Smug as a smuggler

So, I won that award. After which I was naturally so excited that I had to go and lie down in a darkened room for six weeks, which explains the prolonged lack of content. Or not. Actually, I went away to work on The New Book (TM) and to try to ignore the voices in my head saying "it'll never be as good as the first one, you know, never ever ever". (This answers the question I got asked at a reading the other day: "Do you ever doubt yourself?" At the time I and the other writers involved answered with a peal of hollow, desolate laughter.)

I suppose, since this is nominally a blog about being a new writer, I ought to say what it's like to win an award. The answer of course is that it's wonderful. Beyond wonderful. It's like the day the boy you really like finally asks if you fancy going to the pictures, or when you get a call from the job you wanted but were woefully underqualified for, to ask if you can start on Thursday.

There were a lot of very glamorous media types there, compared to whom all the authors looked a bit bewildered and intimidated. Or perhaps that was just how I felt. I must have shaken hands with 50 people, many of whom I recognised by name but not face, which is an unusual kind of fame these days, I think. 150 years ago most people would have been hard-pressed to recognise Queen Victoria - today it's easy to recognise celebritites, but hard to work out where you recognise them <i>from</i>. At the Orange party, though, I kept being introduced to people I didn't recognise at all whose hands I shook while mentally processing the name and finally coming up with "oh! you wrote that wonderful book about..." Fortunately, I don't think I accused anyone of writing the wrong book.

I read a strange article a couple of days after the Orange party complaining that the invitations weren't very environmentally friendly (they were orange perspex squares) and what was she supposed to do with hers? I don't know about that journalist, but personally I gathered up half a dozen and intend to use them as coasters. "Oh, that? Yes, that's the invitation from the night I won that prize. No, no, it was nothing really." Not that I'm feeling smug, no no.

In any case, the thing that I was actually intending to write about but seem to have completely ignored was this. It is an article which made me very angry for reasons which have been plastered all over the blogosphere so I scarcely need to repeat them. Except (yeah, OK, so maybe I do need to repeat one or two) that it seemed to me to suffer from the Brokeback Mountain problem.

I may be the only person in the Western World not to have liked Brokeback Mountain. And I'd agree it was well-acted, well-shot, well-written and well-directed. Jake Gyllenhaal's performance in particular was exquisite. But the intensity of misery was far too much for me. I thought that a lot of people would have come out of that movie thinking "oh, poor gay people, how horrible life is for them, I really do feel sorry for them." Which is of course patronising, not to mention grossly inaccurate.

Of course, Brokeback was a piece of fiction - it couldn't be expected to "represent both sides" by showing some happy gay men having a great time. That would have been leaden and dreadful. But that Guardian article is a piece of journalism not fiction. It could have thought around the issues. It might have demonstrated insight and thougtfulness. But instead it said, essentially "oh, poor fat people, how horrible life is for them."

Does this journalist not know any fat people? Doesn't she have any fat friends, or colleagues, or relatives? (Perhaps she doesn't. Perhaps she should write about why that is.) Doesn't she have anyone to tell her that fat people often have fun, exciting, interesting lives? Some of us even win literary awards, you know.

A wilderness of monkeys

Did you ever wonder what award-shortlisted authors do the night before the ceremony? Do you imagine some glamorous evening, perhaps, sipping champagne on a terrace? Or settling down between smooth white sheets on a lavender-filled pillow for an early night? Or, stoic and professional, working on the new book just like every other night? Well, perhaps Olga Grushin and Yiyun Li (both excellent writers, incidentally, whose books I can unreservedly recommend) are having evenings like that. As for me, I've spent my evening up to my rubber-glove-clad elbows in a black rubbish bag. Oh yes, my life is full of glamour.

It's been a difficult day - many phonecalls trying to make last-minute arrangements for tomorrow, getting myself sorted out after a weekend away, work to get on with, novel to get on with, dash to Brent Cross to buy essential supplies. And in the middle of it all, I discovered that I wasn't wearing the star-of-David necklace my grandmother gave me when I was five years old, and which I've been wearing constantly since she died in April.

So, trying not to panic I looked in the sensible places. Bedside table, desk, bathroom shelf. Then the slightly less sensible ones. Under the bed, between the sheets, under the bedside table, in amongst toiletries. Then the downright ridiculous ones. Between the pages of books, in the sweater drawer, amongst the cutlery. Nothing. And so, inexorably, I was drawn to one conclusion. I went to the outside bins and retrieved the rubbish bag I'd thrown out in the morning.

I shied away from going through it - after all, thinking you've thrown something out by mistake is usually just a panicked reaction. I went through all the sensible places, and the less sensible ones, and the ridiculous ones, one after the other. And then I tackled it. I sat in the middle of my living room, pulled on my rubber gloves and went through my bag of rubbish, carefully tearing open every envelope and plastic bag, poking through the mouldy food and the unspeakable squishiness, thinking all the time what an amazingly foolish thing this was to do.

But, I found it. Covered in mushed salmon and mouldy avocado, there was my necklace. I can honestly say I have rarely accomplished anything so satisfying. I might win this prize tomorrow, or I might not, but, most importantly, whatever happens I won't have inadvertently thrown out my grandmother's necklace. As Shylock says of his dead wife's ring which Jessica swapped for a monkey: "I would not have given it for a wilderness of monkeys." It was worth the fishing around in disgusting squelch.

(Oh, and, in case you were wondering, no none of us will have been spending this evening toasting our success in advance. We don't find out until the ceremony tomorrow night.)

Seriously now

I've heard of teaser ads, but a teaser review seems a bit ridiculous. Apparently, there's some massive error on the third-to-last page of my book. I've read and re-read it, but to no avail. Anyone who's read the book have any ideas? Is it really bad form to contact the reviewer to ask to be put out of my misery? (Preferably not with the revolver in the locked room.)

Salmon

My grandmother died yesterday. She was 89 years old and had been ill, but I'm still sad. It's funny how that works: even though logically I knew that it was inevitable, there's still no way to anticipate the sadness, to deal with it early or reason yourself out of it. I'm sad. I miss my grandmother. There it is.

The good thing about the Jewish mourning process, though, is that it gives you plenty of things to do. So that although I'm feeling sad, it's not all I'm feeling.

The funeral is tomorrow, and my family asked if I could arrange for some food to be at the house after the service to feed the mourners. So I called a caterer. Now, my parents had said to me that they didn't want any smoked salmon as part of this meal - they feel it's a festive food, the kind of food you'd have for a simcha and it's simply not appropriate after a funeral.

This is how my conversation with the caterer went:
Me: So, I'm looking for some simple sandwich platters - cream cheese, tuna, egg, that sort of thing. And no smoked salmon.
Caterer: No smoked salmon?! But that's everyone's favourite! Let me tell you, the salmon goes faster than anything else.
Me: Yes, but my family don't think it's appropriate for after a funeral - it's more of a simcha food.
Caterer: Salmon? A simcha food? It's an everyday food! People eat it on weekdays, all the time!
Me: Well, possibly. But my parents have requested not to have salmon, and I'd like to respect their wishes.
Caterer: [pause] You know, this is a difficult time for your parents. They might not be thinking clearly. It's up to you to convince them; they have to have salmon.
Me: [longer pause] OK. Well. Thank you for your time.

Salmon: it's what's important at a time of bereavement.

(In case you're wondering, I subsequently called a different caterer who agreed to provide platters without salmon with no quibbling.)

"He'll only spend it on drink"

Spent an inordinate amount of time on the tube today staring at a poster for the Killing with Kindness campaign. The general idea is to persuade people not to give money to the homeless, because "you may be helping them buy drugs that could kill them", but instead give the money to charities which work with the homeless. I don't know what I think about this. On one hand, I can see the point. Firstly, homelessness charities do amazing work and deserve to receive large quantities of our money. Secondly, homeless people are often in such a state of emotional distress that giving them money might be like putting a bottle into the hand of an alcoholic friend who's just broken up with his girlfriend and lost his job. It might be what he wants, but he's in no state to judge.

On the other hand. Well. For one thing it seems to me an encouragement to inhumanity. Living in a big city like London, it's all too easy to start ignoring other people's requests for help, to shut down and stop seeing the dirty, bundled-up people begging at Tube stations as people at all. And yes, it would be better if we were as open with one another as children and if, seeing someone in pain, we were to kneel down and talk to them, ask them about their lives and how we could help. But most of us are too afraid, so the exchange of a pound coin or two stands in for it. It's a way of saying: I see you, I know you're there. This is more about the soul of the giver than the receiver. Who are we if, when we see someone asking us for something we could easily provide, we always walk on?

And the other thing is how patronising this campaign seems to me. I understand, I really do, that the people who made it are trying to do good, and certainly do more good on a daily basis than I manage in about 10 years. But maybe it's for this reason that they might not understand how easily the campaign fits in with most people's prejudices about the homeless. That middle England statement "don't give him money. He'll only spend it on drink." Honestly, if you gave me money, I might spend it on sweeties, alcohol, Playstation games and other things that probably aren't good for me and of which you might not approve. We all do things that are bad for us. I very much doubt that not giving homeless people money will stop them from taking drugs - and I believe it's just possible that there are other ways to get that money which we might find even more unpalatable. As far as I can see, this campaign will probably reinforce the impression many people have that the homeless are scum, that they deserve to be looked down on, that they have no control over their actions and are therefore both stupid and dangerous. But maybe I'm wrong. I hope so.

Something which certainly does not reinforce prejudice about the homeless is Alexander Masters' brilliant book Stuart: a life backwards. I've been meaning to mention it here for weeks because it's the best thing I've read this year, it's intelligent and funny, moving and wise and full of opinion-altering insight. Despite being about the life of a homeless man, it is strangely not depressing at all, but simply clear sighted. This is a book that ought to be on school reading-lists and handed out for free to commuters. Perhaps it could be serialised on tube posters too, to counteract the unpleasant aftertaste of Killing with Kindness.