Novelists are just so write-on

Damian Thompson

Damian Thompson is Editor of Telegraph Blogs and a columnist for the Daily Telegraph. He was once described by The Church Times as a "blood-crazed ferret". He is on Twitter as HolySmoke. His new book is called The Fix: How addiction is invading our lives and taking over your world.

 

 

Novelists are just so write-on


A novelist called Joan Brady is fuming about plans to open a branch of Costa Coffee in the Devon town of Totnes. Talking to the Independent, she bangs on about “corporate profits”, though she didn’t seem too worried about those when she won the Whitbread Prize in 1993. (Whitbread, incidentally, owns Costa.) I’ve met lots of novelists in my time, and with one exception – my friend Allan Massie – I’ve never heard them express anything but disdain for the capitalism that sells their books. Perhaps, like Lefty peers, they should be disbarred from voting in general elections. Evelyn Waugh, rather impressively, disbarred himself, explaining that he would never presume to advise his sovereign on her choice of ministers.