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1 of 1Edward St Aubyn says he had to write about his past — or kill himself
Edward St Aubyn made his name with novels exorcising the demons of his childhood. He tells Robbie Millen why he is finally able to write a comic novel, satirising the literary scene
So has Dame Stella Rimington been in touch? Edward St Aubyn replies to the question with a look of studied, unbudgeable blankness.
St Aubyn’s latest novel, Lost for Words, is a very funny satire on the literary scene and the Man Booker Prize. One of the hapless judges of his imaginary Elysian Prize is Penny Feathers, a retired Foreign Office mandarin who has turned to writing clunking thrillers with the aid of Gold Ghost Plus, a computer program that inserts suitable clichés. (“When you typed in a word, ‘refugee’ for instance, several useful suggestions popped up: ‘clutching a pathetic bundle’,
