Fame, and the popular obsession with it, features in many of Sean’s books. The most striking appearance is in his internet published novel The (Something) Burlesque which sees an initially bitter and rejected writer grow into a resigned hero and also incorporates the murders of many high-profile but unnamed celebrities and a savage swipe at Judd Nelson. Taking this book, for which Sean received an Australia Council Literary grant, from the page to the (internet) screen was not initially an enthusiastic move and Sean talks about what led to this decision being made.
[It was] “Sheer despair. I spent more than five years working on that book and nobody on earth will publish it and I felt it was too sad to consign all that work to ignominy, so now it’s on a blog that nobody knows about or reads. It’s worked out very well.”
On the author’s website you can find a more detailed explanation that serves as a topical comment on the state of the literary industry at present, originally published in The Australian in January 2006 and reprinted here with the author’s permission.
“I was instantly gripped by this. It has been several months since I’ve felt so excited by the energy and pace and sheer electricity of someone’s writing. A clever idea, breathtakingly paced and perfectly sustained. And, on top of all this, snort-out-loud-on-the-bus funny. There are so many appealing aspects to the book… [its] ironic, witty, satirical surface, glittering and glorious…”
“It’s brilliant, very funny and ingenious.”
“[The] narrative is inventive, and [the] voice original and often very amusing.”
“Immensely clever and often very funny.”
“[Written with] verve and spirit and confidence.”
“Clever and artful.”
“A talented writer with a gift for satire.”
If you read these quotes on the dust jacket of a new novel, at the very least you’d be intrigued, perhaps you might even buy the book. While the quotes are all actual responses to a manuscript, there will, in all likelihood, never be an actual book to accompany them.
The responses all come from publishing professionals – commissioning editors in Sydney and London, as well as literary agents in New York City – and they relate to a manuscript of mine for which I received an Australia Council literary grant in 2003. Every one of these reactions can be found in a number of letters or emails declining to either represent or publish the manuscript, ‘brilliant, funny and ingenious’ as it is.
Like any writer I took these rejection and declinations – these harsh judgements on my work – pretty hard, but I haven’t given up. Nor has my valiant, plucky agent Simon Trewin of PFD in London, whose faith in my work is greater than my own. Curiously – and somewhat horribly – Mr Trewin became my agent in May last year only after my previous agent let me go after she read the manuscript in question. What’s uncanny – and somewhat horrible – about this is that in the first chapter of the manuscript the main character, a writer, is dropped by his agent after pitching an idea for a book which no-one wants to publish, and which bears an uncanny resemblance to the book I’ve written. (At the risk of big-noting myself, I should mention that my book is much better than his, although, of course, I wrote that one, too.) Many worse things happen in there which I am also anxious to not come true. I haven’t given up hope, but I have lost a lot of faith – not in myself, but in the publishing industry, an industry that will, this year, deliver we lucky readers five different books about the convicted murderer Bradley John Murdoch. Not one or two – five. That my book is, in part, a satire on the current inclination toward the celebrification of homicidal maniacs, is pretty ironic, I suppose.
Far worse than a bad case of irony is the recent rejection of novels by V. S Naipaul and Stanley Middleton by twenty leading publishers and agents in London. In an exercise conducted by The Sunday Times, and reported in this paper last week, the opening chapters of Naipaul’s ‘In a Free State’ and Middleton’s second novel ‘Holiday’ were typed and submitted as works by aspiring authors. Of the twenty-one replies, all but one were rejections. Both authors are Booker prize winners, and Naipaul has won the Nobel prize for literature. Not that you’d know by the comments of his most recent detractors. “In order to take on a new author, several of us here would need to be extremely enthusiastic about both the content and writing style. I’m sorry to say we don’t feel that strongly about your work,” wrote one literary agency representative. No mention of ‘brilliant’, ‘ingenious’ or ‘breath-taking’ – poor old Naipaul didn’t stand a chance with the gatekeepers of literary England.
“To see something that is well-written and appetisingly written takes a lot of talent and there is not a great deal of that around,” Naipaul said in response to The Sunday Times’ stunt. “With all the other forms of entertainment today there are very few people around who would understand what a good paragraph is.”
Perhaps even more dismaying than a letter of rejection is a painfully attenuated silence. In the middle of last year I sent a brief extract of my manuscript, just sixty pages or so, to a well known (and very good) independent publisher in Melbourne, and, in accordance with their guidelines prepared to wait for ‘up to four months’ for a response. Despite emails to an editor and the boss, as well as a long conversation with still another editor who works at the publishing house, I am still waiting for my letter of declination over six months later.
The comments I’ve received notwithstanding, my manuscript may not be very good and part of me can’t help regretting the years I spent working on it. But what I regret far more is that you will probably never have the chance to make up your own mind about it. Well, somebody has to make shelf space for all those Bradley John Murdoch books, and I guess it’s my turn. I’m okay with that, but, had their books not already been published, it might well have been time for V. S Naipaul and Stanley Middleton to step aside as well – and that’s a real crime.
In fact, remaining positive, the internet is a tool Sean has utilized in keeping contact with his fans. As a writer the internet can be an easy way to get unreliable feedback on your work, the tendency being for only people with extreme views to take the time to comment, but Sean can be contacted through a number of websites and is always happy to hear comments from readers.
Looking to the future, Sean tells me about his current projects. “I am novelising (for the second time) a story which began as a film script in 2001. It’s about two friends who drive from New Orleans to L.A in 1971, deciding that whatever happens to them on the way will be the basis for a film that one of them is trying to write. It’s narrated by a dead Choctaw Indian. In previous incarnations, it was called ‘The Third Act’ but I’m not sure if I’ll stick with that title in the unlikely event that it gets published.
I’m also about to begin pre-production on a sitcom pilot that a friend and I have written for a cable channel here in Australia. It’s set behind the scenes of a sketch comedy show (something I have a little experience with) and it’s pretty funny. That said, the opportunities for it to fail between the page and the screen are enormous, not least because my pal Bob and I play ourselves (or versions thereof) and we’re in almost every scene and neither of us can act. Horrifically, that show is called ‘I Can’t Believe It’s Not Better’.”
When asked if he will ever write another travelog, Sean doesn’t completely rule out the possibility but says “It seems very unlikely. I’m old now, and just about to become a father, so I think that ship has sailed. I would have loved to have done a book with David in Japan, though. Maybe when I’m older and even less relevant.” However, with the success due Michael Sweeney’s Method and the film and TV work in the pipelines, Sean perhaps doesn’t need the thrills of travel to inspire him any more.
In conversation, Sean is a surprising figure. His novels are laconic, cynical and ascerbic, and in person it is easy to expect a bitter tirade against aspects of the world around him, yet I find he has a gentle wit and a surprisingly unwavering positive outlook on life. Whilst the journeys Sean has taken may not always have gone as he planned, he seems very content with the destination he has now reached. So perhaps with age this grumpy smurf has become more of a Papa Smurf, and it’s a role that suits him well. In fact, this is where he finds hope for the future [through] “My child, who gets born Friday, May 29.”
Sean and David’s Long Drive, effortlessly the funniest travel literature written to date, is available now from all decent bookshops, as are a handful of Sean’s other works, more about which can be discovered at www.seancondon.com or bought from amazon.co.uk
This article is dedicated with best wishes to Sylvie Condon, born 29th May 2009.
Words: Alasdair Kay
I loved this two-parter. Sean Condon is absolutely one of my favourite writers and it was really interesting to read this. Thanks!