The vacuity of the celebrity press and the hubris of old-school, high-minded print journalism collide in Annalena McAfee's first adult novel, The Spoiler, a dark satire set in the pre-Internet London of 1997. Enjoyable to read but disheartening to contemplate, this tragicomedy suggests that Kevlar-clad war reporters and Fleet Street vultures alike are too circumscribed by their visions of what a story should be to put the real truth into words.
Tamara Sim is an ambitious young writer for a gossip rag who has a chance to interview a legendary war correspondent for an upscale Sunday magazine. Unfortunately, Tamara's journalistic instincts consist mostly of ferreting out sexual proclivities and embarrassments, and her subject, the venerated and once-glamorous Honor Tait, is loath to cooperate with such tasteless muckraking. McAfee portrays Tamara as woefully uncultured and not a little bit dim, but Honor's carefully maintained image as esteemed witness to the great horrors of the 20th century gives her a grating air of superiority that becomes as repellent as Tamara's crassness.
McAfee, a former arts and literary editor at the kind of publications where an Honor Tait might work, makes Tamara surprisingly sympathetic in contrast to the dour Honor. A larkish spirit of farce, as well as the wicked fun of following a hack who equates "who's hot" lists with serious journalism, dances the story along. But as misunderstandings escalate and the inevitable life-destroying lies reach print, the amusement recedes, revealing The Spoiler's ultimate gift: a bitter reminder of the ugly consequences unleashed by the puerile taste for scandal. --Cherie Ann Parker, freelance journalist and book critic