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Fine writing and theme – but is it quite a novel? And, perhaps more pertinently, is it quite ethical?
I read this first quite a long time ago, when it was first published, 1991, and it stayed on my shelves as I thought at some point it might be a re-read. A recent book club choice, its time came, and I found myself not quite so sure the second time around.
Burn was certainly a writer of intelligence, provoking unease in the reader, in part to do with his often unsettling subject matter, but I suspect he is more of a sociologist, a philosopher exploring themes, and, of course, an insightful, incisive journalist (he was) more than a writer of novels.
Alma Cogan was, in the 50s and early 60s, very much a star, in a kind of wholesome family entertainment way which hardly seems to exist anymore. Known as ‘the girl with the giggle in her voice’, she was 4 times the winner of The New Musical Express’s Female Vocalist of the Year competition. Born in Whitechapel in 1932 to a fiercely ambitious Romanian Jewish stage mother, Alma was quickly winning contests, and famous for her glamour. By the early 60’s, with the rise of The Beatles, R+B and teen culture, she was falling out of mainstream favour, though once she had been at the epicentre of popular culture high society. She died young of ovarian cancer in 1966. Quite quickly, a fan culture grew up around her, and she was seen as iconic of a time and place – a little search online reveals her fan industry is still active.
Burn’s book assumes she did not die, and is, in the late 1980s, living a fading, out of the limelight life. The Alma of Burn’s book looks back on her own life, examining a Britain which has gone, where the glamour of the limelight hides the darker side of celebrity and the voracious, obsessive world of fandom. What has gone is not the darker side of celebrity – that has, of course, grown, it is the innocence that believes the shiny face of glamour is real. This Alma is a more intelligent, self-aware and even self-mocking voice than the ‘real Alma’ image presented at the time.
The book disturbed me for a couple of reasons, despite Burn’s brilliance as a writer analysing the spirit of the times through a cleverly structured invention. The book won the Whitbread Prize in the year of its publication. Although he doesn’t play fast and loose with the real Alma’s life, and although it is absolutely made clear at the start of the book that she died in 1966 so all else is invention, the less than flattering making fast and loose with Alma and her relationship with her mother, may well have been highly disturbing to surviving family members.
The second reason, is that as part of Burn’s examination of the darker side of celebrity itself – not so much the darker side of the celebrities, more the dark nature of us, our obsession with it, and our obsession with the seamy and the sordid – obsession with those who become famous for their misdeeds, rather than their talents – he weaves in The Moors Murders of 1966, and particularly the murder of one of the children, Lesley Ann Downey, with a song of Alma’s. The use of a real event – and even the transcript of the tape of her killing which Hindley and Brady made, within the book, seems distasteful, somehow a further abuse of a life cut terribly and violently short, used as a novelist’s device
This book is a very pertinent examination of the whole industry of fame, celebrity culture and how it has changed and developed, and a microscopic dissection of the shadow side of celebrity, the vicarious and slightly sinister quality of fandom. It certainly fulfils one purpose of art – to shock out of complacency, and to force those who encounter it to think, reflect, ponder, and become discomfited, uncomfortable. It does not, at all achieve another purpose which is found in some art – that is, to raise, inspire and aspire to something finer in our nature.
3 ½ rounded to 4 – it is a much more superior novel than ‘okay’ but ‘like’ is not really an appropriate response!
Addendum to review published on the Amazons
It took me an age from reading the book, firstly, to review it at all, because I needed some time to disentangle myself from the reading and reflecting experience enough to assess it. And then it took longer to decide whether it would make this blog or not.
Regular readers know I only review here what I recommend and say ‘read/listen to/watch this’ about, and that I don’t post reviews on here for what I’m personally neutral or negative about – though that indeed may happen on the Amazons.
The problem with the Burn book is that though there is much I admire about it, the reading experience raised a lot of discomfort, distaste and often painful reflection and analysis, which has continued to disturb and perplex me. It is that, the undeniable potency of the book, what Burn is saying, and how he says it, that in the end earns a guarded place here.
I’ve spend days wrestling with that old chestnut which I’m sure we all do to death in our heads not to mention in the cups discussions, essays, dissertations and the like ‘What Is Art FOR, what Is Its Purpose’
There are of course a multiplicity of answers, but one, for me, IS that it makes me look, think, feel, reflect, experience anew.Sometimes that experience may be uplifting, life-enhancing, about growth, development and possibility – and sometimes it may be absolutely the reverse, a kind of diminishment, a kind of distaste, despair – but also a daring to stare into the face of a teeming darkness which is also part of our complex humanity; perhaps a place too terrible to visit often.
The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living
Damien Hirst website
Unsurprisingly, Burn was a friend of that artist who has never been afraid to shock (is he charlatan, is he some kind of truth teller?) Damien Hirst
Burn was a lacerating writer whose work is always dark. He was notable for writing not only fiction (which he used to explore cultural and ethical themes, reflections on the times, the role of the media, spin, fake and deception, as here) but true-crime investigative journalism books. He focused on those whose psyche was indelibly dark and steeped in psychopathology, such as the Wests, the Yorkshire Ripper. These are places I have no desire to go, a darkness too far for anything which might be personally necessary to know.
I am much more interested in the nuances of crossing the line, rather than the extremes which I can’t, or don’t want to, in any way, examine. That is why crime novel about psychopaths and extreme aberrant violence does not interest me. And crime novels about how those who are cut from recognisably the same cloth as I am, do. That, I find fascinating, in a kind of more day-to-day exploration of shadow.
Extreme pathology presented as entertainment is not for me – but Burn is not really doing that. So he throws me back on that old chestnut – why did the writer write this, and does a better purpose excuse unspeakable horrors in art. Pass. Pass, Pass on that one, caught on the fence of don’t know
King Lear has the power to shock because the blinding of Gloucester is meant to provoke our pity and our horror, not just fill us with half revulsed half indulged delight in the gruesome. Plus, I suppose also, the safety of knowing this is unreal, and the blinded one and the blinder are actors, after all. But, what about the newsreel and selfie pictures of horrors as they unfold? We need to know what happens, and the knowledge may shake out out of innocence, may wake us to positive response and action – but how quickly do we end up crossing a line where we are viewing the horror of real agony and suffering for some sort of titillation, some sort of over indulgence of our feelings of revulsion, some kind of version of sentimentality, even?
Maybe we are only the thinnest of whiskers away from the crowds who filled the Coliseum to watch gladiators fight to the death for our entertainment, from those who gathered on Tyburn Hill and at the foot of the Guillotine to watch public execution.
So, I do believe this book should be here, for the days and days it has snarled at me, 
snagged me, needled me, and continues to do so still to produce something half book review and part unresolved rant
Reblogged this on Book Reviews and Author Interviews.
Really interesting review. I’m never sure about appropriating real events for fiction, for the reasons you mention. Andrew O’Hagan’s Personality explored similar themes through an Alma Cogan-type character, I think it made for a more comfortable read than this sounds. But then as you say, I wonder if the discomfort, implicating the reader in the processes of fame, is part of the point? I’ll definitely take a look at this, but with an awareness that I may not enjoy it!
Thank you Madame Bibi – I might, likewise, investigate the book you mention. And, yes I do think that Burn deliberately sets out to discomfort the reader, though I still am not entirely sure of the rightness of approach. I discovered, for example, that Alma’s family objected to the mis-representation of family relationships; her sister brought a case and there was some judgement about not having considered the hurt to the family. And, as for how any of the families who suffered from those murders felt, if they ever read the book and suddenly discovered what was there, particularly if it was Lesley Ann Downey’s family, it doesn’t bear thinking about.
So in my mind there is a difference between writing something very obviously based on a real person, but to use their individual names, and those court transcriptions of the actual tapes, is quite chilling. But I can’t deny the value of the dilemmas Burn sets up for the reader, and I guess this is in part why the book got the Whitbread, because of its wider dimensions
I think that hurt to the family is too high a price to pay for a novel. Also, it doesn’t give them a choice as to whether they are involved or not. Do you think the wider dimensions that the Whitbread recognised could have been just as thoroughly explored through a fictionalised account? I would certainly hope so.
Personally, yes, I thin k they could have been (explored through a fictionalised account) The other thought which has been occupying me more than a little, involves class. Was it assumed that the parents of those children were not in the main of a class which might be expected to be the natural audience of literary fiction, so perhaps they had no awareness of this novel. So, she see, it continues to snag away at me, and (part of my aim in this post) also engages me in further dialogue with others about these complex subjects. I’m not sure where you are based, Madame Bibi, but in the UK there is a radio programme called ‘The Moral Maze’ which explores subtle gradations about all kinds of ethical conundrums and debates, that we might think are very clear cut. It’s challenging and discomforting precisely because it takes the listener out some of easy certainties, and I quite like (in an uneasy way) being outside my certainty comfort zone!
If the thought process was that the families would be unaware of the novel and therefore didn’t matter, that is deeply disturbing. I live in London, but I’ve never listened to Moral Maze. I do like to be challenged about my assumptions so I just checked iplayer and there are 112 episodes available – I will get listening!
Of course I have no kind of insight into what the author might have been thinking, but just could not get out of my mind ‘what would it be like, to pick up a novel about Alma Cogan and find it was about something else as well’ I guess there was perhaps a lack of realisation that the book might be personally disturbing to a reader (judging by the fact that Alma Cogan’s sister tried to get a BBC Radio adaptation, partly adapted from the novel, about stage mothers, banned:
The novel Alma Cogan by Gordon Burn presents an imaginary middle-aged Cogan looking back on life and fame in the 1980s. It claimed to be based on true events and real people, except for her early death, and won the Whitbread Book Award in 1991. Partly adapted from this novel was the BBC Radio 4 series Stage Mother, Sequinned Daughter (2002) by Annie Caulfield. Cogan’s sister Sandra felt that it misrepresented both Cogan and her mother, and tried unsuccessfully to get it banned. Eventually the Broadcasting Standards Commission ruled that the BBC apologise to Sandra for failing to respect the feelings of the surviving family members.
Admittedly, this was a part adaptation of the book, not this book itself.
And, you know, I continued to think about the question you posed me earlier – ” Do you think the wider dimensions that the Whitbread recognised could have been just as thoroughly explored through a fictionalised account” and, I’m changing my mind – (without necessarily letting the book, or Burn, off the hook) Part of the ‘wider concern’ is the whole debate about using real people. And, I guess the closer in time the book/play/film etc is to the people and events, the more disturbing it becomes.
For example, I have no problem with the fact that Shakespeare’s Scottish play apparently travesties the real person – the events were several hundreds of years before he wrote the play as well – though I do know at least one person who feels the insult to Macbeth (though as far as I know he has no personal connection eg not a descendent).
That’s very interesting – the Richard III Society frequently point out that our view of the king is coloured by Shakespeare’s play far more than historical fact.
Fiction can have such power, the stories can speak so much louder than facts without a narrative.
Does the problem of using real people in fictive works lessen if the person is no longer in living memory? I’m not sure, although I would hope the hurt to families is reduced a bit.
I don’t remember Alma Cogan at all, but I believe my Dad was very partial to her. I’m never sure about the ethics of using real people in fiction though, like you, it bothers me less the longer ago the people lived. It’s the idea of the effect on the families that bother me. It’s not a problem if the representation of the person ties in with the known facts about them usually (though I still have reservations about Mantel’s Assassination of Mrs T) but I don’t like when they’re altered to fit the plot.
Yes, those are my feelings (how the families may feel) – particularly, as with the Moors Murder, when a family has suffered so horrifically, once from losing a child in this way, then again when terrible evidence comes out in court, as it must, in order to secure conviction. THAT must at least be an end justifying the horrifying means of disclosure. But then to have that woven into fiction……Humm
I share the discomfort you’ve discussed about using a real person for fictional purposes, and you also answered the question I had about whether, in this case, these purposes could have been realised without making use of a real person’s name and circumstances (taking account of your first and revised responses). As well as the inherent disrespect to the people and their surviving families, it feels almost arrogant to me to presume that an author can piggyback on someone’s actual life, without consultation, and then tie this to a fictional narrative (and in a business sense, acquire any profits). While there are recognised ethical and legal considerations around human activity such as intellectual copyright and patenting of genetic material, I’m not aware of any such recourse when one person’s life story and name is ‘taken’ by another, and even whether this should be a legal issue, though it’s certainly an ethical one.
I also take your point that the fact that this book has lead to sustained thought and questioning is of value, and does meet one of the purposes of art, and like you can’t reach a final position on means and end on this one.
Thanks for the reference to ‘The Moral Maze’. Good old BBC, I can access this too!
All this debate and consideration really reinforces the reason why I decided to post a review of this well-written but perhaps ambiguous book. The fact that I’m still pondering much of what it raises, several weeks after re-reading it, says a lot!
Good old Beeb indeed! I’m in the middle of watching (thank heavens a couple of the actors became stars, which may have accounted for release as DVD) what I still think is the best TV drama series ever – Our Friends In The North, b y Peter Flannery ( a review will no doubt appear in due course, as its 9 hours worth!) Don’t know whether this was ever broadcast in NZ. An examination of British politics 1964-1995 sleaze, and the North/South divide. It was YEARS coming to the screen, as it was quite a hot potato. Released finally in 1997 I was completely hooked by it, and still say ‘nothing else ever quite touched it’ and, as I’m finding, some of it seared indelibly in my mind. Inevitably there are flaws, but they seem minor. It was real grown-up TV, using the medium to shake-up, wake-up and an antidote to soft-focus soft-centre gorgeousness. And it had a great soundtrack!
If ‘Our Friends in the North’ was shown here, I missed it. I’ll have to look out for the DVD; I do like the sound of it.