Lost in a Good Book

Jasper Fforde Lost in a Good Book

This book is dedicated to assistants everywhere.

You make it happen for them.

They couldn’t do it without you.

Your contribution is everything.

Don’t expect the expected:

Expect the unexpected.

If you expect the expected

I expect you will remain unexpected.

From the teachings of St Zvlkx

1. The Adrian Lush Show

Sample viewing figures for major TV networks in England, September 1985

Network Toad

The Adrian Lush Show (Wednesday) (chat show) 16,428,316

The Adrian Lush Show (Monday) (chat show) 16,034,921

Bonzo the Wonder Hound (canine thriller) 15,975,462

Mole TV

Name That Fruit! (answer questions for cash prizes) 15,320,340

65 Walrus Street (soap opera, episode 3352) 14,315,902

Dangerously Dysfunctional People Argue Live on

TV (chat show) 11,065,611

Owl Vision

Will Marlowe or Kit Shakespeare? (literary quiz show) 13,591,203

One More Chance to See! (reverse extinction show) 2,321,820

Goliath Cable Channel (1 to 32)

Whose Lie Is It Anyway? (corporate comedy quiz show) 428

Cots to Coffins: Goliath. All You’ll Ever Need (docuganda) 9 (disputed)

Neanderthal Network 4

Power Tool Club Live (routers and power planer edition) 9,032

Jackanory Gold (Jane Eyre edition) 7,219

WARWICK FRIDGE. The Ratings War

I didn’t ask to be a celebrity. I never wanted to appear on The Adrian Lush Show. And let’s get one thing straight right now—the world would have to be hurtling towards imminent destruction before I’d agree to anything as dopey as The Thursday Next Workout Video.

The publicity surrounding the successful rebookment of Jane Eyre was fun to begin with but rapidly grew wearisome. I happily posed for photocalls, agreed to newspaper interviews, hesitantly appeared on Desert Island Smells and was thankfully excused the embarrassment of Celebrity Name That Fruit! The public, ever fascinated by celebrity, had wanted to know everything about me following my excursion within the pages of Jane Eyre, and since the Special Operations Network have a PR record on a par with that of Vlad the Impaler, the top brass thought it would be a good wheeze to use me to boost their flagging popularity. I dutifully toured all points of the globe doing signings, library openings, talks and interviews. The same questions, the same SpecOps-approved answers. Supermarket openings, literary dinners, offers of book deals. I even met the actress Lola Vavoom, who said that she would simply adore to play me if there were a film. It was tiring, but more than that—it was dull. For the first time in my career at the Literary Detectives I actually missed authenticating Milton.

I’d taken a week’s leave as soon as my tour ended so Landen and I could devote some time to married life. I moved all my stuff to his house, rearranged his furniture, added my books to his and introduced my dodo, Pickwick, to his new home. Landen and I ceremoniously partitioned the bedroom closet space, decided to share the sock drawer, then had an argument over who was to sleep on the wall side of the bed. We had long and wonderfully pointless conversations about nothing in particular, walked Pickwick in the park, went out to dinner, stayed in for dinner, stared at each other a lot and slept in late every morning. It was wonderful.

On the fourth day of my leave, just between lunch with Landen’s mum and Pickwick’s notable first fight with the neighbour’s cat, I got a call from Cordelia Flakk. She was the senior SpecOps PR agent here in Swindon and she told me that Adrian Lush wanted me on his show. I wasn’t mad keen on the idea—or the show. But there was an upside. The Adrian Lush Show went out live and Flakk assured me that this would be a ‘no holds barred’ interview, something that held a great deal of appeal. Despite my many appearances, the true story about Jane Eyre was yet to be told—and I had been wanting to drop the Goliath Corporation in it for quite a while. Flakk’s assurance that this would finally be the end of the press junket clinched my decision. Adrian Lush it would be.

I travelled up to the Network Toad studios a few days later on my own; Landen had a deadline looming and needed to get his head down. But I wasn’t alone for long. As soon as I stepped into the large entrance lobby a milk-curdling shade of green strode purposefully towards me

‘Thursday, darling!’ cried Cordelia, beads rattling. ‘So glad you could make it!’