Word Monkey

Doubleday €26.59

Long before he had become an author, Fowler worked as a copywriter in London. He was fired, he writes in his posthumous memoir, not long after refusing to work on adverts for cigarette companies. ‘Remember,’ his boss told him as he left, ‘you think you’re an artist but you’re just a word monkey.’ The comment was presumably intended as a put-down – but in his characteristically chirpy way, Fowler noted the distinctive expression and stored it away for future use.

His book gathers lessons he learned over decades of being a ‘word monkey’, in which he turned his hand to many genres – ghost stories, science fiction, satire, young adult fiction – but he was best known for his Bryant and May detective series. Fowler finished this manuscript shortly before his death, from cancer, earlier this year. His writing lessons are interwoven with autobiographical detail. In a moving moment he recalls touching his father for the first time. They were never close, but two days before his father’s death, he allowed his son to cut his hair. His skin was soft; not the hide Fowler expected from such an intimidating man.

Many of the writing tips are invaluable. It’s not enough to have a good idea. Base material, Fowler advises, must be ‘hammered into something pure’. Beware, he notes, the ‘three-day rule’ – which states that if 72 hours elapse between writing sessions, you’ll have to spend half a day re-establishing the story’s mood. When attempting a short story, something must be hidden from the reader. He also condenses advice from other authors, such as Raymond Carver (‘Get in. Get out.

Don’t linger’), Jodi Picoult (‘Whether it’s garbage or good… you just DO it, and you fix it later’) and Peter Carey (‘My continual mad ambition is to make something true and beautiful that never existed’).