Elfin Agent of Genius

Looky look! I have been longlisted for the Desmond Elliot prize! Very exciting, it is my first one. I am not at all sure how I ended up on a list with books like The Outcast and Random Acts of Heroic Love, it is making me feel a bit vertiginous. According to the site -

Reflecting the overall high quality of writing on the list, Nikita Lalwani’s novel, Gifted, has already been longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award and the Glen Dimplex Fiction Award 2007; The Outcast by Sadie Jones has been shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction; Random Acts of Heroic Love by Danny Scheinmann has been selected for the Richard & Judy 2008 Book Club; and Adam Foulds, author of The Truth About These Strange Times has recently won the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year 2008.

Put it this way: only three books get on the shortlist and I am not picking out my dress for the ceremony just yet. But never mind! If I was going to get nominated for any prize, I'm glad that it was this one. The award is named after the Desmond Elliot who is described on the website as the "elfin agent of genius". From the site biog:

Desmond Elliott was ageless and, when he died, in August 2003, it seemed impossible that he could be 73. “A dapper little elf”, he was five-foot-nothing, always stylishly dressed in Brooks Brothers’ boyswear and with a mischievous twinkle in his faded denim-blue eyes. Waspish, witty, an uncanny mimic and a sometimes outrageous raconteur, he told endless stories against himself but wasn’t above bitching about some of his peers. And he always enjoyed a good feud: “I believe it is really important to have one or two really influential enemies. They tend to talk about one to all the right people.” [...]

As his authors grew rich, so, too, did Desmond, who quickly learned to enjoy his success. He drank only champagne and bought his groceries at Fortnum & Mason, “the local corner shop”, where he had a charge account and treated its St James’s Restaurant like the office canteen. [...] The Connaught and the Ritz were also favoured venues, but “travelling west of Marble Arch gives me a nose bleed”. When he flew to New York, it was always on Concorde and, once there, he exchanged his Mayfair bachelor pad (complete with kitchen trapeze) for a Park Avenue apartment."

It is a point of great pride to be associated with someone who owned a bachelor pad with a kitchen trapeze. I don't care that a kitchen trapeze is probably some kind of sling for hanging your saucepans off, I am imagining a team of performance dwarves doing acrobatics above my head as I burn the toast.

The only disappointment is that as a nominee I don't get to meet the marvelous-sounding but sadly deceased Desmond Elliot - the man who discovered Jilly Cooper, no less - but I am honoured to be listed for his prize. I will of course keep you posted on the shortlist and the eventual winner.