Arlington Park - What a great big pile of crap, worst book I have had the misfortune to pick up in a long long time

[Oliveoil]

One of my NY resolutions is to read more books (now that dd2 seems to realise - at 3.6yrs!!! - that at bedtime she REMAINS in her bed in the evening) and I have been doing just that

well

Arlington Park

I forced myself to get to the end

what an obnoxious moaning bunch of women

I do not know ANYBODY like this, it makes out motherhood and relationships to be crap

yes you may have the odd day when you could easily headbutt the wall, but purlease

hated the writing style and skimmed it over and over again

anybody want it FFP? before I lob it out of the window?

Haven't read the whole thread, or indeed this book, but someone gave me her book about motherhood when I had my first child, and already depressed this almost put me over the edge - so have no desire to read more...
Also, entirely agree about books whose grown-up male characters have names like Benedict, and who live in vast places on low-paying jobs.
Olive Oyl - lol at the extra book for the free postage - how often have I done that... Am convinced that that extra book is how Amazon's fortune is made!

"Most married male writers do have them - they are just generally called wives"

Oh, let's generalise hugely, shall we?

Let's try: "30- and 40-something female novelists have indulgent hubbies with hedge funds so that they can stay at home and indulge their little writing fantasy with no financial pressure to contribute to the family purse."

Lazycow's generalization still sounds truer than yours I'm afraid.

Well, my DW would find the idea that she waits on me hand and foot very amusing...

JK Rowling did ok without a hedgefund manager

anyhooo, does anyone want the book?

will post from work tomorrow, let me know

Oh Xenia - that really isn't kind, you know, to give A Life's Work to new parents.

JKR is the exception to the normal writer's life in sooooooooo many ways! It's a bit like saying Bill Gates is your typical guy who works in IT

Rachel has a fan club on facebook. Have a look.

well she was a normal writer when she started off

i nmever ifnished it
what a load of miserabel cows the women were

Starting off isn't hard, though, it's maintaining a career without financial support from your publishers - or somewhere else - which is impossible. That's why so many authors fall by the wayside after their 2nd or 3rd book.

But fair point that she wasn't hyped from book 1 but only after a couple of successes.

I forced myself to finish it

was stuck in traffic, felt like getting off and lying under the bus

I thought a Life's work was very good, very well written. I thought AP was duller than I expected but do think she writes quite well. I wonder what authors ilke her earn and how many copies they sell?

I think she'll do well in the long run. One of them will be made into a TV drama. They're right for a certain type of BBC three parter. In fact, if they had slightly more plot, it would be happening now.

She has a recogniseable voice and a loyal and probably growing following. She's got talent. She can enrage people and make readers remember descriptions of rain. She can describe the mundane in ways that aren't mundane.

I don't like the books much but I can see why people do.

Well she's doing well so far isn't she. I mean she's worked solidly as a writer since Saving Agnes, which was what twelve/eleven years ago, maybe even more.

She does write well, and she's uncompromising and often prickly and unattractive, and has an angry heart.

Like I said before, I admire her writing, but I don't much like it.

I was thinking about what Xenia said about how much she earns. I don't think she makes the bestseller lists but she could, one day, be as successful as someone like Zoe ????, the one who wrote the book about the teacher who had an affair with a pupil. What's her name? I think she'll one day write a book that clicks with a wider public.

Zoe Heller

A lot of quite famous writer's done make much money at it which always interests me. I can't remember where I read that. I wrote 30 books but not novels and those aren't very well paid.

No, there's not much money in writing.

depends what you do/how you do though doesn't it. Film rights to a book are worth a lot. Or serialisations in papers etc.

I read Arlington Park. Lots of the book was very relevant to me (the rain in particular ), but I disliked it. I admire Cusk's writing in a purely technical sense, but I can't get absorbed in her books as she somehow makes me far too aware that I am in the act of reading. Most worryingly of all, I don't believe in her characters and in character driven books I'd say that is a pretty major failing.

Patsy

Sure. But if you looked at all the novelists in the country, you'd see that many of them make very little. Some do okay and a few are very rich. It's very much a pyramid and at the bottom, many people are very broke or have other jobs alongside the writing. Poets for example make very little indeed. Most books aren't made into films. Writing for TV pays better but there are fewer TV writers that there are novelists.

NKF is right. Someone can be seemingly "doing well" (4 or 5 novels) without having made much money out of it - often they've only been able to stick at it because the financial pressure is taken off elsewhere. People who have to "get a day job" find it impedes the writing and before long they aren't writing any more.

And when I say "not much money" I mean less a year than the whingey-est underpaid 24-year-old whinger in the publicity department of any major publisher (they have a facebook group too )

Kate Mosse is an interesting case. She was a bit of a Rachel Cusk type novelist (midlist, read by women etc) at one point. And then she deliberately changed tack and wrote Labyrinth. She says in interviews that she wanted to write an exciting adventure story but I suspect she got sick of good reviews and no cash.

It was only with her second that she switched to thriller/adventure, wasn't it? Not read it but isn't "Crucifix Lane" her second?

Not sure there is a midlist any more, not in the sense there used to be.