I've not been feeling myself lately. Not since the appearance of that devil William Heaney. Memoirs Of A Master Forger has generated probably the best crop of reviews in my career as a published writer. The book also went into reprint in its second week, something that hasn't happened to me before. Now, lest you think there is some smugness behind that report let me say there is not. It confirms some rather worrying trends in publishing.
What's more the relative success of William Heaney has rather put Graham Joyce's prominent hooter somewhat out of joint. Firstly you would think that a writer with a career spanning almost twenty years, a quiver full of awards and a loyal readership and would easily be able to outsell a complete debutant. Certainly this is what you come to expect in the writing world: the idea is that you build a career, supported by booksellers who recognise your name and reviewers who know your pedigree. Well you can pretty much forget that.
What goes out of the bookshops is governed by what goes into the bookshops. All those three-for-two offers, thumping-good-read recommendations, window-displays and dump bins are important revenue earners for the shop. A Book Of The Month award is there because the publisher paid for it, not because it thumps. With even spine-on shelf-space at a premium, the midlisters are squeezed by the extra space now devoted to Katie Price's "Saddle Up Your Little Pony" or Colleen Rooney's "The Brave Little Lipstick Tube". In the
When that young upstart William Heaney stepped up to the plate, he had no EPOS record. The booksellers had to go on their instincts about whether the book might sell or not. They decided it might, and promptly ordered into the stores a larger number of copies than they would have, say, a Graham Joyce novel. That meant of course that the customers had sight of these copies in the store, whereupon they brought them.
Now if you've read the book already you will know that it contains the same feverish interests as any other Graham Joyce novel. It just happens to have sold better. So what's a fellow to do? Publish more work under the name of William Heaney? Kill off Graham Joyce? Invent more pen-names? (I rather fancy something with a flourish next time. Perhaps Peregrine Nash? Or the sexually ambiguous Japonica Stark? Suggestions on the back of ten-pound note, please.)
But the deployment of a pen-name has generated one or two other interesting confusions. Let me clear: I outed myself on these pages because I didn't want to make a secret about the pen-name, and secondly because the psudonymised Memoirs Of A Master Forger genuinely contains within it a critique of publishing, which is why I allude to fraudulent memoir, ghost-writers of celeb "novels", fake British-Council sponsored "poets", forged books, and, by way of metaphor, demon-infested manuscripts. You get the idea? Well not everyone does.
Most commentators and reviewers seemed to have done a bit of simple detective work, and either named me as the author or hinted that they knew the author's real name. The Guardian reviewer Eric Brown suggested that this couldn't have been a first-time novelist. The Daily Telegraph's literary column speculated on why there might be such "skullduggery" (their word) about the identity of the author behind the book, even though a quick read might have suggested to them the answer. But the most extraordinary response came from a full-sized review in the Times Literary Supplement.
The book carries a reference to a fake blog. http://butforthegrape.livejournal.com/
The blog comprises just a few entries purporting to be from William Heaney. Well the reviewer couldn't have looked very far back, because she swallowed whole the fiction of the blog - and the notion that William Heaney is an inveterate blogger -and on that premise proceeded to review the book. The reviewer in question is an Oxford Professor of - and this should be noted - textual studies. The review itself is intelligent, rather neutral, but utterly wrong-headed, and a spectacular illustration of an academic capacity to discover in a text exactly what you set out to find in the first place. Proceeding from the assumption that William Heaney is a blogger, the review goes on to list the standard weaknesses of blogging as a literary form (backwards chronology, random association of events, undeveloped characters, no structure) and concludes that this novel displays those very weakness. I wanted to write in and say: madam, it may or may not be a crap novel, but certainly not for the reasons you say. Because you don't. Well, William Heaney might, but I wouldn't.
No structure? I'm sort of relieved, because I was beginning to think that I was Mr-Bloody-Boring-Structure. So calloo-callay. Turns out I'm more of an artistic type! I'm going to cavort and wear a paisley cravat around my throat if I don't have any structure.
I'm hoping the
Oh did I mention the British Council above? I can't believe their Literature Department, and I can't let the following go without comment. The British Council Literature Department: doesn't that sound reassuring, silver-plated? Doesn't it suggest that someone is out there doing good work on our behalf in a benighted world?
Right. If you go here
http://www.encompassculture.com/readinggroups/readingthecity/grahamjoyce-teachers/
you will see some of my work displayed on the British Council web pages. They contacted me a while back to ask if they could use some of my writing for their "educational English language work". They don't pay, of course. They get paid, of course, but they don't pay, of course. Sure I said, go ahead. Then later one of my foreign publishers who wanted to promote my work wanted to know why I wasn't on the British Council "List".
What list, I asked. Well it turns out there is a list of writers "with whom the British Council work". News to me, but there you go. So I checked out the list, which contained a few famous names and dozens and dozens of obscure ethnic poets whom the British Council seem to dispatch around the world to unload their bloody awful unpublished poems. No I don't read the Daily Mail: I'm just telling you how it is. Certainly my name wasn't on the illustrious list so I contacted them, and a lady with a scary double-barrelled name came on the phone. She spoke like someone from the diplomatic core circa 1935. 'Yes,' she said, 'I can confirm you are not on the list.'
'Uh, why not?'
'The list,' she sniffed, 'comprises only those writers with whom we work.'
'Nice diction,' I might have snorted back at her. 'What about my work you use free gratis and for nothing on your web-site?'
There was a lot of sniffing and snorting, and eventually - and with huge reluctance - she told me I could go on a waiting list.
'What? A waiting list to be on a list?'
'That's right.'
'But I'm already de facto on your web site!' I protested.
'Well, yes.'
'But not on your list "of authors with whom you work"?'
'Well, no. Do you want your work taken off our website?'
'*&%!!!*****'
I swear to you I'm not making any of this up. She then actually told me that the waiting list had 300 names on it, and that they were "processing" them at the spirited rate of ten a month. I pointed out that that would mean a three year wait before I moved from the waiting list to the list - a list which would show that I appear on another page. What's more, it's not like they have to crowd all these scruffy writers into an ante-room outside their offices, is it? That's the grand virtue of cyber-space. It doesn't take up any room. You could have a virtual list of... oh forget it.
We taxpayers pay these people good salaries. Folding cash. Real spending money. Just for being like this. It's all such fun.
So I waited for two weeks and phoned up again, pretending to be one William Heaney and speaking in an equally posh accent - one that could strip paint. William ranted on for a bit and demanded -rather imperiously - to be removed from her list. When she asked why, William said he didn't have to give a reason. It took her half an hour to establish that William Heaney wasn't even on the list; whereupon he demanded to know why the hell not.
In this life, and with these odds, you have to get your revenge any way you can.
