I've been trying to call in favours, use any contacts I can to get coverage for Lorna's book. Yesterday I introduced her to two writers, one whom I've known a long time and the other only met a couple of times quite recently. Then after the three of us went for drink with Rina, Century's genius publicist.
At one point the the guy I've known a long time said that when we met - as students in the late Seventies, so towards the end of the hippy era - I'd introduced him to an entirely new sensibility, which he called 'romantic cynicism'. The other guy seemed surprised and said that he hadn't detected a trace of cynicism in my book?
That's right. But I think that The Secret History of the World could only have been written by someone who's travelled to the far reaches of cynicism and passed out the other side.
I like that idea - romantic cynicism. There's something very sweet about it, although sweet is totally the wrong word.
There's a very fine line between cynicism and realism, and I seem to cross it on a regular basis.
Posted by: Stef | June 26, 2008 at 10:07 AM