The Public Wants What The Public Gets: A Booker Prize Jam

Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but here’s a couple of snippets from items that have popped up in my inbox over the last day or so. First up, John Connolly (right) from the latest post to his rather excellent blog, the remit of which is to keep his readers abreast on the trials and tribulations of whatever novel he happens to be working on:

“I’m also trying to get a handle on what kind of book THE LOVERS is. In a recent interview, I said that each book I write seems to be a reaction to the one that preceded it, and I suppose that’s true of THE LOVERS. Where THE REAPERS was fast and linear, with a very straightforward narrative, THE LOVERS is more complex, more allusive. A lot of it concerns events that have happened in the past, and a large part of the second half is taken up with one character revealing, over the course of a single evening, the truth behind the death of Parker’s father. I want to see if I can retain the reader’s interest by juggling the desire to find out ‘what happens next’ with gradual revelations about what has gone before.”

  I’ve met John Connolly on a few occasions, and heard him speak publicly about books a couple of times. He is, as most of you know, a very fine stylist, a superb storyteller, and a best-seller to boot. And when John Connolly speaks about writing, the conversation tends to quickly narrow down to one thing: WHAT. THE. READER. WANTS.
  I don’t know if the following pair of snippets should be placed in direct contrast to Connolly’s approach, but both of them are just two examples of what seems to be a growing backlash against the Booker Prize. First, from Wednesday, author James Delingpole in The Telegraph:

“I reckon that, too often, what our literary prize panels confuse with proper writing is in fact just overwriting, and that the problem is exacerbated by a salon of smug, sanctimonious, mostly Left-leaning literary-tastemakers (and gullible book groups) who feel a novel isn’t “valid” unless it’s a) a bit hard to read, b) weighed down with purple prose or poetry, c) socially worthy (madness, disability, child abuse, etc.) and d) best of all, imbued with lashings of fashionable, Zadie-Smith-style, melting-pot ethnic exoticism.”

  Then, today, critic Boyd Tonkin in The Independent:

“Behind the storm-in-a-wineglass feuds that surround the Man Booker Prize, a true and even tragic sub-plot may be starting to unfold. To be mass-market blunt rather than literary-novel elliptical: is the British audience for ambitious fiction dying off, losing faith, or just drifting away? […] In the five weeks after the long-list announcement on 29 July, the 13 titles of the “Booker dozen” sold fewer than 14,000 UK copies; on average, barely 1,000 each. This is, frankly, pathetic.”

  Back at the end of July, the Bookseller published a list of the sales of the newly nominated novels:

1. The Enchantress of Florence 15,433
2. Child 44 8,278
3. Sea of Poppies 5,034
4. Netherland 4,023
5. The Clothes on Their Backs 3,592
6. The White Tiger 1,852
7. The Secret Scripture 1,568
8. A Case of Exploding Mangoes 1,000
9. The Northern Clemency 916
10. A Fraction of the Whole 392
11. The Lost Dog 363

  A week later, they were back with this update:

Whilst Salman Rushdie’s THE ENCHANTRESS OF FLORENCE (Cape) remains the overall sales leader with an increase in book sales of 56.5% since last week, Linda Grant’s THE CLOTHES ON THEIR BACKS (Virago) has seen the biggest proportional increase. From selling just 13 copies during the week ending 26th July, the book has gone on to sell 144 copies the following week.
  Another notable increase was for Tom Rob Smith’s CHILD 44 (Simon & Schuster), one of the most controversial choices on the longlist. Sales increased by 250% for the thriller that had already shifted over 8,000 copies prior to the longlist announcement.

  CHILD 44, of course, didn’t made the Booker shortlist announced this week. Neither did THE ENCHANTRESS OF FLORENCE or Joseph O’Neill’s NETHERLAND, previously the bookies’ favourites with Ladbrokes and William Hill respectively. Sebastian Barry is now the 2/1 favourite with THE SECRET SCRIPTURE.
  I can’t find any weekly sales figures for later than the week ending August 16, but in that week THE SECRET SCRIPTURE had sold less than THE LOST DOG, which had sold 127 copies that week.
  Erm, folks? Y’think the reading public is trying to tell you something?

On Crime Fiction And Respectability

When an author references another writer’s novel twice in one book, it’s fair to presume that he or she is drawing attention and inviting comparisons. In THE KILLING CIRCLE, Andrew Pyper twice refers to THE MAGUS, the John Fowles novel which blends a number of genre staples, among them the thriller, the war novel, the supernatural and quasi-scientific propositions.
  Asked at an advanced age what he would change if he could live his life over again, Kingsley Amis thought for a moment and said, “Well, I wouldn’t read THE MAGUS.” I love it, although I know a lot of people hate it. But the point about THE MAGUS is that it’s a literary novel that has a hell of a lot of fun with mashing up genres.
  THE KILLING CIRCLE also blends genres, most obviously those of crime and horror, although, given that its narrator is an aspiring author who lacks the imagination to create a unique story, it’s also intended as a serious meditation on the writing process. In that context, the references to THE MAGUS are presumably intended as reminders to the reader that Andrew Pyper is engaged in a literary activity, despite the genre staples.
  Which brings me to a comment Adrian McKinty – yep, him again – left on a post further down the page, vis-à-vis the consecration of crime fiction as ‘interesting and important’. To wit:

“One thing though about Banville, Rushdie, Chabon etc. writing crime novels is that they would never have ventured into the territory in the first place had not the zeitgeist begun to see crime books not as disposable pulp fiction but actually as interesting and important. When the Library of America started bringing out Chandler, Hammett, Cain and Highsmith in annotated quality hardbacks, it was a sign that the critical community had embraced those writers and no longer despised them. The rising tide began to float the boats of the whole genre.”

  Writing about the inclusion of Rob Smith’s CHILD 44 on the Booker Prize long-list for the LA Times recently, Sarah Weinman made a similar point:

“And yet, if CHILD 44 -- a serial killer novel that takes place in the last years of Stalin’s Russia -- appears at first glance to be a brash upstart, a closer look suggests that its inclusion might not be so unlikely after all. Indeed, this is the most recent example of the blurring of the line between crime fiction and literature, which raises hope that the so-called genre wars are lurching toward, if not an end, then at least a tentative cease-fire.”

  Yes, yes – but is this actually a good thing? Crime writing has always had stylists as fine as anything the literary world can offer, if only the reader has eyes to see, but the idea that respectability is about to be conferred on the genre seems somehow grotesque, and not least because the respectability is to be conferred by the literary types.
  I write crime fiction, but I’m not a crime fiction nut. As I’ve said elsewhere, crime fiction only accounts for about a quarter of my reading, or maybe as much as a third. I read for all kinds of reasons, although mainly because I’d probably go blind if I didn’t. I can read Salman Rushdie and John McFetridge, say, as I did earlier this year, and be equally impressed by both.
  But when I read crime fiction, I read it for the adrenaline buzz of knowing that it is getting under the skin of the world we live in, broaching taboos and creeping down the dark alleyways that we’d prefer weren’t so dark, or there at all, and doing it with an authenticity and immediacy that makes it utterly believable, even if I’d rather it wasn’t true. And as far as I’m concerned, respectability is far more likely to blunt that edge than hone it. To mangle Groucho Marx, I don’t want to be in any club that’d have me.
  Every writer should aspire to be as good as Rushdie, Chandler, Highsmith and Fowles. But that’s not the same thing as aspiring to write a Booker Prize nominee, or to write a novel worthy of the approval of the self-anointed adjudicators of quality.
  I hope for Rob Smith’s sake that he wins the Booker Prize. But I hope for crime fiction’s sake that he doesn’t.

The Long Tail Versus Tomorrow’s Garbage: Why Book Blogs Kick Traditional Media Into A Cocked Hat

The slashing of the Los Angeles Times’ books section has kick-started the old ‘death of books’ jalopy again, with traditional media commentators unsure of whether they should celebrate book-related websites and blogs as the last hope for book reviews, or wring their hands despairingly because the print media is tossing the keys of the city over the wall to the barbarians waiting at the gate.
  I haven’t been too exercised by the big ‘print vs on-line’ debate to date, mainly because I think it’s pointless arguing about the respective quality of the reviews / insights / opinions, especially when so many journalists are bloggers and vice versa. I’m a journalist myself, or at least I review for a variety of traditional media outlets, both print and radio, so when I read a traditional media commentator saying that he / she doesn’t take bloggers seriously, I tend to presume that said commentator hasn’t found the right blogs, is too lazy to go looking, or is afraid to search them out in case their argument falls apart. Either way, I don’t take it too seriously.
  It’s true that many blogs are slapdash and clumsy, and that far too many bloggers put way too much faith in their own opinion, and fail to observe the basic protocols of reviewing, as Lissa Warren notes here at The Huffington Post. But if the number of factual errors in this review of THE BIG O by Publishers Weekly is anything to go by, the traditional media can be every bit as culpable when it comes to being less than rigorous in their reviews.
  Now, I don’t want to pick on the poor unfortunate who got the basic details so badly wrong in Publishers Weekly. PW is not immune to the issues besetting traditional media right now, and it has its own problems at the moment, not least that it is in the process of restructuring. It also reviews a vast quantity of titles per issue. So I can appreciate that these things happen, and the reviewer is as entitled to his or her opinion on THE BIG O as I am when I’m reviewing a book. God knows I’ve dished out my fair share of bad reviews, and I’m not going to whinge when bad karma comes back to bite my metaphorical (albeit perfectly formed) ass.
  But there are a few essential differences between reviews published in traditional media and those on websites and blogs. For starters, when I review for traditional media, my name goes on the review. Furthermore, if I write a review undermined by basic errors in describing the plot, mistakes which then feed into my opinion of the book / play / movie, then the author / director is perfectly entitled to ask for a right-of-reply and / or and a corrections box in a subsequent issue. Beyond that, my editor is perfectly entitled query my substandard work, and issue a warning as to what is and what isn’t unacceptable. These are all basic and essential protocols. Reviewing books and movies isn’t exactly heart surgery, but it does bring with it its own responsibilities, and the reviewer has a duty of care to the author, the editor and the reader.
  The traditional media would argue that these protocols protect and enhance the business of reviewing, in theory at least. In practice, it’s highly unlikely that an author, say, will protest a review based on inaccuracies on the basis that, as with sending back a cold bowl of soup in a restaurant, the fact that it’s warm when it returns may not necessarily be a good thing. No one wants to get a reputation for being ‘difficult’, because it lessens the chances of a good review further down the line, and hugely increases the chances of getting no review at all.
  Blogs and websites, by contrast, are generally more accessible. Reviewing isn’t supposed to be a democratic process, but an author who receives a factually inaccurate review from a blog should have no problem contacting the reviewer, whose contact details are generally available on his or her homepage. And, given that bloggers are usually enthusiasts who are blogging in order to spread the word, and are reviewing for love rather than money, they are generally more amenable to offering corrections and right-to-reply. Of course, they’re often not; that all depends on the blogger in question. Speaking for myself, I can only say that if a writer (or a writer’s supporter) gets in touch with me to argue his or her point, then I am only too delighted to offer them the space to do so. It’s not just a matter of courtesy; it’s the very essence of the peer-to-peer relationship that characterises internet discourse.
  There are other issues differentiating traditional and on-line media, of course. In the context of reviewing books, the traditional media will argue that bloggers are often less stringent in their evaluation of a book than a traditional-media critic might be. I’d agree with this point, although I’d suggest that very few bloggers see themselves as critics, and more as reviewers, whereas traditional media reviewers tend to regard themselves as critics. Only a fool would rush out and buy a book on the strength of a gushingly positive review from a single blogger – or, for that matter, from a traditional media review. But if you read ten, twenty or a 120 positive reviews of a particular book across a range of blogs, you’re more likely to accept the general trend. Only a very few authors, by comparison, are afforded the luxury of that quantity of coverage in the traditional media.
  And that’s without getting into the issue of the ‘long tail’ of the internet versus ‘tomorrow’s garbage’ of the traditional media.
  In a nutshell, book blogs and websites provide information that the traditional media either does not provide, or is tardy in providing – Rob Smith’s CHILD 44, now a Booker Prize nominee but initially championed through the web, being the most recent case in point. Established and best-selling authors are almost guaranteed saturation coverage in traditional media when they publish a new book, but if it’s new, different or awkward voices you prefer, then it’s bloggers who are seeking out and celebrating such voices.
  That’s understandable, as the traditional media has bills to pay and advertisers to woo, while most bloggers operate without any financial constraints at all – or, indeed, any financial incentive. It’s this last, I think, that underpins the traditional media’s paranoia about the web in general and bloggers in particular, and fuels the time-honoured fallacy fostered by capitalism, which is that unless you can pay for it, it’s not worth anything.
  The point that they’re missing, I think, is that no one blog or website sets itself up as a champion of virtue, quality or worth. The blogosphere is something of a Borg entity, or an ant hill, in which all the individual blogs combine and interact. That runs against the grain of the adversarial nature of traditional media, in which each outlet is in competition with every other for a slice of the pie. When I first started blogging, coming from as I did from that adversarial mentality, I was shocked at the hospitality and sense of community, and even now it still has the power to surprise me, albeit pleasantly. It all sounds too hippy-dippy to be true, but true it is – without the support of far too many bloggers and on-line crime fic fans to mention here, the self-published THE BIG O would never have made it into the pages of Publishers Weekly, for good or ill. Happy days, people.

Around The Web In 80 Seconds*

You lose some, you win some. Hot on the heels of Publishers Weekly dissing THE BIG O on the basis that it’s not as good as Elmore Leonard (oh, the infamy!) comes this dinky little treat courtesy of Amazon’s Listmania, titled “The Crime Writing Kings Of All Time (and a great new guy!)”. Yep, it’s lil’ ol’ EIGHT BALL BOOGIE nestling in there with Chandler, Hammett and Thompson, et al. Joelle Claire Barrios, you are officially our newest VBF …
  Staying on the subject of Elmore Leonard, Adrian McKinty’s THE BLOOMSDAY DEAD gets a nifty big-up from John Dugdale in tomorrow’s Sunday Times, under the heading “Eight new thrillers for holiday readers”. To wit:

“It’s the unlikely pairing of Elmore Leonard and James Joyce that seems to shape Adrian McKinty’s THE BLOOMSDAY DEAD (Serpent’s Tail £10.99), a pacey, violent caper that, like ULYSSES, runs from breakfast time to midnight on a single June day. Belfast gangster queen Bridget Callaghan wants Michael Forsythe dead for killing her fiancé, but when her daughter is abducted, Callaghan decides he’s the only man who can find her. As Forsythe hurtles around the city, McKinty vividly portrays its sleazy, still-menacing underbelly.”

  Hmmm, nice. Upward and onward to the Booker Prize nominations, and while the howls of anguish that greeted CHILD 44’s nomination have abated a tad, Philip Stone at The Bookseller has an interesting piece about the sales figures for the various nominees. Salman Rushdie’s THE ENCHANTRESS OF FLORENCE leads the way, having sold 15,433 copies before the nominations were announced, but four of the eleven nominees have sold 1,000 copies or less, with Michelle de Kretser’s THE LOST DOG selling a less-than-whopping 363 books. Now, anyone who has read James Patterson can vouch for the fact that big sales don’t always (koff) equate with quality, so those figures have nothing to say about whether or not the books are entitled to be considered as possible Booker winners. Still, it’d make you wonder about how in tune, or otherwise, the judging panel is with the reading public.
  Meanwhile, Boyd Tonkin at The Independent laments the novels that didn’t make the Booker long-list, among them David Park’s THE TRUTH COMMISSIONER:

“I will miss several other notable absentees from the later Booker heats. David Park’s wise and moving novel of the search for reconciliation in post-Troubles Belfast, THE TRUTH COMMISSIONER, should have caught the judges’ eye.”

  Finally, some groovy news for Eoin Colfer’s legion of fans, courtesy of Sarah Webb’s review of ARTEMIS FOWL AND THE TIME PARADOX in today’s Irish Independent:

“Colfer has certainly been busy. Next year his crime caper, HALF MOON INVESTIGATIONS, will be on television, courtesy of the BBC, pitched as Grange Hill for the Noughties. The film rights to the Artemis books have been sold to Miramax and Tribeca (Robert De Niro’s production company) and the film is in development.”

  And the hell of it all is, it couldn’t happen a nicer guy. Happy days.

* Providing you don’t actually click any of the links, of course