Confessions of a Ghostwriter (The Confessions Series)电子书

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Contents

Introduction

An eight-foot transsexual hooker in the living room

A million books in an African warehouse

Discovering ghostwriting

The story of Stumpy

The glamour model versus the ‘arbiters of taste’

Secrets and confidentiality agreements

Glimpses of hell

That splinter of ice

Suddenly you’re history

Abused children find a voice

Sacked by a glove puppet

A debt to Dale Carnegie

The first questions a ghostwriter should ask

‘You need to come to Haiti …’

Tyrants and other interesting monsters

Lunching with Imelda Marcos

Afternoon tea with Mrs Mubarak

Filthy lucre

Big Brother is watching and listening

A real-life Shades of Grey

A gift for a billionaire

Rich men’s toys

The soporific brothel

An opportunist hack

A book goes global

Revenge can be bitter

The Princess speaks

Confessions of my infidelity

How can anyone write four books a year?

Waking up in the orphanage

Under armed guard in Lahore

The tentative handling of firearms

The faulty memories of rock gods

Soldiers’ tales

Win a ghost of your own

Selling your story to a magazine

Calls from out of the blue

I am an addict

Evangelists of technology

‘Mr Harris would like to quote you …’

A confession of conceit

Guilt and self-doubt

The awesome power of a tear on daytime television

Christina Foyle, queen of all she surveyed

A new breed of stars

The reality of reality television stars

A genuine talent

A real media circus

Culture clashes and other bad marriages

Clubs for gentlemen and players

A Year in Provence unleashes an avalanche

Jim Martin’s island

A Russian in hiding

Education at Madame Jojo’s

From the lips of an Iraqi child

I love supermarket bookshelves

Confessions from the British Library

‘You may just have to get a job …’

The forgotten rules of grammar

A forgotten weekend in academia

A little lone wolf

The greatest living playwright

The selling power of celebrities

The soap star who came to stay

Not everyone can be Hamlet

Discovering Jay Gatsby

‘The Principessa is throwing a party …’

A black BMW behind King’s Cross

Tales of courtesans and mistresses

Deathbed delivery

The mid-book blues

Addiction to charts

Tales from below stairs

A confession of cowardice

Writing in two voices at once

Just a single copy

Family secrets

One for the bank vaults

On behalf of my client

A movie star and her entourage

A hit-man comes to lunch

Writers as parasites

Ordinary people who do extraordinary things

Leaving London

Soft times

A pain in Baguio

Whoring myself again

The suppression of the ego

The Pope’s secret mistress

A writer’s pit

Who moved my nuts?

‘Everyone says it would make a great movie’

The strange delusions of world leaders

Authors regain a little self-control

Standing on the past

The creation of Steffi McBride

A gathering of ghosts

Meeting the daughter of God

My father’s departure by tractor

And still I know nothing

Acknowledgements

Confessions Series

About the Publisher