Book Review: Readings

Ghosting: A Double Life

by Jennie Erdal

Doubleday, 268 pp., $24

When flamboyant London publisher Naim Attallah (known in this book simply as "Tiger") tapped Jennie Erdal, a Scottish mother of three and translator of Russian texts, to head up a portion of his boutique Quartet Books in the early Eighties, he initiated a relationship that developed mind-boggling complexities, eventually sending waves of scandal through the British publishing world. As almost no one on this side of the pond gives a rat's ass about Naim Attallah, Erdal's account of their relationship in Ghosting allows American readers to appreciate their story for what it really is: how two misfits in British society negotiate space for themselves through the written word. He wheedles, cajoles, sulks, and frets; she caters to his every whim with Gandhi-like serenity. While Tiger sashays through London society in his postmodern fop's finery, Erdal performs a sort of ventriloquism on his behalf, ghostwriting two novels, a highly lauded book of interviews with famous women, newspaper columns, even love letters to Tiger's wife. Attallah splits any and all of his fees with Erdal, but takes all the credit for the words on the page. "They say we can write!" he crows, melding their two personas when it is convenient for him. And Erdal can write: She treats her subject with affection and compassion while weaving in details from her own life that help the reader comprehend why she would allow herself to be dragged into perpetuating a two-decades-long literary hoax. Like any good British subject, Erdal (perhaps subconsciously) brings it all back to class. She spends the early chapters of the book outlining her elocution lessons in Scotland and the discourse in her family about right vs. wrong ways of speaking. Erdal expertly applies this notion to the world of writing while telling her (and Tiger's) story, detailing a subversive act that ultimately allowed her to come out from the shadows and speak in her own voice.