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Publish and be damned

4th January 2007 by Helena 5 Comments  

When I was in Italy researching my book Ciao Bella I met the author Tim Parks. At the time I was still planning to write my book about Italian women but I told Tim the story of my Italian family. “Now that’s a story I want to read,” he said. I asked him how he got around writing about people who are close to him without upsetting them. “As a writer your first responsibility is to your book,” he told me. “Basically as long as you don’t get anyone in trouble with the law or their wife, everything else is fair game.” A few days later, encouraged by Tim and my husband, I abandoned the book on Italian women and started to write Ciao Bella.

My aunt & LeonardoAs those of you who have followed the blog will know I gave a copy to my aunt (pictured here with Leonardo) two days ago. I never imagined she would ever read it, it’s in English and she rarely makes the effort to read English. Or so I thought…..my father has just called and says she is furious. No, she’s more than furious, he described their conversation as “ugly” and I got the impression he was pleased he had phoned her and not dropped in.

There is plenty in the book for her to be irritated by, and I was always aware of this. But this book is not a eulogy to my gorgeous relations, it’s a truthful memoir. She is a great character, partly because of her faults, but as one reviewer said, despite these we still like her. I like her and of course I am sorry that she now hates me. I suppose this fury won’t go on forever but knowing her it could go on for a very long time.

So was it worth it? I agree with Tim that my first responsibility is to the book. If I had been soppy about my aunt and written a book she would have liked it would not have been as good or as honest (or as funny). And as Nora Ephron’s mother used to tell her every day: “Everything is copy.” I suppose there may come a time when no one will dare to speak or hang out with me for fear of ending up in one of my books. I already get countless people nudging each other and saying; “Ooooh, be careful what you say, you’ll end up in the paper.” To this I smile benignly but my silent response is one I heard from Peter McKay, the Fleet Street legend and possibly the last proper hack alive. “As if ANYTHING you could say, could POSSIBLY be of ANY interest to ANYONE.” Unluckily for my aunt, this was not the case….


Filed Under: blog --> Tagged With: damned, publish

5 thoughts on Publish and be damned

  • simon Leathers says:
    5th January 2007 at 12:19 am

    I had hoped that by now I would have been mentioned in either the newspaper or possibly a book. So far I have had to settle for occaisional writeups by that other London Hack. I do believe that perhaps I made it into your husbands publication but as only 13 copies have been sold I have yet to run into anyone that can verify this.

  • Helena Frith Powell says:
    15th January 2007 at 3:38 pm

    […] Looking at my dire amazon rating today, I decided that making enough money to buy a penthouse in Rome from my books may not be that realistic. So I wrote to my aunt in Rome asking her to forgive me and telling her how marvellous she is. (See Publish and be Damned blog by clicking here […]

  • Helena Frith Powell says:
    2nd April 2007 at 5:41 pm

    […] An article of mine is due to appear in tomorrow’s You Magazine about how my aunt is refusing to speak to me since she read my memoir, Ciao Bella (see publish and be damned blog). […]

  • Dona Ak says:
    17th February 2009 at 10:28 pm

    Hi helena,
    Im still reading “ciao bella” and i love it so far…made want to travel to Italy one day.
    The way u discribed Italian women reminded me a lot of Lebanese women too. (both love to dress glamorously).
    PS.im sorry ur aunt refuses to talk to you…but if she still has that summer house,,I would make peace with her if i were u 😉

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Helena Frith Powell was born in Sweden to a Swedish mother and Italian father, but grew up mainly in England. She is the author of eleven books, translated into several languages including Chinese and Russian. She wrote the French Mistress column The Sunday Times about life in France for several years. She is a regular contributor to the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, The Times, Daily Telegraph, Tatler Magazine and Harper’s Bazaar.

Helena has been the editor of four magazines, including M Magazine, a supplement for the Abu Dhabi based National Newspaper and FIVE, a high-end fashion glossy, also published in Abu Dhabi. Helena was also editor in chief of 360 Life, a quarterly glossy magazine published with the Sports 360 Newspaper in Dubai, part of the Chalhoub Group.

Helena contributes regularly to UK-based newspapers and magazines and holds a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge. Helena is also working on a thriller called Thin Ice that will be published in spring 2021 as well as a novel about the relationship between Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield called Sense of an Echo.

Her latest non-fiction work Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles came out in hardback in 2016 and in paperback in April 2018.

Helena, who was educated at Durham University, lives in the Languedoc region of France with her husband Rupert and their three children.

Bibliography

More France Please, we’re British; Gibson Square 2004

Two Lipsticks and a Lover 2005; Gibson Square (hardback)

All You Need to be Impossibly French; (US version of above) Penguin 2006

Two Lipsticks and a Lover; Arrow Books (paperback) 2007

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (hardback) 2006

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (paperback) 2007

So Chic! (French version of Two Lipsticks) Leduc Editions 2008 (also translated into Chinese, Russian and Thai)

More, More France; Gibson Square 2009

To Hell in High Heels; Arrow Books 2009 (also translated into Polish)

The Viva Mayr Diet; Harper Collins 2009

Love in a Warm Climate; Gibson Square 2011

The Ex-Factor; Gibson Square 2013

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles; Gibson Square 2016

The Arnolfini Marriage; Amazon Kindle December 2016

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles (paperback); Gibson Square spring 2018

The Longest Night; Gibson Square spring 2019

 

 

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