Last week, I had the pleasure of heading to the Freud Museum in Hampstead for the launch of Zoe Strimpel’s much-discussed new book Good Slut. Not only was the venue one of the most splendid I’ve been to for a party of this kind, but the guest list – which included The Spectator’s esteemed editor – was suitably glittering for a Thursday evening in early March. Everyone was on top form, much jollity was had, and by the time the author gave a suitably witty speech from the top of the staircase that Sigmund Freud once ascended and descended, a fabulous time had been had by all.
Would that this was the norm for all book launches. Unfortunately, however, a combination of penny-pinching, lack of imagination and general industry despondency has turned what should be a joyous celebration for authors into an evening that is often either tedious or stressful. If too many people turn up, the room becomes crowded, claustrophobic and unpleasant; if too few are present, there is no atmosphere and the author becomes embarrassed. The latter fate is not even limited to unknowns. I attended a literary lion’s lavish launch the week before Zoe’s where an embarrassingly small number of guests turned up. That everyone there, save me, was a well-known figure was scant consolation to the lion. He tossed his magnificent mane and directed the sparse crowd to a nearby pub, bringing the event to a close an hour early.
The book launch as a phenomenon is relatively recent. Back in the day, only the very grandest of society figures would have held a party to celebrate their literary efforts coming out. In most cases, the author would regard publication with little more than a shrug and a whispered hope for some decent reviews in the press that would drive sales. This all changed with the 80s and the boom in publishing that saw serious money entering the business for the first time. Books were big, and so were launches. The fashionable likes of The Ivy, Quo Vadis and L’Escargot played host to the bibulous London literati several times a week. By 2001, the whole shebang was sufficiently in vogue to be featured in a scene in Bridget Jones’s Diary, complete with a running joke about guests asking Salman Rushdie the way to the loo.
The past quarter-century has seen publishing lose its way both commercially and, many would suggest, editorially. The result is that high-end authors are still coddled and indulged, but anyone else – the euphemistically named ‘mid-range’ – are hung out to dry. I still fondly remember Andrew Roberts’s Veuve-laden launch at the Mandarin Oriental in 2021 for his George III biography when one esteemed publisher keeled to the floor to cries of: ‘Is there a doctor in the house?’ As keen academics trundled forwards, this was swiftly followed by the explanation: ‘A medical doctor!’
An even more elaborate party took place for Katherine Rundell’s first Impossible Creatures novel in 2023. So grand was it, it necessitated the hiring of the National History Museum, the aid of actor Charles Dance for reading duties and the presence of more than 300 guests. Unsurprisingly, the book was a bestseller.
I have been to too many events that are held, drearily, in a brightly lit bookshop with lukewarm, acidic wine and meagre snacks
Yet these are the memorable exceptions. I have been to too many events that are held, drearily, in a brightly lit bookshop with lukewarm, acidic wine (often provided at the author’s, rather than the publisher’s, expense) and meagre snacks that run out after half an hour. Not all bookshops are so drab – any event held in the magnificent setting of Daunt Marylebone is always worth attending – but it has become considerably less rewarding to launch a book than it once was.
I contemplated a party for my latest effort in January and decided against it. It would have been an expensive, tiresome hassle that would not have been anywhere near as fun as launches for earlier books had been. I still have fond memories of a Duvel-sponsored launch at Soho’s defunct Society Club for my Lord Rochester biography in 2014, when half the guests were (appropriately enough) deprived of the power of speech and movement by the strength of the beer. Soberingly, there would have been little chance of Sir Salman – once an inveterate partygoer – attending, let alone being asked which way it was to the loo.
Even so, the Good Slut launch restored my faith in parties once again. If I ever publish another David Bowie book, it will be held at the Freud Museum. After all, did not Ziggy play cigar?
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