Mortification: Writers’ Stories of Their Public Shame by Robin Robertson

I could just imagine it out there: first up, Mrs Popular-70s-TV-Show-Insider-Gossip-Rags-to-Riches-Riches-to-Rags-to-Riches-Motherfucking-Video-Store-Robbing-Rehab-Attending-God-Discovering-and-Now-Topping-the-Bill-in-Hollywood’s-Greatest-Moments-Goddam-Arse-Shattering-Showbusiness-Miracle-Survival-Extravaganza-Big-it-Up-to-the-High-Fucken-Heavens-for-Miss-Dana Plato!, thereafter to be immediately followed onstage by Young Mr Who-the-Fuck-is-He-With-His-Motherfucking-Nonentity-Book-and-Giant-British-Forehead-Dishing-Out-All-Sorts-of-Boring-and-Depressing-Crap-About-Missing-People-in-His-Weird-Accent. Jesus Christ! It was going to be a bloodbath. It was going to be the massacre at Glencoe. Dana Plato was showbiz King Kong and I was scantily-clad Fay Wray writhing in her massive, pounding, hairy palm.
    I asked her again.
    ‘Is that right? They have ME following YOU?’
    ‘Yen. I love your accent. You’re cute.’
    Somewhere in the universe, the applause for Dana Plato is still resounding and travelling, and the flow of love from that Chicago audience is still passing star formations that are yet to be observed by the strongest telescopes on earth. To say they loved Dana Plato will not do: they wanted Dana Plato for ever, they wanted the story of Dana Plato to go on and on, and for the message of Dana to sing out and fill all the terrible voids in our lives. They wanted Dana to never stop talking, never stop being, and for every home in America to keep an eternal light shining on their porches for the wise and suffering existence of Dana Plato.
    Then I came on. The show was live. The studio set – like all those studio sets in America – looked like a terrifying screech of blue optimism under the yellow lights, and the studio audience was invisible as I took my place on the sofa. The two ‘anchors’ in front of me were the very soul of mild-mannered derision: attentive to nothing but their earpieces, they bent lovingly into the visiting powder brush – it was the ad break – and continued praising the departed Dana.
    ‘You bet. Just terrific. Super-terrific. You bet.’
    My new suit felt old. I felt old. My hair felt old and my limbs felt heavy and my shiny-covered new book seemed dead on the table between us. I looked at the two presenters and made a swift and expensive mental note: they had that look, the anchors, that look that male American television presenters often have, that android appearance, sprayed-in, permatanned, so handsome they’re ugly. ‘Yeah,’ I heard one of them say to the gallery. ‘Keeping it short.’
    The adverts were over. I could hear someone count down across the dark studio floor. ‘Okay!’
    ‘Welcome back. You’re watching
Good Morning Chicago
. Wasn’t Dana Plato just terrific? Well, let’s move on. Maybe you’re watching with your family this morning. We all have families, and our next guest, Andrew O’Hagan, is from Scotland. He is a writer, and he’s just produced a book about his grandfather.’
    All the cables on the studio floor, raised up like snakes by the oily charm of the android, seemed to sway before me and hiss. I saw the whole sorry affair in a moment of surreal clarity amidst the piercing yellow of the studio: I had travelled far from home and got pissed on America; I had got myself drunk on small beer and fast cheer and now I was facing the terrible upchuck of a deluded fortnight. They knew and they loved Dana Plato, superstar, super-being, and now, here I was, Andrew O’Hagan from Scotland, Nonentity of the Century, being interviewed vigorously about a book that I HADN’T WRITTEN!
    The point about humiliation, of course, is that it attracts more humiliation to itself. As a general rule, when someone tries to interview you about someone else’s book on live television, you don’t trust to your own character, you don’t put him down, you don’t express surprise at his stupidity and walk off – no, you don’t do any of those things. You sit up straight,