The Diaries of Jane Somers. Doris Lessing
how to bring a book to the attention of readers. The trigger here: the phrase woman journalist. (Some potential reviewers, male, were put off by it.) It is this situation that has given rise to all these new promotional schemes in Britain: The Best of Young British Novelists, The Best Novels of Our Time, the razzmatazz prizes, and so on. The problem can only exist, it seems to me, because so many good novels are being written. If there were only a few, there would be no difficulty. Ever more loudly shrill the voices, trying to get attention: this is the best novel since Gone With the Wind, War and Peace and The Naked and the Dead! Overkill earns diminishing returns and numbed readers return to former habits, such as relying on intuition and the recommendation of friends. Jane Somers’s first novel (first serious novel – of course she had written those romantic novels which were not reviewed at all, but sold very well!) was noticed, and got a few nice little reviews. In short, it was reviewed as new novels are. And that could easily have been that. Novels, even good ones, are being published all the time that have what publishers call ‘a shelf life’ (like groceries) of a few months. (Once they used the phrase as a joke, sending themselves up, but now they use it straight. ‘The shelf life of books is getting shorter,’ you’ll hear them say. ‘It’s down to a few weeks now.’ As if it all had nothing to do with them. And it hasn’t: the mechanisms for selling dominate their practices; the tail wags the dog.) A first novel can be remaindered and out of print and vanish as if it had never been, if unlucky enough not to win a prize or in some way attract a spotlight such as the admiration of a well-known writer who cries (see above), ‘This is the greatest novel since Tom Jones.’ Or, making accommodation to the times, ‘More exciting than Dallas!’
The American publisher was asked why more had not been done to promote The Diary of a Good Neighbour, which in the opinion of the enquirer, a literary critic, was a good novel, but the reply was that there was nothing to promote, no ‘personality’, no photograph, no story. In other words, in order to sell a book, in order to bring it to attention, you need more than the book, you need the television appearance. Many writers who at the start resisted have thought it over, have understood that this, now, is how the machinery works, and have decided that if – in fact, even if it is not acknowledged – they have become part of the sales departments of their publishers, then they will do the job as well as they can. It is remarkable how certain publishers wince and suffer when writers insist on using the right words to describe what is happening. In very bad taste, they think it is, to talk in this way. This attitude is a relic of the gentleman publisher, a contradiction which has bedevilled the publishing of serious (as distinct from commercial) books. On the one hand, a book has to be promoted: oh, but what a distasteful business it is! One of the problems of the (‘serious’ as distinct from the ‘commercial’) author is this attitude on the part of his or her publisher. You are pressured to do interviews, television and so on, but you are conscious that the more you agree, the more you are earning his or her contempt. (But looking back it seems to me that men publishers are more guilty of this hypocrisy than women publishers.) I have sometimes gloomily had to conclude that the only writer some publishers could really respect would be one who wrote a thirty-page masterpiece, reviewed by perhaps three critics, every ten years: this paragon would live on a mountain top somewhere and never, ever, give interviews. Now, there’s a real artist!
If Jane Somers had only written one serious novel, which sold, as first novels do, 2,800 copies in America and 1,600 copies in Britain, by now it would be remaindered and pulped, and she would be cherishing half a dozen fan letters.
But she wrote a second. Surely this time people must see who the real author was? But no.
Predictably, people who had liked the first book were disappointed by the second. And vice versa. Never mind about the problems of publishers: the main problem of some writers is that most reviewers and readers want you to go on writing the same book.
By now, the results of friends’ indiscretions meant that some people in the trade knew who Jane Somers was and – I am touched by this – clearly decided it was my right to be anonymous if I wished. Some, too, seemed inclined retrospectively to find merit.
One of my aims has more than succeeded. It seems I am like Barbara Pym! The books are fastidious, well written, well crafted. Stylish. Unsparing, unsentimental and deeply felt. Funny, too. On the other hand they are sentimental, and mawkish. Mere soap opera. Trendy.
I am going to miss Jane Somers.
Unexpected little sidelights. One review was a nasty little reminder of how many people reach instinctively for their revolvers at the mention of something they don’t like. From the hard left (and, perhaps, not so hard left: it is a disease that spreads easily), dislike of Jane Somers’s politics was characteristically expressed in the demand that such books should not be published. Just like the hard (and sometimes not so hard) right. ‘The publishers should be sued for publishing this book.’ (Not Jane Somers’s, one of Lessing’s.) Alas, poor Liberty, the prognosis is not very good.
Finally, a treasured memory, which I think is not out of place here. Imagine the book editor of a famous magazine (let us call it Pundit) standing in his office with books sent him for review stacked all over the table, on the floor, everywhere. He is harassed; he is desperate. He deals me out books to review, and mostly I hand them back again. Then he gives me another: ‘Please review this book,’ he cries. ‘No one wants to review it. What am I going to do? Please, please say yes.’
‘But it is a very bad book,’ I say, returning it to him. ‘Just ignore it.’
‘But we can’t ignore it. We have to review it.’
‘Why do you? It will take up the space that could be used for a good book.’
‘The Viewer has reviewed it, they gave it all that space, so we must.’
‘You must be joking,’ I said, thinking that he was, but he wasn’t.
Doris Lessing
July 1984
The first part is a summing-up of about four years. I was not keeping a diary. I wish I had. All I know is that I see everything differently now from how I did while I was living through it.
My life until Freddie started to die was one thing, afterwards another. Until then I thought of myself as a nice person. Like everyone, just about, that I know. The people I work with, mainly. I know now that I did not ask myself what I was really like, but thought only about how other people judged me.
When Freddie began to be so ill my first idea was: this is unfair. Unfair to me, I thought secretly. I partly knew he was dying, but went on as if he wasn’t. That was not kind. He must have been lonely. I was proud of myself because I went on working through it all, ‘kept the money coming in’ – well, I had to do that, with him not working. But I was thankful I was working because I had an excuse not to be with him in that awfulness. We did not have the sort of marriage where we talked about real things. I see that now. We were not really married. It was the marriage most people have these days, both sides trying for advantage. I always saw Freddie as one up.
The word cancer was mentioned once. The doctors said to me, cancer, and now I see my reaction meant they would not go on to talk about whether to tell him or not. I don’t know if they told him. Whether he knew. I think he did. When they took him into hospital I went every day, but I sat there with a smile, how are you feeling? He looked dreadful. Yellow. Sharp bones under yellow skin. Like a boiling fowl. He was protecting me. Now, I can see it. Because I could not take it. Child-wife.
When at last he died, and it was over, I saw how badly he had been treated. His sister was around sometimes. I suppose they talked. Her manner to me was like his. Kindly. Poor Janna, too much must not be expected.
Since he died I have not seen her, nor any of that family. Good riddance. I mean, that is what they think of me. I would not have minded talking to his sister about Freddie, for I did not know much about him, not really.