‘A large sapphire in the lapel of a bold striped suit, a vivid silk tie so bright that it dazzles . . . on his fingers a collection of jewels: rubies, emeralds, diamonds . . .’
This is the man Jennie Erdal calls ‘Tiger’, the flamboyant figure at the centre of Ghosting, the strange and gripping story of the twenty years in which she became his ghost writer, pulling the wool over the eyes of reviewers and turning him into the literary lion he had always wanted to be.
They first met in London in the early 1980s, he a bold independent publisher, she a translator with a young family, excited when Tiger asked her to join his firm as a commissioning editor. So far, so ordinary perhaps – though there was nothing ordinary about Tiger, with his wild enthusiasms, weird obsessions and bizarre outfits, his absurdities and unexpected generosities, his sumptuous lifestyle and his office filled with beautiful and well-connected girls.
But Tiger didn’t want just to publish books, he wanted to write them, though his literary skills and fractured Palestinian English simply weren’t up to the job. Erdal needed an income and gradually over the years she was drawn into a weird, symbiotic relationship as she created a whole literary oeuvre in Tiger’s name, even turning his ludicrous plot ideas and sexual fantasies into novels that were seriously and admiringly reviewed.
There is much more to the story, but the real joy of Erdal’s brilliant memoir is in the telling. Ghosting is a wickedly funny book, but it is also a thoughtful look at deception and self-deception and the masks that most of us wear.
‘An unusually rich and entertaining memoir – hilarious, infuriating and unforgettable.’ Daily Telegraph
Tiger the Literary Lion
One day in 1981 a young woman found herself travelling from her Scottish home to London to meet a publisher. So far so predictable perhaps. She had read Russian at university and had recently...
Read more‘How different from anything I have ever read . . .’
‘I adored Jennie Erdal’s book – how different from anything I have ever read. Warmly admiring of all the Slightly Foxed team.’ J. Cawthorne, Suffolk
Read more‘An unusually rich and entertaining memoir – hilarious, infuriating and unforgettable . . .’
‘Erdal is gossipy but good-natured, and maintains a stalwart fondness for her boss . . . their partnership has generated an unusually rich and entertaining memoir – hilarious, infuriating and...
Read more‘I shall call you Tiger’
Jennie Erdal wrote letters, speeches and articles for a flamboyant London publisher. But when he asked her to write a novel – a passionate romance – in his name she faced her biggest challenge ....
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Suspenseful, controversial, and beautifully written, Ghosting is the most penetrating portrait yet of a mysterious profession.
Jennie Erdal set a benchmark for candour and wisdom when she wrote about her 15-year association with Niam Attallah in the brilliant memoir Ghosting.
A little masterpiece about a relationship, superbly written in a down to earth style, and as enjoyable as a good novel.
If this were simply a ghost-and-tell book, it would be of interest only to a very limited number of the London literati. But it is much, much more than that; it is a beautifully composed memoir; sometimes rather desperate, sometimes very funny, of an extraordinary symbiotic relationship between two very different people.
Jennie Erdal has written a book that is hugely enjoyable to read, touches on profound questions about language and writing and provides a vivid and often affectionate, but fairly merciless, portrait of an exasperating, despotic, self-deluding but in the end likable figure, with the tantrums of a small child and the plumage of a peacock.
Wonderful. . . . It is also uncommonly wise in the ways of writing.
An astonishing, very fun true story.
A delight . . . Erdal is discerning about her motives for ghosting–money, a compulsion to please, and a cloistered Scottish Presbyterian childhood that made the ‘irony and absurdity’ of her job seem not just tolerable but glamorous.
Wonderful. . . . It is also uncommonly wise in the ways of writing.
Along with thoughtful and illuminating reflections on language, writing, and the emotional costs of lying . . . [Ghosting is] filled with poignantly hilarious scenes in which Erdal and her boss, attempting to pursue a common goal from utterly divergent sensibilities, try to reach a meeting of the minds.
All I knew about the memoir was that it was about ghost writing, and that Slightly Foxed Editions pretty much never put a foot wrong. And Ghosting turns out to be no exception – what an extraordinary book . . . Erdal writes so well about her inner philosophy – and, in the same volume, writing movingly about her childhood and her divorce, as well as drawing a portrait of the outlandish, absurd, and appalling Tiger. And she even finds pity for him.
Ghosting holds together many disparate elements brilliantly and it’s another success for the Slightly Foxed Editions series.