Memories of the recently departed, number 1: After I had finished Fever Pitch, I wanted to write a novel. My publishers of the time, however, were keener on another non-fiction book, and tried to persuade me to ghost the autobiography of Mad Frankie Fraser. I was devoted to my editor, so I met Frankie at the offices of Victor Gollancz, and he brought along his scrapbook, a rather touchingly dog-eared collection of newspaper cuttings describing his various terrible misdemeanours. He was an Arsenal fan, so we mostly talked about that, but notwithstanding our bond, I decided to stick with my novel, then called Pop, Girls, Etc. A few weeks ago, I found I still had the scrapbook.
Posted on: Thu, 27 Nov 2014 10:37:17 +0000