Well, I've had a week of relatively low blogging/auctioneering achievement. In my after-day job I'm an artist and I'm preparing a performance show right now. It's got puppets, self-help, Jimmy Stewart, and it's a bloody nightmare.
Anyway, I've listed two things today because they continue our theme of dedications, memory and good ol' fashioned sexy motherlove. I doubt Adam Thirlwell and Jackie Collins have ever been paired off, but I think they make a cute couple. although I do suspect you could fit Adam Thirlwell within Jackie's mighty cleavage and maybe even have room for one of her small dogs:
That woman knows how to take an author photo, am I right? No Granta-esque passport shit for her: amp up the cleavage, sweep over the fringe and bung a pool in the background and you're done.
I won Ms Collins in a literary pub quiz at the Norwich Waterstones. It was a proud moment for all. I resisted my intital temptation to go for the film-tie Stieg Larsson apparel (absorbent!) and went straight for the gold. "Poor Little Bitch Girl" is also one of the best titles in the world - as a summation of tone and intent, you really can't touch it. The fact that Ms Collins has touched my own copy with her manicured hand is also a fruity little thrill. I love a signed copy, although I know from experience she was probably in a windowless Simon & Schuster back office pounding these out rather than poolside. (Though in my mental picture she has a daiquiri either scenario.) Sue me, I'm a sucker for a fine-tuned aesthetic and when your end papers are pink and branded to your intitals, you're going to get nothing less than my total respect, regardless of literary output.
Speaking of which, I'm also letting Adam Thirlwell's 'Politics' out into the internet ether. This one is inscribed too, but this time it's from my own beloved mother, who lives rather more on the Maeve Binchy side of romance. She likes Old Hollywood movies and happy endings. 'Politics' is a whole lotta lit porn - full of threesomes and archly explicit descriptions of who bunged what where.
My mother is a saint. I have a committee of Catholics and they're all in line on this.
You see, Ma's a conservative woman in a lot of ways but she always pushes her cultural boat out for me: she took me to see 'Eyes Wide Shut' and 'Fight Club' at the cinema when I was 17. She's sat through more pretentious plays and nipple-flecked cinema for me then I can even remember. She drove two hours and sat through one of my performance pieces involving hardcore nudity ON MOTHER'S DAY. To this day, I wonder at her.
When writing a book dedication or a card, she always writes the date in the bottom right corner. It's a little thing that I've always loved - mum naturally records, instinctively categorizes for posterity. I find her writing very soothing - I should do, it's a tamped down version of the Tooth Fairy's. And Santa too, for that matter. I asked for "Politics" because the author was super young when he wrote it and my "Young British Writer" curiosity/jealousy radar went off the charts. Part of me still wants to be literary Britney Spears, although I'm trying to calm that shit down, whack a little more substance over my style. That's why I'm selling Politics - it was a little too arch for me - it didn't move me nearly as much as my mum's silly two and a half line dedication.
So there you have it: substance and substances; Jackie and Adam.
Go forth and purchase, make my mother proud.
Love,
Becky
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