The News, Volume Ii

Its referred to as the Norman Mailer philosophy by irreverent creative writing students "� Todays headlines is tomorrows bestseller. This autumns crop of new releases bears testimony to the bromide, with a few changes rung in. In India, no doubt Joginder Singh will head the list with Inside the CBI (its a lie that its going to be subtitled Until IKG Did Me In). Apparently, it stands out from the run-of-the-mill bureaucratic memoir for his candour, which will probably only be enhanced by recent events.

In the global market, the time lag between an event taking place and the release of the book is shorter than the time it takes a literary agent to say, Yes, Arundhati, well take the sequel. John Vidals McLibel: Burger Culture on Trial hit the market two weeks before the UK ruling on McDonalds allegedly anti-environmental, consumer-stalking policies came through. And Jon Krakaeurs bestselling account of a disastrous Everest expedition, Into Thin Air, had a seriously eerie launch. Two French climbers were reported missing the week it was released. They were found at exactly the same spot where an accident delineated in Into Thin Air had occurred.

 

Meanwhile, Random House is rushing to get an autobiographical work called Proud to Be out by October at the latest. First-time author Kelly Flinn has all the time she needs to finetune the writing, now that she doesnt have to check in at the office every day. Flinn resigned from the US Air Force a month ago because of an affair with a married civilian. Diehard US conservatives think that she should have been court-martialled. I think resigning was enough if shed been allowed to stick on, just think of the effect her loose morals would have had on those nice young boys who partied so memorably at Tailhook.

The British royal family dese-rves a whole new bromide to itself, considering the steady stream of headlines they generate. Some would say that theyre getting the biographer they deserve, too, as Kitty Kelley takes on The Royals in September. Warner Books plans a first printing run of 1,000,000 for this one even though the worlds best known disher of dirt doesnt have any shocking new revelations to offer about Fergies toes.

But the real surprise is a book that centres around the kidnapping of 10 well-known Colu-mbians, mostly jou-rnalists, that was masterminded by Pablo Escobar. All of them were either supporters of the pro-Extradite Pab-lo movement, or were close to people who thought that Columbia could do with a holiday from the man who was Medellin. Two hostages were killed; the other eight were released one by one over a period of several months.

The author of this piece of fictionalised reportage is better known as the master of magic realism. For Gabriel Garcia Marquez, News of a Kidnapping is only the second time hes ventured into hardcore non-fiction. (Clandestine in Chile, in which an exiled movie director returns to Chile masquerading as a public relations executive, was the first.) Marquez decided to write the book after he was approached by Maruja Pachon, one of those who was held by Escobars men.

Perhaps thats all the new crop of Indians writing in English need to do to consolidate their position in the world market. Read the newspapers. And then hit the word processor.