LooseLeaves: The more embargoes and secrecy that surround a forthcoming book, the greater, it seems, is the likelihood of a leak.
With everything under wraps for the launch on October 5th of Peter Pan in Scarlet, the officially sanctioned sequel to JM Barrie's childhood classic by British author Geraldine McCaughrean, the New York Times, having got hold of a copy of her manuscript, this week let the cat out of the bag, to the consternation of publishers Oxford University Press in Britain and Simon & Schuster in the States.
The publishers, who say the NYT summary of the sequel contained some inaccuracies, are now trying to nail down how the leak occurred. While official pre-publication bumph has the new story set in the 1930s, according to the NYT it is set in 1926. Nana, the nursemaid dog, is now, apparently, dead. The Lost Boys are now the Old Boys, having grown up, as has Wendy, who is now a wife and mother - and something of a poet. To return to Neverland, they have to become children again, which they do with the help of a new fairy, Fireflyer. One thing that will be hard to take is that the original fairy, Tinker Bell, seems to have disappeared. And Neverland, when the travellers get there, seems to have changed into a polluted place, still inhabited by Peter who, thank God, still hasn't grown up, can't read or write and apparently - and wonderfully - announces: "I'm dying of boredom." True to form, however, he tells the old gang: "But now I have imagined you here, we can have the best adventures in the world" - which they apparently do.
Writing in the NYT, Dinita Smith says that, unlike other sequels, McCaughrean's is more in keeping with the style of Barrie's educated, British voice "and her Peter is truer to the original; as selfish and egomaniacal as ever".
Tracked down by the newspaper , McCaughrean said that after spending so much time rereading the original, she was surprised at how dark it was . If any Lost Boy got too big, Peter simply culled him, she said - "It's quite ruthless, not very politically correct". Hopefully, her new version is in that vein too.
McCaughrean was chosen to write the sequel in 2004, from almost 200 applicants, by Great Ormond Street children's hospital in London. Barrie bequeathed the copyright to the hospital in 1929.
A triple winner of the Whitbread Children's Book Award, McCaughrean will be in Ireland next month during the Children's Book Festival (October 4th-28th), at which she will give a reading.
[ www.childrensbooksireland.comOpens in new window ]
France loves O'Faolain
Nuala O'Faolain will be the star of the show on Paris's Avenue de Champs-Élysées next Tuesday when she's presented with the third Trophée Lire-Virgin Megastore-Le Furet du Nord award at a reception in the Virgin Megastore branch on the great Parisian avenue. It's that wonderful time of year the French have a special name for, la rentrée littéraire, when they publish vast numbers of new books and present lots of awards.
O'Faolain's books, including Are You Somebody? and My Dream of You, are published in France by Sabine Wespieser Éditeur. Céline Thoulouze, of the publishing house, said that while this prize wasn't a financial one, the domino effect on O'Faolain's popularity would be enormous: "She will sell a lot more books in France because of the visibility given by this award."
Thoulouze said the writer was particularly popular in France with women her own age. O'Faolain travels to France regularly and gives readings in libraries and bookshops. She is, says Thoulouze, very generous with herself: "People love that she comes across much as she is in her books."
Talking about reading
And now something for people so keen on their book club that they want to go a step further. One of the courses in UCD's forthcoming adult education programme is billed as being of special interest to people in book groups, the aim being to give folk a framework for how to discuss a book. Called Talking About Novels, Memoirs, Histories and Biographies, the course, costing €70, will be given by Kate Bateman and will run on Tuesdays from 7pm to 9pm, starting on the 26th of this month and continuing until October 17th. It will run again in the new year from January 30th to February 20th. Shape, structure, plot, genre, point of view, irony and a sense of place, period and class are all on the agenda.