Reading the acknowledgements at the end of a book is the closest I suppose I'll ever get to being a Peeping Tom.
Writers, usually exhausted by this point in the book's life, have a tendency to gush, something I have written about - mocked might be a better word - in the past. When they ought to put themselves in cold storage for a few weeks to calm down, instead they compose these effusions when they are suffering a literary equivalent of heat stroke.
You can tell a lot about a writer from these pages, which is why they are my first port of call. One I particularly liked recently was in Eliza Robertson's debut collection of stories, Wallflowers, in which she thanks her family - "if you were any more supportive, you would be writing these stories yourselves".
Turning to Donald S Murray's Sy Story, A Portrait of Stornoway Harbour, I was struck by the tribute he paid his long-suffering wife: "How any individual can live with a writer is truly beyond my ken."
Already some of you are nodding your head so vigorously dandruff is creating a snowstorm. As those who share a home with a writer know, there is something of the druid about this profession: the need for absolute silence at certain times of day, the strange rituals and peculiar garments, and the emanation of weird noises and occasional shrieks from behind closed doors as they make supplications to a higher power or call the Talk Talk helpline.
Reading David Lodge's new memoir, I was reminded of the demands writers often make on their family. A father of three, Lodge admits that his workload, both academic and creative, would not have been possible without his wife's dogged hard work. When their first child arrived, he was determined not to be afflicted by the blight of the pram in the hall, which is to aspiring writers what Giant Hogweed is to an allotment. Yet though he worked at weekends and in evenings on novels and papers and scripts, he sounds a domestic dream compared to the likes of Kingsley Amis who insisted on keeping to his writing schedule even on Christmas Day, and snarled when interrupted by his children.
Yet many people work anti-social hours, expecting their partners and offspring to accommodate their schedules and absences. Is a writer any more challenging than the doctor or businessman thirled to their work? Perhaps because their home is their office writers are more conspicuously unavailable, distracted or unhelpful than those who have a clear work-home division. The novelist who passes her toddler in the hall without noticing that he needs changing, thus leaving this chore to her partner, is a far greater source of annoyance than if she were working in the library and unaware of the smell or cries at home. Even more troublesome, though, is the writer's see-saw moods and these, no doubt, are the source of the myth that they are exceptionally challenging housemates. Ordinary highs and lows can be exaggerated for those whose work is solitary, and for the most part poorly paid. The easily dejected will find a source of misery in every prize that does not longlist them, every bursary application that is rejected, each book festival that ignores their presence.
But again, writers are no different from other workers, who have their equivalent hopes and disappointments, not to mention the torments of office life and colleagues. The impossible poet or novelist would probably be equally demanding if he or she were a dentist. It is temperament, not occupation, that makes for difficulties. In fact, I'd go further. There are advantages to being shackled to a writer, even though none of them is perfect. They are always in for the parcel delivery; often delighted for an excuse to nip out and get the milk; and happy to empty the dishwasher while contemplating how to word the next paragraph. Indeed you could say - and I do say - that they are ideal people to live with.
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