Prize list brings author in from the cold

JANE Rogers’s work, whether set in the past, present or future, is characterised by intense psychological foreboding. The books are harsh and unsparing in their portrayal of difficult relations between parents and children, and yet they also involve all sorts of emotional and psychological ideals. These are the twin pillars on which her eight novels are built, as are the screenplays, plays and short stories that have made hers such a respected name in the literary world.

She found a soulmate agent who managed to sell her first novel, Separate Tracks, to the first publisher who’d been approached, back in 1983 when she was 28. And not some small-time outfit, either – the young writer was taken on by Faber and Faber, who also bought her subsequent four novels. Her next two were bought by another top-tier publisher, Little Brown. Alongside the novels, Rogers was a prolific writer across other genres, as well as editing the prestigious Good Fiction Guide.

Her 1991 novel Mr Wroe’s Virgins was turned, by Rogers, into a Bafta-nominated TV screenplay. Her words won her several prizes, including the Somerset Maugham Award and Samuel Beckett Award for Television. A professor on the Sheffield Hallam University MA Writing course, she had the kind of credentials and active creative life to which her students could only aspire. Then, a couple of years ago, what had previously been easy for Jane Rogers suddenly proved immensely difficult: she couldn’t get her eighth novel, The Testament of Jessie Lamb, published.

“I have to be honest, a lot of publishers turned it down,” she says. “One described it as ‘unpleasant’ and others said it was ‘interesting but...’ Set a month of two in the future, in a world irreparably altered by an act of biological terrorism, the story explores a young woman’s determination to make her life count for something in spite of threats and the emotional damage caused when certainties about her own childhood are ripped apart. An intriguing and compellingly told tale, but clearly dystopia was not floating publishers’ boats when Rogers’s manuscript landed on their desk.

Despite the setback and the self-doubt it caused, that novel is now one of 13 long listed from 138 titles read by the judges of this year’s Man Booker Prize, and stands to win its author the £50,000 and the satisfaction of having publishers waging ferocious bidding wars for her future works. So what happened?

“Publishers are feeling squeezed, and they are playing safe,” says Rogers. “I understand that, but they wanted me to publish more of my most successful book Mr Wroe’s Virgins. They seem to want either first books by people they think will be the ‘next big thing’ or facsimiles of previously successful work. What they are not looking at are serious middle-aged writers who’ve published several books and are lying somewhere in the middle of the sales lists. I was advised by some not to continue trying to publish the book – some said that kindly and some unkindly. Others said Jessie Lamb was ‘not the kind of book you write’.”

One did elaborate, saying it was not written with the her customary literary language and beautiful prose. “No, it isn’t, because it is written from the perspective of a teenager and expresses her thoughts and feelings,” says the writer. She had reworked the book intensively and was happy with it.

Rogers doesn’t mind admitting she was feeling completely ignored and quite depressed. But she was also bloody-minded, and on the recommendation of a writer colleague, sent the book to Sandstone Press, a small independent publishing house based in Kinross, Scotland. They were happy to take it, but after a single but glowing newspaper review the book did not sell in big numbers after its publication in February. Yet Sandstone submitted it for the Man Booker Prize, and Rogers was stunned into disbelief when it popped up on the long list alongside big hitters and veterans of the prize Julian Barnes, Alan Hollinghurst and Sebastian Barry.

“Sandstone were lovely. They’d admitted they didn’t have much experience of novels, but they had faith in me,” she says. “There’s been an immediate, dramatic spike in sales and they had to go for a reprint.” The phone has also been ringing off the hook with foreign publishers bidding to publish the book in other languages around the globe.”

On September 6 the author will find out of she has made the short list of six.

“I care about reaching readers, so this long listing means the world to me in that sense. My sales were minute before, and any author who makes the list is pushed up near to the top. It’s awful to spend so much time – sometimes years – on a book, for only a few hundred people to read it. Getting a publisher really dug me out of a ditch and put the book out there; being long listed for the same book still strikes me as funny, and I do have difficulty believing it.”

Looking at the media coverage when the list was announced, it’s plain that even in the context of such a prestigious award, the middle-aged, middle-list, serious female writers don’t get any attention. That, however, should mean nothing to the judges.

While struggling to get the novel published, Rogers says she wasn’t allowing herself to think about the next one. Instead, she turned her attention to short stories, and hopes to have a new collection in print soon. Her biggest love is Dostoevsky, and she’s recently written a couple of stories she describes as ‘answers’ to two of his short stories – from a woman’s point of view.

Rogers says she wouldn’t be at Sheffield Hallam if she didn’t believe that really good writing can be taught. “You can’t just teach anyone – there has to be talent there. But if anyone with some talent really wants it, you can teach them to be much more conscious of what they’re doing and the effect they can create. We can help students to shorten the process that goes into becoming successful. Part of being a good writer is being an avid reader, too, of course, and having someone who is an honest critic. A lot of young writers find it difficult to get hold of that honest critic, and that’s part of the role we tutors play.”

Jane Rogers has had the good times, a few bad times and – after thinking she’d lost the plot – is back on her novelistic feet. As far as prizes go, that’ll do nicely for now.

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Those on the man booker long list

Julian Barnes – The Sense of an Ending

Sebastian Barry – On Canaan’s Side

Carol Birch – Jamrach’s Menagerie

Patrick de Witt – The Sisters Brothers

Esi Edugyan – Half Blood Blues

Yvvette Edwards – A Cupboard Full of Coats

Alan Hollinghurst – The Stranger’s Child

Stephen Kelman – Pigeon English

Patrick McGuinness – The Last Hundred Days

AD Miller – Snowdrops

Alison Pick – Far to Go

Jane Rogers – The Testament of Jessie Lamb

DJ Taylor – Derby Day

The Man Booker Judging Panel

Writer and journalist Matthew d’Ancona

Author Susan Hill

Author and politician Chris Mullin

Head of Books at the Daily Telegraph Gaby Wood

Dame Stella Rimington is the chair

Previous winners

The Prize: £50,000

The short list of six books will be announced on September 6, and the winner on October 18

To mark the 25th anniversary of the prize in 2003, a panel of previous judges was asked to choose its favourite from among the previous winners. They chose Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children. For the 40th anniversary in 2008, a panel was asked to choose a shortlist of the best books to have won the prize. A public vote again picked Midnight’s Children.