted away like he does.

I said nothing. That’s what I do, mostly. Say nothing. There was a nice warm fire in the snug. Logs burning. I liked that, because I felt freezing cold.

And then eventually it occurred to me to ask him. Not about how he knew my name. But the other thing.

‘How did you know?’ I said. ‘How did you know I’d had bad news?’

‘Well, I was in the clinic, Harry, wasn’t I?’ He looked straight at me. ‘Like I said. I’ve been working there, these last few weeks.’

I said nothing for a while. And Con said nothing either. Which is unusual for him. But he’s very clever, you see. When he wants you to say something he just shuts up and waits until you do.

So then I said, ‘What do you do in the clinic?’

‘Well,’ he said, ‘I work for a TV company, Harry. It’s my job to go out and find people who would be suitable to appear on our shows. And as it happens, we’re looking for rather unusual people to take part in our new show.’

‘Oh.’ I just assumed that the show he was talking about was one of those hospital things, where they interview people having treatment.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘And the thing about this show is that’s it’s very special indeed.’

I wasn’t interested. I hardly watch television. Hate it most of the time. But this bloke had at least bought me a drink, and I was beginning to feel warmer, so I sort of looked at him politely.

‘Yes, Harry.’ He nodded. ‘See, the thing is, we’re looking for someone who wants to win a million pounds.’

Again, I said nothing. People say I’m sometimes a bit slow on the uptake, and I’m not going to disagree. And at first I didn’t realise what that could mean.

Con leaned forward, to speak to me confidentially. Although there was no one else there. ‘Suppose,’ he said, ‘suppose you, for instance, was to volunteer to take part in our programme, Harry. That would mean that you could win a million pounds.’

I thought he was having me on, and I managed to grin. ‘Are you taking the piss?’

‘No, Harry, I’m not. I’m deadly serious.’

He kept on looking at me, in that direct way of his. And he must have seen that I still didn’t get it, so he spelt it out.

‘Now a million pounds is a lot of money, Harry. But I have to tell you that there’s a snag.’

I just sat there. I suppose he really must have thought I was a fool. Because by now most people would have been all over him, but I wasn’t saying anything. Anyway, he carried on regardless.

‘You can do an awful lot with a million pounds, Harry. And I’m not talking about selfish things – stupid things. I’m talking about worthwhile things. Looking after elderly parents for example. Or safeguarding the future of a child.’ And he must have seen, immediately, that he was now getting through to me.

‘Have you got a child, Harry?’ Of course the devious bastard knew very well that I had.

‘Oh yes,’ I said. ‘Lisa. She’s seven. But I haven’t been allowed to visit her for two years.’

Con shook his head. ‘Very sad, Harry, very sad. I think it’s a great pity when that happens. But if you won the million pounds you could still do a lot for her. Set up a trust, so that she had a nice little nest-egg when she reached eighteen. Or twenty-one.’

He reached into his pocket and took out a piece of paper, which he spread on the table.

‘You can take this way with you in a minute, Harry. Because you’ll need to give this some thought. What this is, it’s an official description of the show we’re going to put on. It’s printed on a proper company letterhead and everything. And as it happens, Harry, you’re just the sort of person we’re looking for. If you want to volunteer.’

By now I was interested. Very interested indeed. The one thing I wanted to do more than anything else in the world that night was to help Lisa. In case I wasn’t around for very long, and didn’t live to see her grow up. And now Con was offering me the chance to win a million pounds for her.

OK, so Lisa’s Mum and me had fallen out. And got divorced. And Carol had gone off with her new man. But I still loved Lisa. I thought of her every day. Often all day. It hurt me that I couldn’t see her, and hold her, and hug her, and read her bedtime stories. And do all the other things that Dads are supposed to do. And now here was a man telling me that I might be able to do something which would make Lisa secure for life. So now I was really paying attention.

‘All you have to do, Harry, to get the chance to win the million, is agree to take part in our TV show.’

I had another drink of my beer. I don’t actually watch much television, but even I know that there’ve been some really weird shows on TV lately. The people who make them seem to have found some way of making them much more extreme than they used to be. You know, getting round the censorship and that. Papers are full of it. So I asked Con what sort of show it was.

‘It’s reality TV, Harry. So-called. Doesn’t have a lot to do with reality, to tell you the honest truth, but it’s entertainment. What happens in our particular show is that we sign up one man and follow him for three months while he tries to do what he has to do to win the million pounds.’

I thought about that. Three months sounded all right. Not too long. ‘And what does he have to do?’

‘He has to find a woman – preferably a young and attractive woman, who’s prepared to go to bed with him.’

I laughed at him. I really did. ‘Go to bed with him? And then what? If the woman does go to bed with him, you’re telling me he gets a million pounds? That’s ridiculous.’

‘No, Harry, it’s not. Not when you know the details.’

By now – I can remember this quite clearly – I was beginning to think I was dreaming. I was beginning to believe that the whole of that horrible evening was just a terrible nightmare, and I was going to wake up soon and everything would be all right again.

‘And besides,’ I said, still feeling a bit drunk and out of it. ‘Do you seriously think I might be suitable to do that? Go round chasing some piece of skirt?’

‘I do, Harry. I really do.’

Well, I could tell he was serious. At least, I no longer thought he was joking, and that sobered me up a bit..

‘I’ve been looking for a suitable bloke for this show for weeks, Harry. Months, actually. And you’re the nearest I’ve got yet.’

I still couldn’t believe it. ‘Look,’ I said, ‘I can’t think of a worse choice. For a start I’m nearly forty, and not much to look at. I’m a quiet, solitary sort of bloke. I like to go fishing, walking on my own. That sort of thing. The nearest I get to a social life is a game of darts in the pub. As for women – well, I haven’t had a proper date with a girl since before I got married. And my marriage turned out to be a complete disaster. And besides…’

Con was really concentrating on me now. Taking in every word. That was the longest speech I’d made all night. He leaned forward again. ‘Besides what, Harry?’

I sighed. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘to tell you the truth I’ve had some bad news tonight. Really bad news.’

‘I know,’ he said. ‘I was in the clinic with you. Remember?’

I thought about that. ‘So you know about my problem then.’

Con nodded.

‘Well then, you know perfectly well that I’ve never felt less like going chasing women in my life.’

‘That’s all right, Harry,’ he said. ‘That’s all right. I understand. And that’s what qualifies you as a possible contestant, you see. That’s what makes it interesting.’