Public humiliation, shame, acute embarrassment - how we love to
witness these social nightmares happening to other people! And how
much more entertaining it is when these occasions of
buttock-clenching awfulness include alcoholic degradation, sexual
incontinence and loss of bowel control, not to mention the dreadful
prospect of a total lack of audience. In this thoroughly
entertaining collection, Robin Robertson has somehow persuaded
(coerced? bribed? blackmailed?), an astonishingly large number of
writers and poets to share the secrets of their "public shame".
These delicious morsels of schadenfreude range from the ignominy of
the writer giving of his all to rows of empty plastic chairs, to
the horror of Irvine Welsh's exploding underpants and Niall
Griffiths' extremely inconvenient erection. Some will make you
laugh, others will make you cringe, yet others will reduce you to
cushion-biting sympathy. This collection is an inspiration, as well
as a consolation to every writer who has thrown up in front of his
single-figure audience, or cowered behind an unsold pile of books
in Waterstone's. Robertson has tapped a well that will, inevitably,
never run dry. For while there are poets and writers prepared to
bare their souls on the public stage for the price of a cheese
toastie and a few glasses of Rioja, there will be mortifications
a-plenty. Read, laugh and enjoy, but remember to salute the courage
of these brave souls who have shared their darkest moments, and are
probably, even now, bitterly regretting it. (Kirkus UK)
A collection of stories from some of the world's greatest writers
about their own public humiliation. Humiliation is not, of course,
unique to writers. However, the world of letters does seem to offer
a near-perfect micro-climate for embarrassment and shame. There is
something about the conjunction of high-mindedness and low income
that is inherently comic; something about the very idea of deeply
private thoughts - carefully worked and honed into art over the
years - being presented to a public audience of dubious strangers,
that strays perilously close to tragedy. Here, in over eighty
contributions, are stories about the writer's audience, the fellow
readers, the organiser, the venue, the 'hospitality', or the often
interminable journey there and back. Then there are the experiences
of teaching and being taught, reviewing and being reviewed, of
festivals and writers' retreats, symposia, signing sessions,
literary parties and prizes, the trips abroad, with all the
attendant joys of translation and, finally, the bright worlds of
television and radio that can bring so many more people to share in
your shame. These are the best stories: those told against the
teller. And for the reader, apart from the sheer schadenfreude of
it all, there is admiration too: for that acknowledgement of human
frailty, of punctured pride, but also of the seeming absurdity of
trying to bring private art into the public space. Contributions
from, amongst others: Simon Armitage, Margaret Atwood, Julian
Barnes, Louis de Bernieres, Margaret Drabble, Roddy Doyle, AL
Kennedy, John Lanchester, Patrick McCabe, Rick Moody, Andrew
Motion, Andrew O'Hagan, Colm Toibin, Irvine Welsh, James Wood.
General
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