Marmite books - love them or hate them?

I happen to love damaged men abusing each other, not to mention hopeless passion, sobbing lovers, floggings and lashings of revenge. Fictionally speaking anyway. So I was curled up on my sofa  wallowing in ITV’s adaptation of Wuthering Heights last night - and it was very well done, except that Heathcliff and Cathy grew up too quickly, and I'd  prefer a 20 part serial not two.  Looking forward to

 more tonight.
I read Wuthering Heights when I was 13 and instantly fell for it. But I know other people who can’t stand it. It’s definitely a Marmite book – like the breakfast spread, you either love it or hate it.
I love Marmite - yum - and I love Wuthering Heights. But I hate Lord of the Rings, Wind in the Willows and - most of all –Watership Down. It’s not the talking animals because The Horse and His Boy is one of my favourite books. There’s just something about these books which repels me – and strongly attracts others.
Twilight - which inspires total passion in its fans, and contempt among others - might be a recent example, except there is a middle group which celebrates Twilight for reasons not dissimilar to a junk food binge.

I don’t know if I’d want to write a Marmite book (maybe I’ve written one, who knows?) Could I take the hate alongside the passion? Would the sales figures be high enough to blot out the viciousness?

Any other ideas for Marmite books? And where do you stand on the ones I’ve mentioned?
Update: About a week after I wrote this, Marmite announced a new advertisement campaign -  using Francesca Simon's Horrid Henry characters and offering audio books as an incitement to buyers. Spooky...but what a fabulous campaign, because if ever there was a series that inspires strong feelings for and against it's young Henry. The Marmite book personified! But what if you love Marmite and hate Henry?

Update 2 - Sad to hear reports of the death of JD Salinger today. I loved Catcher in the Rye, but it's a true Marmite book, loads of people loathe it.

On reporters and realism

‘Anne Fine deplores ‘gritty realism’ of modern children’s books’ was the headline in The Times, and deep into the traditional silly season (yes, that’s why there are pages of fluffy animals in today’s Guardian) what a great story it was. A former children’s laureate, slagging off depressing modern fiction? While sitting next to a master of the form Melvin Burgess? Cue frenzied blogging debate and tongue-in-cheek newspaper follow ups.

Except, that’s not quite how it was. Anne Fine protested (in a comment on an excellent blog post by children’s crime writer Anne Cassidy) that her quote was taken out of context. She wasn’t deploring unhappy endings, nor calling for a return to the middle-class values of the Fifties. She pointed out that she was addressing an audience of social workers responsible for caring for children in care. “I was simply asking if these bleak endings had any effect on their young clients, and if so, what it was (if they indeed read the books at all). I was not advocating any particular sort of endings.”

Melvin Burgess was quoted by The Times as saying “I have had letters talking about the humanity of my books, even when the situations the characters are in are very dark and difficult. Just the fact that they are still making jokes and falling in love. Perhaps the light of hope comes from the reader and not the story.”

On his blog he said perhaps the furore was more about journalism than children’s writing. ‘The fact that the angle wasn’t Anne’s wasn’t something the journalist probably even thought about, any more than the fact that the whole thing was presented as some Great Statement by the ex laureate, rather than what it really was - an answer to a question from a social worker in the audience, about the effect dark stories might have on vulnerable readers.’

And he adds: ‘There’s a new story if I ever saw one, a real one abut real people and how they really feel. I wonder if any of the journalists involved would be wiling to run a story about that … or are they too chicken to subject themselves to the same kind of scrutiny they put the rest of us through?’

Now, as a journalist and a writer I found that a fascinating question. In my experience most reporters don’t give too much thought about the power they have - mainly because they feel too powerless in the face of slammed doors and cut-throat competition - but contrary to general opinion, most do care about accuracy and fairness, if only because you won’t have a very long career if you collect too many complaints and libel writs. Why would an arts journalist want to mis-represent Anne Fine? Was the fault with the reporter at the meeting, or the editors in London? (by the way many people tend to blame sub editors for this kind of thing, although it’s really the page or section editors that should be asking questions about context and meaning).

Anyway the reporter at the meeting was Jackie Kemp, and she told me: “I guess it was taken out of context - that is the nature of the beast. It was a small part of a 90 minute discussion in answer to a social worker. It seemed to me that she was really asking herself the question, how do we offer children hope and how do we encourage their aspirations without retreating from complexity?”

As someone who has written a novel that could be described as ‘gritty realism’ - although I don’t really think it’s that gritty myself, if gritty means uncomfortable – I became aware very quickly that ‘hope’ was a quality that both agents and publishers looked for and commented on. It surprised me because it wasn’t something I’d given a minute’s thought to in writing the book - I was more concerned about keeping things exciting, interesting and real - oh and funny too – while not losing sight of the serious moral and philosophical questions thrown up by the plot. I still don’t really know where ‘hope’ comes from, unless it’s hanging on somehow to the idea that things might get better.

One person I’d have loved to hear from in this whole debate was the third writer on the panel at the meeting, Rachel Ward whose debut novel Numbers has been very successful. (UPDATE: See comments below!) It tells the story of a girl who sees numbers on people’s foreheads, and then realises that they show the date of their death. It’s a taut emotional read, with well-drawn characters and memorable prose – but ultimately I was depressed at the idea that we are all slaves of destiny. Reviewer Philip Ardagh  -  probably a jollier person than me -  found it 'life-affirming'.  There you go. Hope is in the eye of the reader.

Get your tickets now..

My first literary gig  is on Sunday September 13, 11am at the Hampstead and Highgate Literary Festival. Gaby Halberstam and I will be talking about drawing on real life events when writing teen novels. You can book tickets here -  and take a look at the other events too, it's a great programme with people like Adele Geras, Jenny Valentine and Joe Craig.

The organisers asked me to sign books afterwards but  I can't...it's not published yet. Oh well. Maybe it won't be my last chance.

Last train from Southport

It’s not often you see a naked man on a train. But then I’d never caught this particular train before. Maybe naked men are commonplace on the last train from Southport to Manchester on a Saturday night. Certainly the ticket collector’s face had a weary seen-it-all-before expression.

We should never have been on the train in the first place, but after a day out at the seaside – crazy golf, a pier with an old-fashioned penny arcade, ice-creams and my first ever victory at ten-pin bowling - we headed back to the car park at 10pm. And discovered that it closed at 6pm. We felt like the stupid city-dwellers we are. Then we ran to the station and jumped onto the last train, six minutes before it left. We had no time to buy tickets, but we struck lucky - the ticket collector’s machine was broken, so our unscheduled journey was free. The unscheduled journey that was going to take 90 minutes to travel 34 miles.

The first interruption was a screaming row between a man and a woman. Lots of swearing and shouting. She accused him of ‘womanising all week.’ He rushed along the carriage and locked himself in the toilet. She followed, a few minutes later, flushed, unsteady on her feet and glazed around the eyes. ‘Did he get off…did he leave the train?’ she appealed to us. The train rocked and rolled on through Lancashire.

It stopped at Wigan. A flock of teenagers got on, male and female - each one with hair that had been dyed, sculpted, teased into sleek and shiny styles. They looked like exotic birds. I guessed they were hairdressers’ models, but maybe all teenagers look like this for a night out in Wigan. ‘London is dead, dead, dead,’ they sang. ‘We’re not going to vote Conservative.’

In the next carriage things were getting rowdy. A group of women on a night out, cheerfully harassing their menfolk. ‘Get your kit off for the girls,” they chorused, “Get it out…” And the men were only too happy to oblige. Bums waggled in our direction, to shrieks of joy from the bawdy ladies. Cameras clicked. And then one lady – magnificently dressed in a tight blue leopardskin mini, eyeshadow to match – headed for the loo. And a man decided to follow her. With no clothes on. Screams from her. Gales of laughter from the naked man. The atmosphere was like the final scenes of The Full Monty - earthy, female, hilarious. My 9-year-old son looked on, as disapproving as a middle-aged vicar.

The train stopped at Bolton. A small panic as leopardskin woman tried to break down the toilet door to rescue a mate who had locked herself in. The flimsy door rattled as two hefty ladies threw themselves at it from either side. It burst open. The girls and their male playthings - now fully clothed - disembarked.

Then the football chants started. Four men in our carriage, still celebrating Manchester United’s victory over Wigan. The chants were tuneless and tasteless and frequently very funny. They were particularly virulently anti-Scouser – the traditional rivalry between Manchester and Liverpool. One Liverpudlian passenger felt moved to protest: ‘Don’t give up the day jobs,’ she told them. ‘At least we’ve got jobs,’ they retorted.

The ticket collector walked through the train again, making no attempt at all to inspect tickets. ‘And you wanted to pay for this!’ he said to us.

We were lucky. The drink-fuelled behaviour on the train was inappropriate, but completely good-natured. It's not always the way. While we were enjoying crazy golf and bowling 300 people were arrested in Manchester in a crackdown on violent drunken crime. Apparently it is one of the biggest problems in the region.

We walked back to our hotel making plans to rescue the car the next day. ‘You were too old to be looking at that man with no clothes on, Mum’ said my daughter. ‘Yes,’ said my son. ‘And too married.’

Seven Things About Me...

Kind Alissa at http://www.booksilikedlovedorhated.blogspot.com/ has nominated me for a ‘kreativ’ blogger award, which is great because I never ever get nominated or win anything. So I am putting aside my severe disapproval of the mangling of the word creative to say thank you Alissa, you are a star and I love your book reviews.

Here are the rules for the award:1. Thank the person who nominated you for this award.2. Copy the logo and place it on your blog.3. Link to the person who nominated you for this award.4. Name 7 things about yourself that people might find interesting. (see below)5. Nominate 7 Kreativ Bloggers.6. Post links to the 7 blogs you nominate.7. Leave a comment on each of the blogs letting them know they have been nominated.

Hmmm...sounds more like a Facebook game than an award, but never mind, still fun and gives me a chance to tantalise with some Almost True facts. Here they are:

1. I have nearly been shot three times

2. I jumped out of a helicopter in mid air as it flew over the North Sea.

3. I had a panic attack on top of a Cambodian temple.

4. A near-death experience in When I Was Joe involving a sofa was autobiographical (crucial details changed though)

5. I used to go to wrestling classes

6. My first flat in Amsterdam was in the same street as Gestapo headquarters (not at the same time, obviously)

7. I was interviewed on the ITN lunchtime news when I was the first journalist to interview a government minister's mistress.

Here are some recommended blogs:

http://cityofbooks.blogspot.com/
http://thebookcellarx.blogspot.com/
http://taste-life-twice.blogspot.com/
http://theworstreviewever.blogspot.com/
http://absolutevanilla.blogspot.com/
http://janpatience.blogspot.com/

Summer Reading

One of the best things about writing YA books is that it gives you every legitimate reason to read them. There are so many good books for teenagers out there, that it’s a shame that more older readers don’t give them a chance. They might learn something, and they’d certainly enjoy themselves.

Anyway, here are my top recent reads, recommended to everyone.

1. Crossing the Line by Gillian Philip. Let’s get this one out of the way first, because it's given me a severe case of book envy made worse by the fact that it shares one theme with When I Was Joe. It is completely brilliant, a very clever, beautifully written story of a Scottish boy whose sister’s boyfriend has been stabbed. All the characters spot-on accurate, the portrayal of first love makes you shiver, and it doesn’t really matter if you guess one of the twists before the end because there are so many and they’re so well told. There is a spooky similarity in one scene to a bit in When I Was Joe, which made me feel ill with inferiority, but there you go. It’s wonderful. Buy it, read it and then please try and forget it before you read mine.

2. Bad Faith also by Gillian Philip. Look, the woman’s a star, what can I do? Also she’s set her book in an unnamed Glasgow, which is my favourite city in Britain. Scotland’s been taken over by religious extremists and there’s a dead bishop to account for. Great stuff and an absolutely beautiful cover.

3. The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness. Deservedly won trillions of awards last year. Imagine a world where you could hear men’s thoughts out loud. Patrick Ness handles this idea so deftly that you forget what a hard task he’s set himself. Really exciting and followed by a sequel The Ask and the Answer which asks hard questions of readers about terrorism and torture.

4. Little Brother by Cory Doctorow. Clever, funny, exciting, moving book, about teenage hackers in San Francisco which comes under attack from terrorists and is taken over by security services who set about stripping citizens of their rights. A fast-paced plot, real breathing characters and a great examination of the issues of freedom versus security.

5. Guantanamo Boy by Ann Perera. Tackles similar issues to Doctorow’s book - a complete coincidence that I took both of them out of the library on the same day – Perera tells the story of a Muslim boy from Rochdale who goes with his family to visit family in Karachi, and is kidnapped and handed over to American forces as a potential terrorist, then shopped to Guantanamo Bay. She tells his story so well that I was breathless with anxiety until - thank God – a lawyer arrives to help him. My only slight niggle was that some of the characters are just there to provide their viewpoint, then they disappear, but it’s well worth reading.

6 Rowan the Strange by Julie Hearn. Another boy imprisoned, but a very different story. Rowan is suffering from schizophrenia in 1930s London and at the start of the war is sent to an asylum in Kent where he undergoes experimental electro-convulsive therapy. What I loved about this book was its ambivalence – you’re horrified by the treatment and yet you can see that Rowan needs help, you start by hating Rowan’s doctor, you grow to understand and sympathise with him. Really great story-telling too, and against the odds an up-beat ending.

7. The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen. I’d never read any Sarah Dessen books before, although I knew she was a hugely successful writer of YA books and I love the beautiful UK covers of her books. I wasn’t sure about The Truth About Forever at first - too much backstory I thought, too much introspection as she established the story of Macy Queen, who wants to be perfect as a way of dealing with her father’s death. But then the story sucked me in, especially because she creates the perfect love interest - Wes, artistic reformed bad boy with a tattoo. It compared very well with most adult rom coms I’ve read recently, and I’m definitely going to read some more by Sarah Dessen.

8 The Ashleys by Melissa de la Cruz. Not at all my usual sort of book and I was all set to sneer, except that it was recommended by my daughter who said it was excellent. And it was - very funny, sharp writing, a good eye for the rich girls’ world of San Francisco private schools and characters you hate just enough to still care what happens to them.

9 The Red Dress by Gaby Halberstam. Strangely enough Gaby and I were friends when we were 15, and now here we are, both writing YA books. When I knew Gaby she had just moved to England from South Africa and it’s this background that she’s drawn on to write her first two books Blue Sky Freedom and The Red Dress. The dress in question is given to Rifke, a Jewish girl living in Johannesburg in the 1940s but her mother disapproves. On the spur of the moment Rifke runs away, catching a train to the middle of nowhere and ending up staying with the Van Niel family, poor white farmers The clash of cultures, and the feeling that anything could happen is completely compelling.

10. The Demon's Lexicon by Sarah Rees Brennan. How could I have forgotten this one? Great fantasy book. At first I was comparing it unfavouably with The Amulet of Samarkand which is also demon-based, but the story of two brothers - kind quiet Alan and angry Nick sucked me in. And the ending was stunning - I really didn't see it coming.

An unfinished story, part two.

I’m coming home from work on a sunny summer’s day, and I call my husband to tell him when I’ll be back. He’s in the park with the children. ‘We’ll be back around the same time as you,’ he says.

I’m just at the road at the top of our hill when I see him. He’s standing at the side of the road, talking on his phone. Next to him crouches someone with long hair - my daughter? And then my heart gives a huge bump, because she’s leaning over a body lying in the road. Is it my son? What’s happened?

And then my eyes focus properly and I realise that it isn’t my daughter and it isn’t my son, it’s a middle-aged woman and an old man. For a moment I’m completely confused and I think it can’t be my husband after all. But it is. And he’s on the phone to emergency services. The children are nowhere to be seen.

I run up. The old man is flat on the ground, nose to the tarmac, blood flooding down his face, staining the road red. He’s mumbling, trying to move. The woman has her hand on his shoulder, and she’s murmuring comforting words to him. ‘He’s just waking up,’ my husband is saying. ‘He fell down and whacked his head.’ The woman looks at me, ‘Drunk,’ she hisses, ‘Lost his footing. Fell flat on his nose, poor love.’

What a contrast to the week before, the young man unconscious on Upper Street, ignored by cars, buses, passers-by. People start appearing, stopping, offering water and tissues. A man on a bike. A girl walking by. Two men in a van pull all the tissues out of their tissue box - but keep the box because it’s got important numbers written all over it. Another man on a bike seems to be a doctor or a nurse. ‘What’s your name?’ he asks the man, still lying with his bleeding nose on the hard ground. ‘Do you know your name? You look like you’re going to be fine.’

The ambulance dispatcher gives permission for us to try and sit him up. It takes four men to roll him over, prop him against a lamp post. I spot my children, staring from the car. They don’t know whether to look or not.

‘My name is Jack,’ says the old man. His nose still drips scarlet, and it’s a strange knobbly shape, like it’s been made by a toddler from purple plasticine. It’s probably broken, we agree, and it’s probably not the first time. Another woman has joined us. ‘You know, when they say ‘Hit the Road, Jack’ this isn’t what they mean,’ she says. We all laugh. Jack manages a little dazed smile. ‘Your wife’s going to hit you on the nose with a frying pan when she hears about this,’ she tells him.

I take the children home. ‘What happened to the man?’ ask my son. ‘He was drunk,’ I say. ‘He fell over. I’m sure he’ll be fine.’ My husband comes home twenty minutes later. ‘The ambulance turned up and they thought he was OK,’ he says. ‘They’re doing some checks.’

So, for the second time in two weeks we’ve been involved in a little London drama. We’ve both called an ambulance, we’ve helped two strangers. With poor old Jack there aren’t so many unanswered questions. He’s probably done this before. It’ll probably happen again. What makes his story different is the way that everyone tried to help. No one passed Jack by. Every person who went past wanted to do something. The lovely ladies who held his shoulder and tried to make him laugh, even mopped his bloody nose. London suddenly feels like a friendlier place. My little bit of it anyway.