Foul Papers
London & Suffolk, 2023 — media, politics, cryptocurrency, appropriation.
FOUL PAPERS opens in the domestic and social world of Westwich, a small East Anglian town. We meet (among others) three central players: Charles Davenport, a noted but ageing poet who has recently downsized and is selling his large house (The Hollies); Sarah Greenstreet, a successful TV newsreader and celebrity who is undergoing a messy divorce from Richard Greenstreet, a charismatic (if self-interested) Conservative politician; and Jaz (Jasmine) Smith, a local stylist-turned-coder who has, by happenstance, acquired the papers of a deceased local woman, Jean Smith—diaries, letters, and a small body of poems.
The plot advances by bringing these characters into overlapping, escalating contact. Sarah, looking for a rural house and a fresh start to boost an arts-focused television pitch, becomes the buyer of The Hollies. She meets Charles at a viewing, is charmed by his reticent literary fame, and a short, improbable but tender affair between them begins. Their liaison becomes fodder for paparazzi and PR in short order when Sarah—whose career and public visibility make her a ready story—becomes associated publicly with Charles. A tabloid photograph of Sarah and Charles together sets off a media ripple: publishers and agents smell opportunity; Charles’s long-time publisher Jon Wilde hopes to exploit the publicity; Sarah’s agent Penny and PR operatives manoeuver to sculpt the story.
Parallel to the intimacy plot runs a scandal plot about authorship: Jaz, after buying Jean Smith’s house and sorting its attic, realizes that Jean and Charles had had a relationship decades ago; Jean’s letters apparently contributed material to Charles’s most celebrated collection, Schwarzschild. Jaz intends to write a corrective history—one that would treat Jean’s work seriously and show how it has been subsumed into Davenport’s fame. Independently, a small group of “hacktivist” and academic-minded critics—Hacker-ish types—have been using textual comparison tools to identify copying and appropriation in contemporary poetry. The threat that these tools (and the shaming they produce) pose to reputations hangs over the characters.