AFTERWORD
The first draft of PEN PALS was written by the end of September 2016. Jeremy Beale, my editor at Harbour, then had the manuscript for a month, at the end of which he told me that he felt it was still a work in progress, and in particular that there was not enough about the various writers’ sense of mission.
Sense of mission?
It took me a while to get my head around this, but once I’d got there I set about contacting many of the writers again and rewriting the chapters in part one and two. I fed these back to Jeremy two or three at a time in an effort to keep him on board, and he seemed to be a lot happier through December of 2016 and January of 2017. He did feel I was getting bogged down in not entirely productive class speculations in Peter Parker’s chapter (JB himself comes from a public school background, if I remember correctly), but it did not strike me that this would be a sticking point.
I sent Jeremy the fully revised book in March 2017 and again had to wait a month for his verdict, which was:
‘I’m sorry Duncan, this still hasn’t come into focus for me, you’ve done such a lot of work, tracking, reading, researching and then writing but I still can’t make sense of the result. Of course the multiplicity of the voices isn’t going to add up to a clear account of the writing life, I understand it’s going to range around, but I’m frustrated, the book I imagined is there somewhere.’
Jeremy asked me what I wanted to do next, and said that in any case he would now pay me the advance of a thousand pounds, which was an honourable gesture as he’d no legal obligation to do so. I told him that I was feeling very good about life, having emerged from the six-months revision process, and that I didn’t want to re-submerge myself in what was in danger of becoming, for me, over-familiar material.
Besides, I’d been thinking through what I’d achieved. Parts one and two give an account of what has happened to each of the writers who contributed to PEN New Fiction 2, using their own books and correspondence as source material and using the success of Ian Rankin and the troubles of C.A.R Hills as touchstones. Part three is an attempt to move to another and more personal level of engagement. What happens to writers? Well, one writer loses his freedom and another loses his father. I dare say major events happened in several of the other writers’ lives in 2016, but it was the thoughts and feelings of Charles and myself that I had fullest access to. A no-brainer then: I had to structure things so as to bring us together. I wrote to Charles about life in my father’s house post-Dad, and he replied from prison at length. By the climax of part three, Charles has got my name branded onto his neck as surely as I have his on mine. The reader can, I trust, see how the writers use each other's writing to help deal with their respective predicaments.
Charles was sent a copy of the March 2017 version of PEN PALS at the same time as Jeremy. He’s since written me many emails about the work. His idea of the book’s relative strengths is spookily similar to mine. According to Charles, the book consists of jewel-like chapters and a few where a bit of buffing is still necessary so that the precious stones at the centre shine as brightly as they do elsewhere in the book. But he thinks, as a book about writers for writers, it is not going to appeal greatly to mainstream publishers whose bloodshot eyes are always on the bottom line.
Now that Jeremy has effectively turned down the book he commissioned, Charles thinks I should publish the book myself. He means publish it as a printed book, which is not what I really want to do. I already have a shed full of my previous books. Instead I have gone for the website option, and have had much pleasure working on the design. All those hanging men and women; all those neck-challenged writers: dangling, dancing, dreaming, deranging, or whatever it is they’re up (or down) to.
For now, the website is online for a limited period. My hope is that the writers that I’ve been in touch with in the course of composing PEN PALS will now be able to see where the project has got to, and how their own writing personas and experience fit into the scheme of things. It’s high time this was done, as it’s now eighteen months since initial contact was made with most of them. Perhaps I’ll get the odd personal recommendation of a publisher or agent out of this process. (I still have faith that it's a book about writers for readers, and there is an infinite number of them.) Perhaps, I will be encouraged to conclude that this website is the form the book should take on a permanent basis. Perhaps I’ll get a rude awakening as some individual takes issue with something I’ve written, now he or she sees what I've done in the round.
If I go for the website option for the long term, I imagine I will return to this project at some stage. I may replace parts three and four of the site with a new ‘conclusion’. Or I may keep faith with parts one to four but add further parts, if a sufficiently engaging scenario crops up or is suggested to me.
A new way to write and publish a book? I don’t know about that. A way to ensure the process of writing (and reading) remains fresh and enjoyable, that’s the idea.
2
July 4, 2017. PEN PALS may be finished chapter-wise, but there’s nothing stopping me from writing an infinitely long Afterword.
What with the ‘book’ ‘only’ existing online, I soon realised I wanted its existence acknowledged in print.
So I decided to pitch an idea for a PEN PALS piece to the New Statesman. After all, Jason Cowley, its current editor, had written that long piece about Charles for the Observer in 2008, in which he'd stated that he was a friend. Surely he’d be interested to know the latest news about our Charlie boy. That is if I made the whole context seem political enough.
Here is what I drafted:
Dear Jason,
I'd like to think the following project would be of interest to yourself and the readers of the New Statesman:
PEN Pals: What Happens to Writers: a UK Case Study
In 1987, 32 writers had short stories appear in a nationally advertised anthology, PEN New Fiction 2. Where are they 30 years later? What do their fates tell us about cultural decision-making in recent decades and about the importance of the writing life regardless of worldly success? One contributor, Duncan McLaren, investigates on behalf of all.
• C.A.R. Hills, spent five years in prison as a result of hiring a hitman to kill his mother’s lover. In what state did Hills emerge from Brixton in 2016?
• Dan Corry neglected his creative writing aspirations in order to forge a career in economics, serving in Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s kitchen cabinet. Does he harbour any regrets?
• Jeff New admits to being Mr Thirty-Years-and-Still-Can’t-Get-Published. For a while he blamed the industry but has come to accept that commercial organisations cannot operate on a Waiting For Oddball basis.
• Robert Edric publishes a novel a year, to enthusiastic reviews (another PEN Pal, D.J. Taylor, is a consistent admirer in print). However, sales of his books don’t even justify the small advances he gets. Luckily his headteacher of a wife earns a decent salary.
• Ian Rankin has gone on to sell 40 million books. A hundred times more than all the other 31 contributors put together. An astonishing statistic or one that is to be expected given the way modern publicity works?
• The anthology’s editor, Allan Massie, placed a short story written by his literary agent, Giles Gordon, at the top of the running order. Was that nepotistic or a fair reflection of Gordon's story-writing talents?
• All the selected authors were white, and none disabled. Could a similar collection published today possibly be so lacking in diversity?
• All the men chosen were middle class. Are there more outlets for working class voices today, thanks to the web and the way organisations such as PEN are now structured?
• 16 men and 16 women were chosen by Massie but many of the women have disappeared without trace. What are the reasons for this? Would those reasons still apply today?
• Of the women that could be traced, the majority were reticent when approached by the author. Does this suggest a lack of confidence in themselves or a mistrust of the man asking the questions?
• Frances Fyfield was a bestseller for two decades and her novels were adapted for the screen. But she has long neglected her website, doesn’t do Twitter and her books no longer sell in quantity. Why abandon a hard-won career?
• Elaine Feinstein and Connie Bensley are now in their mid-eighties, still living independently, writing poetry and getting it published. An inspiration to all?
• Three of the most ambitious short stories in the anthology were by men who went from state school to Oxbridge. But none of these high achievers went on to have successful literary careers. What does this say about the continued importance of the public school network?
• The author of this proposed article has more or less given up on the traditional publishing industry and has taken to placing his books online. A newly published website www.penpals.org.uk tells the story of this group of writers in 24-chapter depth.
Those bullet points miss out a vital dimension to PEN PALS. My father died while I was researching this project and Charles (C.A.R. Hills) and I struck up quite a friendship. He in his prison cell and me in mourning, both having lost something precious. Our developing relationship permeates the resulting 'book'. An alternative article would focus on that particular dimension of PEN PALS.
Jason, this is exclusive to the New Statesman for now, so do please get back to me fairly soon if you possibly can.
Best wishes,
Duncan
The draft went to Charles for comments. He thought it read well. But it was only after I’d sent the actual pitch to Jason Cowley that Charles wrote to me as follows:
Dear Dunking Dunks,
I am sorry to pour cold water, but I fear you are likely to have no luck with Jason. We had a confrontation in the New Statesman office shortly after I came out of prison the first time, and he threatened to call the police. Relations have been very hit and miss since then and I have never seen him again. I may be wrong, but I fear that anything that so closely concerns me will get the no-no.
Lots of love as always,
The chunkiest of chunks
I was mildly put out by this. The confrontation in the offices of the New Statesman should have been mentioned before I made my pitch to the magazine as it would have been easy enough to downplay Charles’s role in my proposed piece.
Never mind, because apart from this, Charles has played a blinder over the last eighteen months. Besides, another PEN PAL has stepped up to the plate. When I mentioned the New Statesman débacle to D.J. Taylor, he asked if I would like him to approach the TLS about an article on PEN PALS written by himself. I told him that that would be fabulous and next thing I hear is that he’s been commissioned to write 1500 words for this newspaper of record. Great news and I cannot wait to read the resulting piece. I will have to wait, however, as David tells me he already has two 'Freelance' pieces in the pipeline for the TLS.
Obviously, I take a close look at the TLS website. I soon see that David has his name on the cover of one of the June issues. In fact his name is printed in large letters right in the middle of the page.
David’s article on 1967, a 50-year anniversary, is 2000 words, So maybe his article on 1987 and the 30-year anniversary that PEN PALS is concerned with will not make the cover. I’ll be happy in any case.
As for David, He really is flying at the moment. The magazine Prospect has been trying to get me to re-subscribe ever since I briefly signed up for it in order to access the 'Prisoner' and 'Clapham Omnibus' pieces that Charles wrote for them a few years ago. The latest email from Prospect has D.J. Taylor’s name as the subject, and announced that I could get online access to three issues for £1. Moreover, they would send me a print copy of the August issue, which again features David's name prominently on the cover.
The email advert for Prospect announces: ‘Our “Summer Fiction Special” features an essay by critic DJ Taylor: Whatever happened to the working-class writer? Taylor argues that six decades ago we had the angry young men but these days voices from the margins are more difficult to hear.’
I wonder if David's drawn on chapter 16 of PEN PALS when writing this piece. That would be funny. In any case, I’ve passed on the good news of the DJT/TLS piece to Charles, who tells me:
Dear Duncan,
I write to you humbly contrite for failing to warn you about my recent history with Jason Cowley. However, the news about David's piece in the TLS is absolutely wonderful. I don't want to crow too much, but this could be the making of the book which is of such total importance to us both. Look at what mentions in the TLS by Philip Larkin and Lord David Cecil did for Barbara Pym. She was a good writer, an absolutely unique one, but up to those mentions no one could do a thing for her except praise the quality of her writing.
If you are in touch with David, will you tell him with what fondness I remember him. In spite of the distance he always keeps - an honourable distance, I feel - he is among the nicest and most worthwhile people in the literary world.
Lots of love, and apologies,
Charles
David wants a hard copy of the PEN PALS manuscript. He may prefer to read printed paper rather than shining screen, but in any case he probably wants a record of what PEN PALS consisted of when he wrote about it. After all, I can change the website at the drop of a hat. Indeed, Val Warner has just written to me requesting that I remove from chapter 17 the photo of her dedication to Francis King on the title page of her book on Charlotte Mew. Which I have done. There is copyright in even scribbled notes that don’t have literary merit as such.
When the TLS piece appears, I may ask the editors' permission to paste it below. I can't expect all my fellow PEN Pals to subscribe to the TLS, but I do want all of them to have the opportunity of reading this article. On second thoughts, let them take one for the team. I paid less than £20 for three months worth of weekly issues and I'll get full access to the entire archive for that time. I've already reminded myself what the TLS's reviewer thought of my Enid Blyton book. I may even go through the archive, PEN Pal by PEN Pal, but not right now, because Charles has just written to me as follows:
Dear Dunkie Boy,
I have travelled down in the extreme heat on the 17 bus to Kings Cross, and just now I perused all the literary and cultural papers at the station, which has been a habit of mine for many years at one or other of the great stations.
D.J. Taylor's first pending 'Freelance' piece was in, something about George Orwell, and in The New Statesman Jason Cowley was continuing his new toe-sucking of Corbyn, whom only a few weeks ago he was rubbishing to high heaven. Much good it will do him, I predict. When I lived in Clapham I used to go to Victoria, and the offices of The New Statesman were nearby, and we sometimes saw each other as I stood at the stalls. Once Jason found me and I was leafing through The Spectator and he said in a shocked tone, "These are your true beliefs!" And I answered simply "Yes". Our relationship soured from that moment.
Lots of love,
Chunkie Boy
I wonder if we could get PEN PALS mentioned in the Spectator. Or indeed any other national publication with cultural clout. Let me see if I can set a few wheels in motion. But in the meantime David's TLS review is out. Will it send readers to this website in droves? Will it secure a print publication for Pen Pals? You decide. Though I'm right here to give you a helping hand, dear reader of mine. I can't keep away.
What was I doing on the evening of Wednesday January 21, 1987? Until a few months ago, I couldn’t have told you. Now, with the aid of a 140,000-word manuscript that fell through the letter box recently, I can account for my movements in well-nigh paralysing detail. In particular, I now know that I went to a party at the PEN Club in Dilke Street, Chelsea to mark the launch of a collection of short stories entitled PEN New Fiction II. I also learn that I spent some of the time talking to a woman named Suzi Robinson and a man named Bill Thompson – both of them fellow contributors – and that afterwards I went to a nearby pub with the literary agent Antony Harwood and the novelist Robert Edric, then trading under his baptismal name of G. E. Armitage.
Paralysing? Oh dear.
My guide to this hitherto forgotten beano, held all of thirty years ago, is another contributor to 'PEN New Fiction II', Duncan McLaren, of whom the “biographical details” section records that he was born in Perthshire in 1957 and “educated at various institutions in Scotland and England”. Some time ago, Duncan decided that it would be a rewarding exercise to re-create that long-ago evening in SW3 by getting in touch with as many of those present as he could track down. As well as preserving the recollections of what to most of the guests was their first experience of “literary society”, he also aimed to find out what they did afterwards. And so the real clue to the intentions of Pen Pals, the title of the newly arrived manuscript, lies in its subtitle: “What happens to writers”.
I still haven't recovered from the word 'paralysing'.
And what does happen to writers? 'PEN New Fiction II' had thirty-two contributors. The oldest, Kathrine Talbot, was then in her mid-sixties; the youngest was going on twenty-seven. They include the juvenile Ian Rankin (“Ian J. Rankin”), who is about to publish his first Inspector Rebus novel, Knots and Crosses, various copywriters, “freelance critics” and, in the person of the late Giles Gordon, a moonlighting literary agent. Thirty years later, three are certifiably dead; several have disappeared without trace while a few politely excuse themselves from Duncan’s investigations. One, having fallen foul of the law, communicates from HMP Brixton. Nonetheless, despite all manner of difficulties, including the puzzle of whether “William New” is also “J. New”, “Jeff New” or even “J. W. New”, Duncan reports that he has managed to secure viable responses from at least half of those involved.
OK I've recovered. I'm back on my horse and galloping alongside David's.
As for the evening itself, most of the memories are resolutely downbeat. Frances Fyfield recalls being “in a pub, clutching a book, feeling overwhelmed by the cleverness of others and definitely wearing the wrong clothes . . .”. There is general agreement that the volume, issued by Quartet, was shoddily produced and feebly marketed. Wendy Brandmark wonders “why they even published the anthology since they did nothing to publicize it or distribute it”. Mansel Stimpson concedes that it was “nice to be in a real book”, but thought the cover price of £14.95 “extortionate”. Other contributors complain about the absence of proofs, textual errors not being corrected, payment being restricted to £50 after the withdrawal of an Arts Council subsidy and PEN having the cheek to charge £4.50 for additional guests to the launch party.
Was the whole project ill-fated to begin with? The reviews of an earlier collection, 'P.E.N. New Fiction I', proudly displayed on the back jacket, praise its diversity and eclecticism – the TLS critic “awaits the next PEN report with impatience” – but a trawl through cyberspace suggests that 'PEN New Fiction II' was barely reviewed at all. There were also administrative setbacks, notably the loss of half the 500-plus submissions in the post between the Selkirk home of the book’s editor, Allan Massie, and Quartet’s London office. Quite the funniest, or – depending on your point of view – soul-destroying, letter reproduced in Pen Pals is one sent to an unsuccessful entrant noting that the publishers “are unfortunately unable to return your story, which was, however, carefully considered by the editor before its disastrous disappearance”.
McLaren’s account of all this is appropriately dramatic, if not novelistic. He marshals his characters in Dilke Street and the pubs on which they afterwards descend. He scatters fragments of symbolism on their unresisting heads. He puts words into their mouths which you wonder if they could actually have spoken, and then sends them out into the world to do . . . what exactly? Naturally, not all of the contributors’ varying destinies have been confined to the world of literature. Ian Rankin may have gone on to sell 30 million books, and Peter Parker achieved distinction as the biographer of Isherwood and Housman, but Dan Corry, author of an intriguing slice of low-life entitled “In a Way – It Hurts”, and described as a Chelsea-supporting, Archie Shepp-listening “professional economist”, later metamorphised into Head of Policy for Gordon Brown’s government of 2007–10.
Others have become creative-writing teachers, or have taken to self-publication. McLaren discloses that he himself has sold 501 copies of a book about Evelyn Waugh entitled 'Evelyn: Rhapsody for an obsessive love'. Here, the obsession takes a little time to declare itself, but there is a point, about half-way through 'Pen Pals' where it stops being a book about a book and starts being a book about the writing of a book about a book, a kind of meta- meta-text in which the author is constantly interrogating his own motives, fussing over his subjects’ status (“I baulk at labelling X as marginal”) agonizing over each scrap of correspondence that helps, or sometimes only impedes, his quest and speculating about the people he rubs up against. I was slightly alarmed, for example, to discover that he thinks the photograph included on my website displays “full-on confidence”, and that “a relaxed smile is underpinned by a rich inner life”.
Yes, that was always going to be a joke that would be difficult to pull off.
A mark of these obsessions – with the business of writing and how you make a success out of it – is his habit of not only falling out with his associates along the way but cheerfully owning up to the fact and even printing some of the angry rejoinders. “I have just read chapter 23 [of Pen Pals] and I am afraid I think it is a total disaster”, one contributor upbraids him. “This is not because of any lack of talent in yourself – it is clear to me that you have considerable abilities – but because what you have written here is falsehood.” Another survivor, “increasingly uncomfortable about the role it seems I’m supposed to play in this”, pulls out. “I don’t think that any further contact between us concerning the book is going to be useful, so I’d like to cut it off right here, if you don’t mind.”
Even this ingrate reckons that “your idea is an interesting one, and your approach is likely to be well received in general”. But like most postmodernist meta-texts, much of the interest of 'Pen Pals' lies in what it omits, the puzzles it can’t solve, the stories that run along above and beneath it, the clues it advertises for a whole new series of problems currently beyond McLaren’s grasp. To begin with the only real celebrity contributor: was Ian J. Rankin (“His short stories have appeared in various newspapers, anthologies and magazines and have been broadcast widely”) actually present at the launch? No one, including Rankin, seems to remember. A fellow-contributor first claims to have talked to him there, only to back-pedal and admit that the meeting might have taken place some years later. Rankin’s diary notes only that its author spent January 21, 1987 writing a piece of short fiction.
Then there are the missing, the writers whom McLaren’s internet-crawling and directory-browsing have, even in this open-access, instant-identification age, failed to locate. What happened to John Bainbridge, author of “The Clay Horses”, born in 1951, who at the time in question had been teaching at a middle school in Grimsby for the previous twelve years, or Kara Lind (“educated in the United States and Scotland and has lived in London since 1985”), or Edith Cope, a former university Research Officer, then residing in Cheshire? Did they stop writing? Do they still have their copies of PEN New Fiction II with its odd, boeuf-en-daube coloured jacket, which, as certain contributors point out, hadn’t yet arrived in time for the publication party and had to be sent on later?
These are all questions which McLaren needs to get round to in due course. Unfortunately, the publisher who was interested in his 'Pen Pals' manuscript recently reneged on the deal. The manuscript is readily available online. It deserves wide circulation. Meanwhile, the only person keen to share the sense of wonder usually supposed to accompany a literary debut is Carol Barker, author of “The Petition” and now an academic and teacher of creative writing, who admits to being so excited by the receipt of her £50 that she was reluctant to pay the cheque into her bank.
What is my main reaction? A link would have been better. And the books reviewed elsewhere in the TLS are indeed linked to where they can be bought on Amazon.
Oh well.
My ex-publisher thinks the feature is a bit cheeky, with David pocketing a fee on the back of all the work I've done. But I'm fine with that - David asked if I wanted him to write something, and I very much did.
Charles is more positive. He think the article will get across that Pen Pals is both funny and will be full of human interest. He tells me that the difference between us is that he does want PEN PALS done and dusted. He wants to hold a book in his hands that will be his pleasant companion for the rest of his life and which he will be able to show people at the Islington Council flat he hopes to have in some lovely little street. He wants that volume to be a coherent and completed work of art. As he sees it, it should finish with the 'perfect' ending that I have 'brilliantly' devised. There should not be an endless Afterword about the search for print publication, or a series of emails signed off by the Chunkiest of Chunks, or anything else.
Maybe Charles is right. Maybe it is time to stop.
