I didn’t think I could love Ann Patchett any more than I already do. Then I heard the bestselling novelist on Sunday’s Desert Island Discs pouring cold water on the widely cherished notion that we all “have a book in us”.
“Oh, I don’t believe that, any more than I believe that everyone has one mathematical proof in them, or one perfectly prepared pot roast,” the Pulitzer-nominated author told Lauren Laverne. And the fact that she sounds so lovely – the kind of woman who would leave that perfectly prepared pot roast on a grieving neighbour’s doorstep – only made it better.
There’s something about a sexagenarian’s pooh-poohing that’s far more devastating than anything else. Lethal, in the very best way. And they can do it without raising their voices, too. Which is an art form, especially when you consider how enraged authors invariably are by the “book in them” brigade. How enraged those people always make me.
Perhaps when you reach Patchett’s heights, you can afford to find it amusing, but at my lowly level – and as I struggle to make my next deadline in three weeks’ time – I just can’t. It’s the predictability of the exchange, for starters. There you are telling a stranger at a function what it is that you do – “I’m a journalist and a novelist” – and the immediate response, nine times out of 10, is: “Really? I’ve always thought I have a book in me.”
Tell me one other job that elicits the same response. People don’t say: “Oh, I’ve always thought I’d make a good bricklayer/barista/marine biologist/orthopaedic surgeon.” But writing? It’s more of a whimsy, surely, or a hobby – more of a female hobby-whimsy. Not unlike knitting or pottery.
It doesn’t help that whenever female writers are portrayed on screen, they are always sitting in a room with a view. That room will either have polished wooden floors and a bay window overlooking Central Park, or peeling paint and views of a rugged British shoreline. The women are whimsical in either setting, invariably in full make-up (with charmingly ugly glasses on, to show gravitas). And although there is lots of picturesque pausing, the book will unfailingly be completed by the end of a four-minute montage.
If I’m feeling generous-minded, I’ll tell myself that the “I have a book in me” mentality is actually a compliment to writers. That when people habitually read for pleasure, they become convinced that writing, too, must be pleasurable.
The reality, I’m afraid, is ugly. It involves – in no particular order – coffee-stained teeth, chronic self-doubt, weight gain, unreasonable expectations, toothpicks, insomnia, mood swings, ridiculous amounts of procrastination, empty packets of chewing gum, poor parenting, and then – as the cerise on this deeply undesirable gateau – consummate self-loathing.
But try it. Do! Only remember one thing: that book you say you have in you? You have to find a way of getting it out.