REVIEW: ‘How To Be A Public Author by Francis Plug’ by Paul Ewen

To clear things up early on, and make this review work as a readable account, the novel is called How To Be A Public Author by Francis Plug and the true author is Paul Ewen.

The novel follows aspiring writer, and frequent avoider of writing, Francis Plug. Francis has a strategy: if he can track down and meet all the Booker Prize winners, he will have an idea of how to be a public author, and thus dominate the market that is always enjoying celebrity memoirs and self-help books. The only issue is that Francis’ ambition totally trumps his motivation, which often leads to delusion after more than a bottleful down the pub. This rocks into readings blurting out drunken nonsense, his fingers still smelling of the cigarette he left by the entrance.

So, by all accounts, How To Be A Public Author is an extremely true-to-life fictional account, featuring some of the most important writers of our generation portraying fictional versions of themselves. The novel is at its best when the reader is finally adjusted to Ewan’s humour, often nonsensical with silly observations, (though, it truly turns from smile to laugh-out-loud funny when it touches on the darker themes, such as Plug believing his own lies and writing to his nephew that he attached a poisonous leaf to the card) and when the reader becomes familiar with the authors who are featured across the novel. This is not essential however, as just in the same way the humour works in Ricky Gervais’ Extras without being familiar with the guest star, it just adds to the enjoyment factor.

Other than the familiar sites that Plug visits in the novel*, one of the most clever things about the novel is how it carries into real life. Holding a paperback in public branches the conversation of somebody asking if you are a writer. The novel Ewen creates gives us the attention that Plug craves, the idea of somebody coming out of nowhere and asking us about our material, our art. How To Be A Public Author takes the traits of postmodernism and metafiction, traits that are usually restricted to academia and the intellectually elite, and applies it to a try-hard who calculates the cheapest beer in a pub and is devoid of social queues – for that alone, How To Be A Public Author stands out as a work of art.

The novel works best read in a binge sitting – it can be enjoyed much more in the latter half when it has more direction, and the reader is more accustomed to Plug. Initially, some may expect the humour to rely too heavily on the guest authors, who have allowed fictional versions of themselves (which is impressive considering some of them have won the Nobel prize) but ultimately Plug is the star. There is no relying on jokes, occasionally they center too frequently on pub humour with elements of the surreal thrown in to show how Plug is an outsider, but even if this novel doesn’t make you laugh out loud it will certainly make you smile. A joyous read of a novel written in a unique and accessible way.

*Francis, I’m sorry when you went to see Coetzee at the University of East Anglia you were disappointed. From firsthand experience, yes the union bar is disappointing, also the staff are very efficient at cleaning up puke, as I also know from firsthand experience on the spot you described and where The Avengers walk in the post-credits scene of the latest movie.