Any Human Face launch

Any Human Face had its official UK launch yesterday evening in the Travel Bookshop, a place I wholeheartedly recommend for all your reading needs should you be in or near Notting Hill, and probably worth a specific trip for. (It is a travel bookshop, after all.) I was accompanied by Simon Barraclough, who pulled some fine Italian-focused work from his poetic hat, and introduced by my friend and agent, the poet Isobel Dixon, so I couldn't have been happier. I also had the chance not only to see some old friends - including one I haven't seen for 33 years (hello, Sara!) - some newer ones (hello, Katy!) and some very new ones ( hello Essie!), but also to cement some previously virtual ones (hello Rob! hello Anne!).

You can see more photos of the event here.

Proof...

(Whoops! Sorry. Wrong photograph...)

...that Clarissa and I weren't reading to an empty room at my launch last week.

Go, little monster

Well, it’s launched. In Rome, at least. My dear friend, Paola, lent me her studio, Dermot from the Almost Corner Bookshop arrived with two large boxes of copies, the fridge was filled with wine, the pizza bianca was hot from the baker’s oven down the road and cut into palm-sized squares, the local olives were gleaming in their little bowls. The weather was, after a week of almost constant rain, mild and dry. It was just after six. The (my) mood was tense but optimistic. At first, there was nobody and then there were a few close friends and then, almost too suddenly to grasp, the room was packed with people. Dermot had the large square table, stacked with virgin copies of Little Monsters, looking splendid though worryingly many (to start with). I had a small round table for signing at, and felt more like a card-less medium –Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante – than a novelist (also to start with). At this point, I hadn’t had a single drink. I’d spent most of the afternoon running pointless little errands, or useful errands that should have been run days before, ideally by someone else, while I practised my signing technique. Well, you learn by doing. By seven, an awful lot of copies had been signed and it was for time for the little presentation that Clarissa and I had organised. That was when I realised I couldn’t find my copy.

What makes my copy special is that a) two of the pages are ripped, so it’s defective; b) it has pencilled scribbles all over the extract I intended to read; and c) it has MY COPY written in felt tip on its cover. I’d left it somewhere during the first quiet moments, and hadn’t seen it since. This gave me the chance to behave like a teacher, which was just what I needed to calm my nerves. ‘Has anyone seen my copy?’ I bellowed from the staircase we’d decided to use as a slightly vertiginous podium (see photo). ‘One of you must have bought it!’ I cried. Pamela, with great generosity and briskness of spirit, offered me hers. Then: ‘Eccolo!’ said Renata, waving my copy in the air. ‘Eccolo!’ And there it was. MY COPY. Clarissa read two extracts, and I read one. It was wonderful to hear what I’d written being read with Clarissa’s habitual passion and intelligence; it was even wonderful to hear Jozef talking, through me, and to hear people laugh at exactly the moment I’d hoped they would. I can’t wait to do it again.

At this point I decided I could have a drink or two, and my later signatures are distinguished by a dramatic falling off in penmanship, made up for by LARGER LETTERS. Towards the end of the evening, I left the studio to stand in Vicolo dell’Atleta for a little fresh air and my mobile started beeping frantically as messages came in. One of them was from Isobel Dixon, my friend and agent. She said I should get someone to read it out, but hardly anyone, alas!, was left, so I’ll post it here instead. It’s very touching. Charles! Wonderful author, I am so proud of you, honoured to be your agent, and gutted not to be there. Much love, Isobel. Thank you! In fact, my thanks to everyone who made it and my thanks to all those who would have liked to be there, and couldn’t make it. I know you were with me in spirit. I raised my glass to you all.

PS To end on a venal note, we sold around 70 copies, and still have some wine left. I don’t know which of these two facts is the more extraordinary.

Rome launch. Today.

Charles Lambert

and the Almost Corner Bookshop
would be delighted if you could
attend the launch of

Little Monsters

in Vicolo dell’Atleta 5,
Trastevere, Rome
on Friday, 28 March 2008,
6.30 – 8.30 pm

New Writing 15

The Prince of Wales Suite at the British Council HQ must be the worst place in the civilised world for a book launch. It's a low-ceilinged box of a room, reminiscent of a Travelodge lounge or provincial tax office with the partition walls removed; it has carpet (or the sense of carpet; beige carpet) and concrete pillars dividing the space into two and a general mood of sixties brutalism about it. The acoustics seem designed specifically to muffle the human voice. Add to this a microphone that doesn't work, and you have what ought to be a blueprint for disappointment.

So it's both surprising and gratifying that the NW15 launch on Tuesday was great fun. Bernardine Evaristo and Maggie Gee, the anthology editors, were delightful and attentive hosts. The food was good (the British Council tends to cater well: I remember a conference party in Bologna some years ago with grissini swathed in prosciutto and forms of parmigiano dotted around the table), the Pimms flowed copiously from fruit-filled jug to glass. In the absence of the starrier contributors (Doris Lessing, Julian Barnes, et al.) we lesser lights revolved and networked as nature intended us to do.

It wasn't all alcohol, finger food and the exchanging of cards, of course. Three readings were given by, respectively, Ursula Holden, a drily observed and often moving essay about the business of writing, Karen McCarthy, a witty language-loving piece delivered with great verve and skill, and Tod Hartman, the funniest story in the book and read with increasing relish as the audience responded with hoots of laughter. Karen, clearly used to performing, was unperturbed by the lack of a microphone, while the sheer quality of the work of Ursula and Tod (yes, we're on first name terms) was enough to overcome the technical shortcomings of the evening.

I'm looking forward now to seeing Patricia Duncker's teachers' notes for my piece, an account of a pick-up that went wrong in a mild sort of way. It shares with Tod's story a sprinkling of French and a reference to a post-modern philosophe, but isn't half as funny.