The literary 'scene'

and now, so am I, etc. (harks back to irritating words thread)

Rarely buy a book if it's been feted by the critics. Goes way over my head. Just because a book is trendy, or fits a niche market, doesn't mean it's any good. I prefer to wait a while until the hype has died down, see what lasts. So I'm usually way behind the times. However, talent deserves to be celebrated, even if it's not to my own peculiar taste. So media buzz is significant. Like you Hen, I've made my best finds in second-hand shops, public libraries and on other people's bookshelves. It doesn't matter whether an author is current or long gone, so long as the work still inspires.

Yeah, I love to pick up unexpected books and discover writers out of the blue. But I do read the critics and try to keep up with the latest stuff. You can find extracts of many books on line these days and so check out which authors you might like. The reason I keep alert to the "scene" is that it is a guide to what is selling now and so to what might sell. I am trying hard not to be cynical about the literary scene, but it is difficult. I have spoken to a number of agents on the phone and I find them generally a bit superficial and la-di-da, which makes me feel selfconcious about my own rough voice. They don't know as much about markets as I expected they would (I have an idea they cultivate certain editors and publishers and are motivated by what they learn through those channels more than by an interesting in discovering fresh voices.) The literary books published seem to be predominantly about relationships in London between film-producers, media people, artists, architects, and so forth. Which is annoying because I can't write that stuff, being a total hick. At the other end there are gruelling books published about the margins of working class society - druggy estates, criminals, prisoners, abusive childhoods, and all that. And I can't write that stuff either. I want to write about the eighty percent of people in between these extremes : everyday, socially mixed-up people, the people all around me in the world. My fear is that the posh people who largely run the London agencies respond, when they do stray from their normal territory, to extreme racial and working-class material because it seems artistically vivid to them by being so different from what they know. With some exceptions, I tend to prefer contemporary American literature to British (which is inconvenient because my own stuff is very British), because it is less hermetic, less class-defined, less genre-defined, more in touch with the contemporary world, in my opinion. And oddly, the only agent who is showing interest in my novel - he's phoned me three times and praised it (but now there's been a gap, so I am losing hope) - is American, even though he is a London agent. Anyway, I shan't give up on the London scene until it has truly kicked me in the teeth. d.beswetherick.

Well lo and bloody behold, the agent phoned me and and wants me to go up and see him/her/them in London, and I'm going on July 4th. And he's still only read half the book! And now I'm worried because I'm rough and ready in real life and tend to make a bad first impression on people. And I've sort of lost faith in my book now anyway. d.beswetherick.

Aren't most writers the kind of people who make bad first impressions? The good ones anyway. Well done D (sorry I don't know your name.) You must be excited ... and scared. I would be. If you have doubts about the book, perhaps you could bring them up at the meeting. For what it's worth, I like your work - you deserve to reach a wider audience if that's what you want.

Thats great news Bes. keep me posted as to how you get on?

If an American wants to see you on the 4th July then he must be interested. Quite honestly d. bes you are worrying unnecessarily. Your work is accesible, well written etc etc. You know I think this. I understand your concerns about the London thing. Whenever I see programmes about publishing the people involved seem so middle-class and alien to me. And when they do publish something a bit different - say Magnus Mills - he is hailed as a great working-class voice. This is nonsense - in no sense is The Restraint of Beasts representative of the working class but that seemed to be the hook by which it was sold. But... there is no doubt in my mind you will make it. If not now then someday. Definitely. My guess is sooner rather than later.

Nice one, Bez! Yeah, I'm not terribly fond of what I know of the London 'scene' either. That's one place I won't be drawn to like a moth.