Janet Street-Porter: Face it, Martin – Katie sells books, and you don't
Martin Amis tells an audience he's based a character in his forthcoming novel State of England on the glamour model turned celebrity author Jordan/Katie Price. According to Amis, "she has no waist... an interesting face... but all we are really worshipping is two bags of silicone". Not just a repulsive comment, but a bit rich coming from the man who's spent thousands on improving his own dentistry.
Knocking "sleb" authors has become a bit of a trend lately. It started at the Specsavers Crime Thriller Awards the other week (my goodness, there are more literary awards than telly ones, and that's saying something). I knew about this event because Specsavers offered me money to attend, an offer I felt able to decline. But I do regret missing the moment when the Prime Suspect author, Lynda La Plante, received a "hall of fame" award and bagged the opportunity to have a jolly good rant about the ghosted memoirs and books "written" by celebrities that dominate the publishing industry at present.
She urged the industry to "cut through the dross", which must have been a bit embarrassing for Martine McCutcheon, who'd been on the podium earlier to present an award and whose first novel comes out any day now. And let's not forget that Cheryl Cole, Sharon Osbourne and Coleen Nolan are all following suit. I can see why Lynda might be mad at this huge influx of amateurs – but is her rage justified?
Amis could be accused of sour grapes – he seems to have had some problems following up his last novel, House of Meetings, published in 2006. He's been working on The Pregnant Widow for seven years, as well as State of England which features the Jordan-inspired character he tells us is called Threnody. The truth is, he doesn't sell as many books as he used to: Yellow Dog, published in 2003, got shocking reviews. The Daily Telegraph described it as "not knowing where to look bad" and The Times called it "copiously second-hand". Whether Amis can cope with it or not, Katie Price sells millions of books to people who would not normally buy books. That's why the book trade loves her, and it fully expects her latest epic, Sapphire, to be the Christmas number one.
One critic said of Amis: "His books lack an emotional bite. You don't care what happens." It must be galling for him that Katie Price's fans are willing to buy anything with her name on it, but that seems to be the case. Far from lacking emotional bite, every aspect of her life is a roller coaster of tears, tantrums, joy and sorrow, fully exploited in all media, leaving the line between fact and fiction blurred. This is why people buy books with her name on it: it's pure escapism, and what's wrong with that?
Could it be more irritating for Amis that bestselling fiction is currently dominated by a whole range of fine female authors – Sarah Walters, Maeve Binchy, Hilary Mantel, Philippa Gregory, Kathy Reichs and Margaret Atwood? You couldn't accuse any of them of being airhead, uneducated slebs.
Poor old Amis, reduced to slagging off a woman who will never have read one of his own books, or even have heard of him, in order to drum up interest and grab a few headlines for his next opus, due out in February. By hitting such an easy target, he's signing up to the very culture he's said to despise.
As for Lynda La Plante's comments, a huge number of celebrity autobiographies – by Russell Brand, Alan Carr, Paul O'Grady and Dawn French, for example – not only sold extremely well over the past year, but were surprisingly well written. O'Grady, in particular, got excellent reviews. So what's to moan about? One in four 14-year-olds is not up to standard in English, and reading levels are similarly poor. Philip Roth says he expects novel reading to die out within 25 years, but I don't agree. Celebrity authors bring to reading and enjoying books exactly the people the industry needs to survive. Amis should stop being such a rude snob.
Independent
