When Graydon Carter’s memoir is published later this year, there will be another name alongside his on the cover: that of his ghostwriter.
Nothing strange in that, in one respect. But Carter – who was editor of Vanity Fair for a quarter of a century – is himself a professional writer, fully capable of penning a compelling yarn about his days at the helm of the world’s most glamorous magazine. So what gives?
Part of the answer may be revealed in Carter’s choice of ‘ghost’. It is not just any hired hack, but James Fox – a distinguished author in his own right as well as the ghostwriter of Keith Richards’ autobiography Life, considered a benchmark of the ghosted genre.
In the age of Instagram, TikTok, self-funded Netflix documentaries, personal publicists and privacy lawyers, you might think that there was never less need for a book-length memoir or autobiography to light up one’s personal halo. But perhaps the proliferation of nearly worthless digital content has in fact elevated the status of ‘A Book’. If that’s the case, then drafting in an author of Fox’s pedigree might imbue the end product with further gravitas.
‘No other medium is capable of summing up great achievements,’ says Niall Edworthy, ghost of some 25 autobiographies of sports stars and military heroes. ‘It makes you look serious about what you do.’
The market has ‘grown massively in the last 20 years’ thanks to the explosion of celebrity culture, says Lorna Russell, senior editorial director at Ebury Press, who published Cliff Richard’s (ghosted) memoir.
This explosion has given rise to a new type of service provider to the rich and famous: the ghostwriter. As the name suggests, they usually stay out of the limelight, but occasionally, a ghost might get caught in the media strobe: when the writer and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist J. R. Moehringer was promoted as Prince Harry’s ghost, it was the symmetry in their lives – loss of beloved mother, problems with father – that justified his unveiling.
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A ghosted memoir serves many purposes. If you want to put the record straight, polish your legacy, produce ‘something for the grandchildren’, impart wisdom gleaned from an eventful life or perhaps even alleviate insomnia, a ghosted autobiography can get the job done. There are other, more nuanced purposes too.
‘Many UHNW types want to be considered not only as successful disrupters but also, in some nebulous way, thought leaders,’ says Helen Croydon, journalist turned author, turned personal PR, turned ghostwriter. ‘A book is considered a ticket to thought leadership. It opens the door to Ted Talks. It allows you to go on podcasts. It provides a media hook. Having your memoir on Amazon, being able to post about it on LinkedIn, and being able to pitch it to people… these are tickets that some authors crave more than the book itself.’ But there are certain issues that should be considered.
From inspiration to celebration
There are perhaps three broad categories of ghosted autobiography. The first celebrates an already glittering career such as Richard Branson’s Losing My Virginity and its sequel Finding My Virginity, which are said to have sold ‘millions’. This type covers the lives of world-famous stars. These books may represent a chance to repent for errors and transgressions, to reveal or disguise the truth, or to aggravate or extenuate particular circumstances. Skilfully abridged and curated, these expected best-sellers lend gravitas to careers that may sometimes have been raised by a combination of fashion and caprice.
The second type is less commercial, more personal and inspirational. A lion in their field, the author might be almost unknown outside it. Approaching a career terminus, they may want to preserve their good actions from oblivion and procure a form of immortality while reflecting on a lifetime’s achievement.
The third type of book, and the most obscure, is the one produced purely for internal consumption by a defined and closed circle: the family chronicle, the regimental epic, the school annal, the club record and the institutional history. Some wealthy, multi-generational families use a book like this to capture their family history, and also to help executives working in their family offices to get clued up on family lore.
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Only the first type of book would be expected to make money. The publisher would be expected to pay the author a handsome advance and royalties, while flipping the ghost a flat fee and possibly a share of the royalties too. The second two types would be funded by the author or commissioning organisation respectively.
All three types need a really strong story – or stories – in order to have any chance of making an impact. ‘Stories are more than a list of events, however exciting,’ says Croydon. ‘You need people and characters.
‘Show don’t tell’: Ghostwriting a memoir
For a memoir, the author has to turn himself into a character. They have to admit and articulate faults. They have to show development, whether by redemption or some kind of rags-to-riches alteration.’
Among variables that determine the success of a ghosted memoir, the most important is the ghost-author relationship. Finding a ghost whom you can trust to pick over your private life in forensic detail is difficult, as Guy Hands can tell you. The financier burnt through five ghosts before he could complete The Dealmaker: Lessons from a Life in Private Equity. Usually, the publisher will hand-select a shortlist from which the author chooses his preferred phantom. ‘It’s a mating ritual,’ says one publisher. ‘It’s quite primitive.’
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Robbie Williams was a reluctant author of Somebody Someday. Like many celebrity autobiographers, he was pushed into it by his management looking to capitalise on the Robbie Williams ‘brand’. Mark McCrum was ‘the least likely person in the universe’ to be Williams’s ghostwriter. ‘I had heard of Take That, but knew little about pop music,’ says McCrum. ‘But that was a good thing. The way to impress a celebrity is not to know who they are. Once I got Robbie going, he was keen to talk about his insecurities. As with all ghostwriting, half the work is writing; the other half is getting on with the subject.’
‘Our golden rule is “Show, don’t tell,”’ says Russell. ‘Rather than, “My father was awful,” you write, “My father kept a stick at the door to hit me.”’ The other red flag is score-settling. Partiality and prejudice are best avoided. ‘Anything more than a couple of mild digs comes across as angry,’ says Russell. ‘That’s not commercial. The public wants to like the author.’
‘The passages of Spare that caught the media attention were those where Harry was trying to get one over his brother,’ says McCrum. ‘It always backfires. It’s like listening to the bickerings of a divorced couple: monumentally dull.’
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Other tips are to have a clear idea of what you think your ‘story’ is; to consider very carefully the chronology of your life in order to avoid costly revisions; and to be prepared to submit to an inquisitor on your private life, your character and your emotions that will feel like part-therapy, part-interrogation and part-confessional. The more emotionally revelatory, the better the book.
Publisher and ghost alike demand genuine commitment from the talent. ‘If the author hasn’t put in the hours, it shows,’ says Russell. The commitment must run to a real emotional investment. ‘Honesty jumps off the page,’ agrees Edworthy. ‘Dissembling and self-aggrandisement, even if well-disguised, kills it for the reader.’ It sounds like a cliché, but the author needs to show vulnerability. ‘He should admit mistakes and fess up to things that went wrong,’ says Russell. ‘That makes the reader think, “Gosh, this isn’t just a PR exercise.”’
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When the work is finally published, the author will receive a pile of beautifully produced copies that he can proudly distribute to family, friends and colleagues. Ascending tiers of acclaim will then open before you: the book might get reviewed, serialised, celebrated as Book of the Month at Waterstones or entered for awards. Or none of that might happen, and you can console yourself with the warm, fuzzy feeling of a job well done.
While Graydon Carter has credited James Fox, many authors prefer to keep quiet about their ghost. It seems there are two schools of thought about what status to allow ghosts. One school says that the ghost should be acknowledged for skilfully and professionally threading certain themes through a narrative arc. The other school prefers to blank the ghost as if they never existed. But it is considered very poor form to redact your ghost altogether. The problem with that strategy is that ghosts cannot die; you will never know when they may come to haunt you.
When McCrum was overlooked at the launch of Bruce Parry’s Tribe: Adventures in a Changing World, which he had ghosted, he decided to crash the party anyway.
‘Mark!’ shrieked his editor. ‘What are you doing here?’
She looked like she’d seen a ghost.
This feature first appeared in Spear’s Magazine Issue 94. Click here to subscribe
