Dr. Frank's What's-it

Miss Lonelyhearts

I'd never heard this story before: a Church of England vicar gets his book published by a for-women-only specialty division of a publishing house by managing to leave the impression that he is a young, female Muslim of Indian origin. The hoax is discovered, and the book is "disappeared." And the world "loses" a minor literary masterpiece.

It's a great scenario, and I can imagine a pretty good novel could be constructed out of it (if one hasn't already been constructed out of it.)

If Theodore Dalrymple's version is to be believed, the vicar's downfall begins when he agrees to meet a literary agent, exposing his true identity for the first time. Up to that point, he had managed to avoid ever meeting or speaking with anyone involved in his publishing world - that can't have been easy, and would have involved quite a bit of fancy footwork. How did he avoid what must have been repeated requests for a photo, for instance? How did they manage the editing, copy-editing, etc?

My true identity is not nearly so far removed from my public one (though it is a bit removed) but I do know the apprehensive feeling of meeting "your people" for the first time. Maybe I'm projecting a bit here, but I like to think that everyone, at least to a degree, feels like a fraud risking exposure on a daily basis. If not, don't tell me: it makes me feel better to think they do. (My own publisher reportedly exclaimed after meeting me: "wow, he's normal." It was the nicest thing anyone had ever said about me, in a sense, yet somehow I couldn't avoid the feeling that I had failed.) Anyway, he must have really wanted to hook up with the agent, despite the risk. My favorite detail is his explanation for adopting the pseudonym in the first place: he did not want to receive rejection letters in his own name. There's something very touching about that, I think.

I have no idea whether Dalrymple's praise for Down the Road, Worlds Away is warranted, and it's unlikely that I'll ever find out as the book is apparently in limbo, having been erased, pulped, and excised from the literary record. His essay/review did make me want to read it, however. In the process he makes some interesting points about identity, politics, and identity politics. Worth a look.