Damned Woman!

It’s that damned Susan Boyle again! She’s distracted the whole country.

It was a beautiful Sunday morning and I sat at the kitchen table with a big mug of coffee and a crisp new copy of The News of the World looking forward to reading the review of my book “Recollections of a Racketeer.” I was not so crass or egotistical as to rush straight to the literary section, instead I slowly worked my way through the newspaper, just like an ordinary member of the general public – in fact I even removed my dark glasses. Just as Marcel Proust deliberately read through Le Figaro so that he would stumble ‘accidentally’ across the article he had written, so too I perused the News of the World pleasurably anticipating the ‘accidental’ discovery of my book’s first review.

Hard as I tried to focus on the news, as I read about the “TV star’s secret sex party shame” and “Love-rat dating Emma behind Gallacher's back”, I could not help thinking about the review and wondering what they might have said about me. “New literary sensation … roll over McEwan and Faulks … the new Shakespeare? … witty, sophisticated page-turner” Finally, my curiosity could be denied no longer and, ignoring “model Lauren Budd’s topless revenge photos,” I turned to where the literary reviews should be.

Nothing! There was no review. No mention of my book. There was not even a mention of my appearance on the Maurice Boland show. The whole literary review section was devoted to Simon Cowell’s concerns about virginal singing sensation, Susan Boyle. Damn that woman!

Yes of course there was a certain amount of personal disappointment in not having my own book reviewed, but my concerns go way beyond the personal. I am worried for the future of English literature as we know it. If the public are no longer able to rely upon the News of the World for literary guidance – where else can they turn? If authors can no longer anticipate having their work reviewed and promoted in its pages, then why bother to write? If there had been no News of the World literary reviews, would this country have produced Chaucer, Milton, Alfred Lord Tennyson or Lord Jeffrey Archer? When potential literary giants are ignored, the future does indeed look bleak.

And people wonder why I drink!