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Wednesday, March 31, 2004

Belle de Jour: The moment of truth!

The Book Club Blog is there. Join the dots.

On 8th Jan 2003, a writer revealed their own personal history in The Evening Standard as a means of publicising their newly released book about someone else's personal history.

On 26th October 2003, a writer demonstrated a knowledge of Martin Amis's latest novel "Yellow Dog," in an Observer piece about the need for men to be aware of the increasing need to look their best in order to attract empowered career women. It was pointed out that this article 'makes no reference to Sex And The Bloody City'.

The same writer has listed their top 10 scandalous French novels for The Guardian.

Two days earlier, on 24th October 2003, a new blog "Belle de Jour" appeared on the internet.

On 18th December 2003, this "Belle de Jour" blog won the 2003 Guardian Weblog award for best written blog. As Bruce Sterling, one of the awards' judges, said: 'She is in a league by herself as a blogger.'

On 10th March 2003, The Times featured an article on "The web diary, the book deal and the very happy hooker."

On 11 March 2003, this blogger confirmed that "Yes, there is a book deal. . . It is not, as has been reported, a 'six-figure deal. . . if you are an icky slimy journo at a Sunday tab bothering people who have never met me for shreds
of information, take your filthy lucre and leave those nice ladies and gentlemen alone."

On 14th March, The Times took a closer look at the "high-class hooker whose web diary is set to be a literary sensation."

On 18th March 2004, The Times announced that it had unmasked the Internet 'call girl author.' The London Evening Standard among other publications reported this, but noted that the bloggers recently acquired agent had never heard of the person named.

On 21st March 2004, the writer identified by The Times as the author of Belle de Jour published a denial in The Observer. "I want to make it clear that not only have I never been a call girl - which will especially please my mother, who has had journalists calling on her Manchester home - but I am not the author of the Belle de Jour net diary."

On 28th March 2004, the real Belle de Jour entered the print game for the "first time" with a piece in The Sunday Telegraph Magazine. She wrote: "I'm a whore. Not in the metaphorical sense, often invoked by writers my age, of auctioning my intellectual abilities to the highest bidder. I'm not some disillusioned twentysomething desk-job graduate equating salaried work with selling out. No, I'm an actual, exchanging-money-for-sex prostitute. . . . I began to write anonymously for several reasons. I don't plan to stay in this field forever; some day I want to have a real job in the subject I studied. Also, it is easier to write frankly under a pseudonym. People still do not think that women can have sexual lives and yet be respected for their character and intelligence. This is not true for men. Plus I didn't want to get escorting work from men hoping to see themselves in print. And I didn't want to compromise client confidentiality. . . I plan to remain anonymous for several reasons. It would embarrass my friends and family; they don't deserve that. I can take any slings and arrows the press choose to throw but would feel terrible if I put my loved ones through all this. In any case, my manager's job is illegal, and I suspect she would be in a world of trouble. . . Some people accuse me of being fake, and I'm flattered that anyone thinks my writing so good that I could not be real. Unfortunately for the conspiracy theorists, there is no conspiracy. I am a young woman, I have sex for money, and I love to read and write. My taste in books shouldn't come as a surprise. After all, this job affords more spare time than most. Think of Occam's razor, the principle of parsimony: what would be simpler - that I am who I say I am, and write about, or that I am a famous author living a double life, unable to tell anyone and having a joke at the expense of my agent, publisher and readers? What does bother me is the presumption that a person's occupation is a reflection of their intelligence or value to society: I have known plumbers who were geniuses and surgeons who couldn't tie their own shoelaces. But there are thousands of wittier, sharper authors in the world. I'd sooner spend my future as a reader than a writer."

On the same day, 28th March 2004, Professor Foster - whose research had supposedly substantiated the Times story of 18th March 2004, had a letter printed in the Observer in which he denied he ever definitively identified Sarah Champion as Belle.

Today, the Book Club Blog noticed that our original "writer" has a new book set for publication on 10th March 2005.

Curiously it is to be published by Weidenfeld & Nicholson. The Times reported on 10th March 2004 that Weidenfeld & Nicholson have bought Belle’s book and plan to launch it next Valentine’s Day, 14th February 2005.

Is Belle just an anonymous blogger or is she a professional writer with more than one book on the go? As she says: "It's inspiring to have a large project to work on again." But how large exactly is the project?

Posted by Nick @ 21:17 GMT

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