Doris Lessing - The Diaries of Jane Somers

The American publisher was asked why more had not been done to promote The Diary of a Good Neighbour , which in the opinion of the enquirer, a literary critic, was a good novel, but the reply was that there was nothing to promote, no ‘personality’, no photograph, no story. In other words, in order to sell a book, in order to bring it to attention, you need more than the book, you need the television appearance. Many writers who at the start resisted have thought it over, have understood that this, now, is how the machinery works, and have decided that if – in fact, even if it is not acknowledged – they have become part of the sales departments of their publishers, then they will do the job as well as they can. It is remarkable how certain publishers wince and suffer when writers insist on using the right words to describe what is happening. In very bad taste, they think it is, to talk in this way. This attitude is a relic of the gentleman publisher, a contradiction which has bedevilled the publishing of serious (as distinct from commercial) books. On the one hand, a book has to be promoted: oh, but what a distasteful business it is! One of the problems of the (‘serious’ as distinct from the ‘commercial’) author is this attitude on the part of his or her publisher. You are pressured to do interviews, television and so on, but you are conscious that the more you agree, the more you are earning his or her contempt. (But looking back it seems to me that men publishers are more guilty of this hypocrisy than women publishers.) I have sometimes gloomily had to conclude that the only writer some publishers could really respect would be one who wrote a thirty-page masterpiece, reviewed by perhaps three critics, every ten years: this paragon would live on a mountain top somewhere and never, ever, give interviews. Now, there’s a real artist!

If Jane Somers had only written one serious novel, which sold, as first novels do, 2,800 copies in America and 1,600 copies in Britain, by now it would be remaindered and pulped, and she would be cherishing half a dozen fan letters.

But she wrote a second. Surely this time people must see who the real author was? But no.

Predictably, people who had liked the first book were disappointed by the second. And vice versa. Never mind about the problems of publishers: the main problem of some writers is that most reviewers and readers want you to go on writing the same book.

By now, the results of friends’ indiscretions meant that some people in the trade knew who Jane Somers was and – I am touched by this – clearly decided it was my right to be anonymous if I wished. Some, too, seemed inclined retrospectively to find merit.

One of my aims has more than succeeded. It seems I am like Barbara Pym! The books are fastidious, well written, well crafted. Stylish. Unsparing, unsentimental and deeply felt. Funny, too. On the other hand they are sentimental, and mawkish. Mere soap opera. Trendy.

I am going to miss Jane Somers.

Unexpected little sidelights. One review was a nasty little reminder of how many people reach instinctively for their revolvers at the mention of something they don’t like. From the hard left (and, perhaps, not so hard left: it is a disease that spreads easily), dislike of Jane Somers’s politics was characteristically expressed in the demand that such books should not be published. Just like the hard (and sometimes not so hard) right. ‘The publishers should be sued for publishing this book.’ (Not Jane Somers’s, one of Lessing’s.) Alas, poor Liberty, the prognosis is not very good.

Finally, a treasured memory, which I think is not out of place here. Imagine the book editor of a famous magazine (let us call it Pundit ) standing in his office with books sent him for review stacked all over the table, on the floor, everywhere. He is harassed; he is desperate. He deals me out books to review, and mostly I hand them back again. Then he gives me another: ‘Please review this book,’ he cries. ‘No one wants to review it. What am I going to do? Please, please say yes.’

‘But it is a very bad book,’ I say, returning it to him. ‘Just ignore it.’

‘But we can’t ignore it. We have to review it.’

‘Why do you? It will take up the space that could be used for a good book.’

‘The Viewer has reviewed it, they gave it all that space, so we must.’

‘You must be joking,’ I said, thinking that he was, but he wasn’t.

Doris Lessing

July 1984

The first part is a summing-up of about four years. I was not keeping a diary. I wish I had. All I know is that I see everything differently now from how I did while I was living through it.

My life until Freddie started to die was one thing, afterwards another. Until then I thought of myself as a nice person. Like everyone, just about, that I know. The people I work with, mainly. I know now that I did not ask myself what I was really like, but thought only about how other people judged me.

When Freddie began to be so ill my first idea was: this is unfair. Unfair to me, I thought secretly. I partly knew he was dying, but went on as if he wasn’t. That was not kind. He must have been lonely. I was proud of myself because I went on working through it all, ‘kept the money coming in’ – well, I had to do that, with him not working. But I was thankful I was working because I had an excuse not to be with him in that awfulness. We did not have the sort of marriage where we talked about real things. I see that now. We were not really married. It was the marriage most people have these days, both sides trying for advantage. I always saw Freddie as one up.

The word cancer was mentioned once. The doctors said to me, cancer, and now I see my reaction meant they would not go on to talk about whether to tell him or not. I don’t know if they told him. Whether he knew. I think he did. When they took him into hospital I went every day, but I sat there with a smile, how are you feeling? He looked dreadful. Yellow. Sharp bones under yellow skin. Like a boiling fowl. He was protecting me. Now , I can see it. Because I could not take it. Child-wife.

When at last he died, and it was over, I saw how badly he had been treated. His sister was around sometimes. I suppose they talked. Her manner to me was like his. Kindly. Poor Janna, too much must not be expected.

Since he died I have not seen her, nor any of that family. Good riddance. I mean, that is what they think of me. I would not have minded talking to his sister about Freddie, for I did not know much about him, not really. But it is a bit late for that.

When he died, and I found I was missing him so much, I wanted to know about times in his life he hardly ever mentioned. Like being a soldier in the war. He said he hated it. Five years. Nineteen to twenty-four. They were wonderful years for me. I was nineteen in 1949, beginning to forget the war, and making my career.

And yet we were close. We had all that good sex. We were perfectly adjusted in that, if nothing else. Yet we could not talk to each other. Correction. Did not talk to each other. Correction. He could not talk to me because when he started to try I shied away. I think the truth is he was a serious inward sort of person. Just the kind of man I would give anything for now.

When he was dead and I was going mad for sex, because for ten years I had always had anything I wanted there for the asking, I was sleeping about, I don’t like to think how many. Or who. Once at an office party I looked around and saw I had had sex with half the men there. That gave me a shock. And always I had hated it: being a bit tight and after a good meal I am in a hurry, sex. It was not their fault.