A reader is less than impressed
Easter … three days without having to hear from Idle Tom the Publisher … my cup runneth over.
I’ve been down in Hampshire, where my parents live. Margot and I had decamped to the pub, the better to get away from our two sons.
It was rather disconcerting. Because for the first time, I was introduced to a complete stranger who’d read the book.
“Sheila,” said my friend the Ottley. “This is my friend Bill Coles. And Bill - this is Sheila.”
We shook hands. I might even have given her the politician’s handshake, left hand to elbow. Very partial to that one, I am.
”Oh yes,” she said. “I’ve read your book.”
“Really?” I said. Just to explain - my book is so far off the radar that I automatically assume that anyone who’s read it has been given it by a friend.
“Yes, I did read it,” she said. “I read about it in the paper.”
“Oh, of course - that story in the Southern Daily Echo.”
“No it wasn’t that one - it was the one in the Mail on Sunday.”
I goggled at Sheila, momentarily taken flat aback. “THAT story??”
[For new readers, about three months back I took the plunge and decided to make the most of the fact that Amazon had listed my ex-wife’s novel as the “perfect partner” for The Well-Tempered Clavier. This was all the peg I needed to give - for the first time - my own account of our bumpy little marriage. The Mail on Sunday did plug my book at the end of the story. But nonetheless it had never occurred to me that anyone would actually go out and buy the thing.]
“Yes,” said Sheila. “That story. That’s why I bought the book.”
“Ahh - very good. Very good.”
We moved onto other things. But did I detect a slight blackhole in the conversation?
Sheila had signally failed to mention what she thought of the book.
And generally, if somebody for no reason neglects to tell you what they thought about your book … then there’s a reason.