- Hardcover: 304 pages
- Publisher: Fourth Estate (3 Nov 2003)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0007171374
- ISBN-13: 978-0007171378
- Product Dimensions: 21.8 x 13.2 x 3.3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 996,505 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Review
Public humiliation, shame, acute embarrassment - how we love to witness these social nightmares happening to other people! And how much more entertaining it is when these occasions of buttock-clenching awfulness include alcoholic degradation, sexual incontinence and loss of bowel control, not to mention the dreadful prospect of a total lack of audience. In this thoroughly entertaining collection, Robin Robertson has somehow persuaded (coerced? bribed? blackmailed?), an astonishingly large number of writers and poets to share the secrets of their "public shame". These delicious morsels of schadenfreude range from the ignominy of the writer giving of his all to rows of empty plastic chairs, to the horror of Irvine Welsh's exploding underpants and Niall Griffiths' extremely inconvenient erection. Some will make you laugh, others will make you cringe, yet others will reduce you to cushion-biting sympathy. This collection is an inspiration, as well as a consolation to every writer who has thrown up in front of his single-figure audience, or cowered behind an unsold pile of books in Waterstone's. Robertson has tapped a well that will, inevitably, never run dry. For while there are poets and writers prepared to bare their souls on the public stage for the price of a cheese toastie and a few glasses of Rioja, there will be mortifications a-plenty. Read, laugh and enjoy, but remember to salute the courage of these brave souls who have shared their darkest moments, and are probably, even now, bitterly regretting it. (Kirkus UK)
Humphrey Carpenter, Sunday Times
'Entertaining reading. This is a jolly romp and will make a good stocking-filler for any authors of your acquaintance.'
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fascinating Insight,
By
This review is from: Mortification: Writers' Stories of their Public Shame (Paperback)
This is an extremely humerous look at how authors feel about their book signing events. It's fascinating to hear their side of things and to see things from their point of view. There are some very funny accounts of places that they have to stay in overnight, and amusing anecdotes of remarks made by the general public. I particularly loved the tale of Glyn Maxwell,a poet, who had to do a reading for some school children - on being asked what his poem was about he went on to explain in some detail what he had tried to get across in his poem, when he'd finished explaining the child that had asked merely looked at him and said 'why didn't you just say that in the first place then?' Terrific stuff, a must read for any wannabe authors.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
More moribund than mortified.,
By Prelati (England) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Mortification: Writers' Stories of their Public Shame (Paperback)
On the surface, the idea of getting writers to reveal their most embarassing moments seems a good one. But in practice, the limitations quickly become painfully obvious, as we read one variant after another on the 'I was invited to perform a reading and nobody came' story. There is some variety - with grinding predictability Irvine Welch soils himself outside a football match for example - but overall this is pretty dreary stuff.While they routinely deny it with telling insistence, it's hard to get away from the sense that the writers in this collection remain bewildered that the world fails to recognise the lofty nature of their calling. They're largely a pretty unlikeable bunch - prone to self-obsession, whinging and pettiness - more damningly, few of them write particularly well. While I love books, I've always loathed 'literary' fiction, regarding it as insular, pompous, myopic and dull. If nothing else, 'Mortification' confirmed that prejudice in spades.
2 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Dull, dull, dull,
By
This review is from: Mortification: Writers' Stories of their Public Shame (Hardcover)
Rather than 'Mortification' this book ought to have been entitled 'Irritation' or 'Mild embarrassment'. The majority of anecdotes contained within are only funny if you are in the business (I would imagine) and for me were wholly without humour or interest. The only one that had any real pathos was Simon Armitage's entry - and I've read that before in one of his books! The blurb made it sound so much better than it actually is - you have to ask yourself why second-hand copies are selling for 46p on Amazon...
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