My life as a spirit
Ghostwriting is a bit like prostitution, writes Jennie Erdal: "In both cases you are in rather seedy places, the pay is negotiated in advance and depends on the agreed services, and all those involved, whether as a customer or service provider, must expect negative reactions. " It would be possible to find another parallel: one sometimes slides into the job just so pure, although one did not want to practice it at all.
No better than a common hooker.
"It started off quite harmless: write a speech for him, sometimes a business letter," says Jen-nie Erdal, a friendly, educated woman of 56 years, mother of three grown children, who lives in the time-honored Scottish university town of St. Andrews , along with her second husband David in a large house with a garden, where the grandchild is now happily romping around. It is very hard to believe that this woman was also certified by one of her former university professors that she was "no better than a common hooker" in terms of money acquisition. And they did not even know the whole story.
The work as a ghostwriter began with love letters
"That was just a normal job," says Jennie Erdal. "It only became unusual when it took such proportions." Jennie Erdal has worked for a man for almost 20 years, a London-based publisher with Palestinian roots named Naim Attallah, who was not unknown in England in the 1980s: on the one hand as a businessman, but mainly as the host of extravagant parties, and as an eccentric who called a tiger skin "Kaiser" was hanging over his desk, giving away a pink keyring, which was often phallus-shaped, to a pair of green women, which he had specially made for this purpose.
Naim Attalah
Officially, Jennie Erdal was employed from 1981 to the end of 2000 in his publishing house, Quartet Books, as a lecturer. Unofficially, on the other hand, she wrote every paper in which "Naim Attallah" was named author: newspaper columns on actresses or underwear, travelogues from countries where she never was, comments on the situation in the Middle East, condolences, cards to her own son, two of Well-written novels and numerous love letters (the least of which to his wife), which she typed on the computer and the Attallah then wrote down by hand.
"He was always very moved by the love letters," says Jennie Erdal and remembers how he read some loudly, with a trembling voice and a tear away. Of the novels, on the other hand, he did not like the second, a work called "Tara & Claire", not so special. "He thought I did not do his single thing well enough." It consisted of writing down a sex scene in which two cousins simultaneously have an orgasm because of their particularly telepathic connection, even though they are physically far apart. "That was an incredibly stupid idea," says Jennie Erdal. In her distress she made a kind of puberty fantasy out of it. Naim Attallah was very disappointed, while Jennie was glad that the critics did not blow the book in the air.
Four years after she quit, she wrote a book about her life as a ghostwriter. Actually, she says, she did not originally intend to write an autobiography as her first work under her own name. Even less did she want to do dirty laundry and expose her former employer. So she does not even mention his name in the book? he is called "Tiger" there. "All I knew was that I wanted to write, but not what I did, I started various novel ideas, but I was not satisfied, and a friend finally told me there is only one story to tell."
There is only one story to tell.
Jennie Erdal describes how, as the mother of three little children, she is overjoyed when she gets the job as a lecturer in Russian-language literature, even with the opportunity to work from home. "I finally thought I would never be able to read anything other than bedtime stories in my life." For a while she actually works as a lecturer. Until her boss gets it into her head to release a volume of interviews with famous women.
Attallah conducts hours of interviews with 289 women, including Kathleen Turner, Doris Lessing and Soraya Kashoggi. Jennie Erdal prepares the questions, puts together the answers afterwards and writes an 80-page introduction. Their cooperation is not mentioned in the 1200-page tome, but the book is a great success. From then on, she is his ghostwriter for everything, whether professional or private? "without the term 'ghostwriting' even being pronounced once," says Jennie Erdal."At some point he said then, we would have to evolve and try a novel."
Attallah dictated the rude act (married man has passionate affair with another woman) and Jennie six weeks time. The novel, she says in hindsight, was not well done: the characters cliché, the story weak, a pure commissioned work without real impulse. "But it is, I think, partly well written." Anyway, the reviews were mostly positive. "I was very relieved for Naim," she says. "And he was also happy and called to me from afar back then: They say we can write!"
Jennie Erdal
Jennie Erdal can undoubtedly write, and her own story, "The Ghostwriter" got very good reviews in England. She writes not self-pitying or accusatory about her job, but in a long way very funny and self-deprecating. And when she reports of her work together with her boss in his holiday home, which also includes sunbathing by the pool, always naked at his request (the relationship nevertheless remained platonic), one still feels a certain sympathy for her old employer. On the one hand she portrays this as a control freak, engaging, sex-obsessed and unintellectual, but also as generous, warm-hearted and beyond all enthusiasm. "And I was very grateful to him for giving me a lifeline during a very difficult time, which I still am for him."
In 1985, her marriage had broken down. Suddenly she was a single mother of three, and needed more than what Attallah paid her. That he adorned herself with her creativity and was asked by other guests at the parties on the occasion of the appearance of her own books, if she had read them (which she mostly negated)? No, she did not disturb all that, she says. "I've been a translator and a lecturer before, you always work in the background in these professions and I always wanted to be there."
He did not care what was there. The main thing was his name was spelled correctly.
However, there were also difficult tasks. Love letters she wrote reluctantly: "I did not know most people at all, and Naim's only instruction was often just to make sure the letter was 'loving' or 'very loving.'" And at some point she should write a commentary on abortion for a newspaper, of course from his worldview. She was ? "he was finally a good Catholic"? strictly and in any case against. She decided, nevertheless, to write a fairly balanced comment. In the end, it did not matter, since Attallah never knew what "he" had written about abortion: the newspaper had spelled him wrong in the author's line, which upset him so much that he flung the pages crumpled through the plane before reading. "That's when I finally realized that he did not care what was in his name, the main thing was that the name was spelled correctly, and my job was to give him opinions he did not have and to express feelings he did not feel . "
The reason for her dismissal after 19 years was ultimately the absolute capture by her boss, who called up to 40 times a day at her home, which Jenny's second husband David in particular no longer wanted to join. When Naim Attallah also wanted another novel from her? this time the universal book about God?
From the ghostwriter to your own books
Naim Attallah was furious with Jennie Erdal's book of revelations. He still does not speak to her today. Instead, he brought out after his appearance even in no time four more books in his name? all more or less concealed memoirs in which Jennie Erdal does not appear? to show that he can write without his ghostwriter. The doubts doubtfully that the books were created entirely unaided, but otherwise is politely silent about it. "We've spent nearly 20 years together, but we've always been strangers, I was just the woman who kept a part of his life going, just like the woman who cleans his ears and cuts his nails . " You still feel a "residual affection" to him? also because he finally forced her to do what she always wanted and never dared to do before: to write books. Under her own name.