This article is taken from the October 2025 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Get five issues for just £25.
Seeking a little diversion back in the dog days of late August, the Secret Author found himself repairing to the Amazon reviews of the former Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s memoir, Frankly.
In Ms Sturgeon’s defence, it should be pointed out that at this stage in the proceedings the work was newly published, and only a few reader responses had so far been posted. Nonetheless, the first review on which his eye fell not only gave Ms S a solitary star but had been found “helpful” by no fewer than 147 respondents.
What had this one-time titan of the Scottish political scene done wrong? The general feeling amongst the early Amazon vox-pops was that she had been disingenuous, tried to present her failures as successes and focused her energies on such topics as independence and gender identity — rather than taking time to concentrate on the difficulties that bedevil Scotland’s infrastructure and its financing. Beyond the online forums, her attitude to her former mentor, Alex Salmond, was held by some observers to be vengeful.
And yet, as he scanned the lengthy interviews with Ms Sturgeon that began to appear in the media shortly before publication, the Secret Author discovered that the revelation which really chilled his blood had nothing to do with independence referenda or male rapists identifying as women or what Frankly had to say about Ms S’s particular bete noire J.K. Rowling.
No, it came in the hint — more than a hint, alas — that, having scaled the north face of Mount Memoir, she now had her sights on the subsidiary crag of First Fiction. It appears that Ms Sturgeon wants to make use of all the free time now at her disposal by writing a novel.
And why shouldn’t she, a small but vocal group of admirers will doubtless argue. After all, even that one-star Amazon review conceded that Frankly was well written.
Interviewers bidden to the First Minister’s residence, Bute House, over the years noted that its chatelaine took a sincere interest in books and their authors, rather than, in the manner of one or two male politicians, using them opportunistically — being photographed with the latest Ian McEwan under their arm, say, when leaving for holidays abroad.
Surely, the argument continues, if people are to write novels then you could find worse candidates for the Waterstones fiction shelf than Ms S.
All of which returned the Secret Author to a dinner party held almost a quarter of a century ago, where the guests included a publisher and a man who had begun to carve out a successful career in what is sometimes known as “chaps’ non-fiction” — that is, humorous books about cricket, turning middle-aged and having children and wondering how you were going to be able to afford some of the financial consequences of the life you lived.
Asked what he intended to do next, the proud author remarked that he had his eye on writing a novel.
“No, Desmond,” the publisher gravely instructed him. “Whatever you do, don’t write a novel.” Naturally, questions were asked, not least by the aspiring novelist. Why shouldn’t our man, who could clearly hold a pen, write what he liked?
Well, the publisher (politely) explained, there were too many novels; most of them weren’t very good; not all writing skills were transferable; plus, our friend was an adept at the genre in which he had established his career — why take the risk of trying to cross the stream and take up residence in the camp on the other side?
Lurking behind these statements, though never explicitly voiced, was a faint hint of annoyance, the thought that the publisher had, in the course of her long career, heard rather too many people announce that they were going to write novels and distrusted their (admittedly unvoiced) assumption that, really, it was all rather easy and that success in one sphere was automatically capable of being reproduced in another.
There are worse celebrity writers than Nicola Sturgeon — far, far worse — but that doesn’t excuse her for thinking that this writing malarkey is just something else a celebrated person can take up and lay down as and when they feel like it.
So, the best advice available to any publisher to whom Ms S expresses an interest in writing fiction is: say no. Find some talented twentysomething who would otherwise have to work in a call centre and sign them up instead.
The Secret Author is old enough to remember the late Jeffrey Bernard (as in Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell), who once began a Spectator column with the words, “As my novel is not selling well, possibly because I have yet to finish it … ”) and maintained that not having written a novel was one of the (non-) achievements of which he was most proud.
Three and a half decades later, Jeffrey Bernard should be our exemplar. In fact, concerned readers should straightaway form a ginger group under the title “No to Nicola Sturgeon’s Novel”, or NNSN for short. Posterity, not to mention J.K. Rowling, would thank them.
