The Penguin Blog

The End of the Wait … Almost

One of the considerable perks of working for a publishing house is getting to read books before anybody else does. You are in the unique and enviable position of reading something at once highly anticipated and yet completely unknown to you. Your opinion is completely yours alone; unswayed yet by the copy, the reviews or the nagging twittering of people like me. Early last year I felt very lucky indeed to be one of the first readers of Joshua Ferris’s remarkable new novel. The experience was, I can tell you, exhilarating.

As you may have now guessed from the previous sentence the second considerable perk is, of course, the ability to lord it up over all the regular, non-publishing types who actually have to wait until the books are in the shops to read them. But alas, I have received my comeuppance. The shoe is now on the other foot (or the book in the other hand) as not even I (or the plural ‘we’ of Penguin) can get our hands on an advance copy of Andrew Rawnsley’s sensational new book The End of the Party.

Publishing on Monday, Rawnsley’s definitive account of the rise and fall of New Labour is the culmination of three years of research, a rigorous edit and the type of legal read that would have made Jackie Chiles wince. The explosive extracts in the Observer last weekend, a certain Taiwanese animation and the extensive front page coverage of the book has certainly whet my appetite. As did Rawnsley’s bravura performance on Newsnight this week. And yet, And yet …

And yet, just like everyone else in this country, from Gordon Brown down, I will have to wait until Monday morning to read all the extraordinary analysis and revelations packed into The End of the Party. And once fully digested and discussed, all revelations revealed, I can once again add a swagger to my step, a tongue to my cheek and set about castigating my friends over the fact they haven’t read the new Julie Orringer yet.

 

Matt Clacher
Marketing Executive

Andrew Rawnsley's editor speaks...

There's been a lot of controversy this week around Bullygate and Andrew Rawnsley's book The End of the Party, but the odd thing is that almost no one has seen it, let alone read it. The book is strictly embargoed because of the Observer serialization which concludes this Sunday. But it does exist, promise! - I have six copies locked away in my drawer.

Getting The End of the Party ready for publication has broken all the usual publishing rules. It normally takes about 10 months from delivery of manuscript to publication day, but in this case we’ve collapsed the process to just four months. Quite a feat, especially when you consider how long the book is (350,000 words) and how complicated it is (the index runs to almost 40 pages).

Andrew Rawnsley wrote most of the book over last summer, and delivered his manuscript on the exact day called for by the contract: 2nd November. I suppose that put us on out mettle right from the start – he’d kept his (much more difficult!) side of the bargain, to the letter, and now we had to keep ours.

The editing process was pretty easy. He’s such a fluent writer and had such a clear vision of the book that there were no structural problems at all. It was mostly a question of looking out for repetition and asking him to clarify the occasional oddity.

As everyone knows who’s been awake this week, there are some astounding revelations in the book, and detailed accounts of the actions of a large cast of characters. Of course the book went through a rigorous legal process.

The legal process is often rotten for the editor as he tries to cajole a reluctant writer to make changes. But in this case it turned out to be fairly painless. We had the occasional delicate negotiation around such sensitive subjects as Tony Blair’s Christianity and Maggie Darling’s earthy language, but on matters of substance Rawnsley’s sources were impeccable. Virtually all were first hand (’24 carat’ as he calls them) from people who were in the room at the time the incident took place, and many were backed by taped conversations.

I’ve now read the book three times, more than any human being could be expected to – I can virtually recite chunks of it. And even third time round certain stories in it still caused a sharp intake of breath.

Tony Lacey, Editorial Director, Penguin