Blair Memoirs a hit, right in the tush!

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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/09/world ... blair.html


By SARAH LYALL
Published: September 8, 2010
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LONDON — "You are my 10th prime minister," Queen Elizabeth observes to Tony Blair when she meets him at Buckingham Palace on his first day in office in 1997, according to "A Journey: My Political Life," Mr. Blair's new memoir. "The first was Winston. That was before you were born."
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Carl Court/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, leaving a studio in London on Monday after a television interview. His autobiography has sold 92,000 copies in hardcover in less than a week.
It is a memorable scene, one that (along with another one depicting Prince Philip manning the barbecue at a family cookout) has reportedly displeased the queen, since it is considered rude and uncouth for prime ministers to reveal secret details about private encounters with the royal family. But in what was the latest curveball in the carefully choreographed publicity campaign for Mr. Blair's book, it turns out that the queen may not have actually said what Mr. Blair claims she said.

Or maybe she did, but only in the movies. In "The Queen," the 2006 film about the aftermath of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, Helen Mirren, playing Elizabeth, greets Michael Sheen, playing Mr. Blair, saying in part: "You are my 10th prime minister, Mr. Blair. My first was Winston Churchill."

Peter Morgan, screenwriter of "The Queen," said that the scene in the film was entirely fictional, based on his imagination. Since it is unlikely that he "guessed absolutely perfectly," Mr. Morgan told The Daily Telegraph, perhaps Mr. Blair "had one gin and tonic too many" and — like Ronald Reagan before him — "confused the scene in the film with what actually happened."

Mr. Blair has always maintained that he has never seen "The Queen," which depicts him as chirpy and ingratiating, but also politically astute.

A spokesman for Knopf, his publisher, repeated that assertion on Wednesday — the accusation is merely "a good P.R. gambit by Morgan to direct folks to their Netflix queue," said the spokesman, Paul Bogaards, who is acting as Mr. Blair's media representative for the book. So the mystery of the coincidence will have to remain so.

In any case, Mr. Blair's book does not appear to be suffering for it.

Tony Blair has always been a man of contradiction, and the latest is this: even as angry, protesting crowds are forcing him to cancel long-planned publicity events in London, his book is selling as if he were the most popular person alive. In Britain, according to Nielsen BookScan, "A Journey" has sold 92,000 copies in hardcover in less than a week — the company's best opening week for an autobiography since it began keeping figures in 1998.

In the United States, where his publisher has printed an additional 25,000 copies since its first printing of 50,000 copies, the book is to debut on The New York Times's hardcover best-seller list at No. 3 on Sept. 19. On Amazon, it is already selling at No. 13 for all books.

"It's been absolutely remarkable," said Fiona Allen, a spokeswoman for the Waterstone's book chain in Britain. "We issued a release at the end of Day 1, saying it was proving to be our fastest-selling political memoir of all time. It was breaking all these records, no problem at all, and then it was becoming clear that it was selling more than any other autobiography we've ever had." More, for instance, than "David Beckham: My Side," the soccer star's memoir, with its fetching cover photograph.

You wouldn't know it to see the vehemence of the anti-Blair protests here. Though "A Journey" has gotten mixed reviews, the critics have taken it seriously, with many praising Mr. Blair for having obviously written it himself, and for being unusually candid about the vicissitudes of life in high office. So the former prime minister was probably surprised when, arriving at a bookstore in Dublin over the weekend, he was greeted by a throng of angry protesters loudly chanting "Butcher Blair," trying to penetrate the security perimeter around the store and throwing eggs, plastic bottles and other objects at him.

The incident proved unnerving enough that Mr. Blair canceled his big book signing event in London, which was to have been held at lunchtime on Wednesday at Waterstone's flagship store in Piccadilly. And then he canceled his private book party, a planned celebration at the Tate Modern gallery on Wednesday night, explaining that he did not want to subject his friends to the "unpleasant and frightening" experience of dealing with protesters.

"It is sad, in a way, because you should have the right to sign books or see your friends if you want to," Mr. Blair told a television interviewer on Wednesday. "But it was going to cause so much hassle."

The protests have faint echoes of another fictional depiction of Mr. Blair, in the guise of former Prime Minister Adam Lang in Robert Harris's thriller, "The Ghost." In the book, which was made into the Roman Polanski film "The Ghost Writer," Mr. Lang, a thinly disguised version of Mr. Blair, can barely leave the house without being hounded by anti-Iraq-war protesters. Rejected in Britain, he lives in virtual exile in the United States, cheering himself up with visits to his dwindling band of admirers, most of them in the American government.

It is not so bad with Mr. Blair. The protesters, led by a group called the Stop the War Coalition, have not driven him out of the country, for example.

"Not everybody hates him," said Andrew Rawnsley, a political journalist and author of "The End of the Party," about the Labour government's long goodbye. "There is a small section of people who absolutely hate him. There's a section of people who still quite admire and like him — remember, he did win three elections. And a large proportion of people have quite ambiguous feelings about him, but are fascinated by him."

Neill Denny, editor in chief of The Bookseller, a trade publication, said, "We are in the 'all publicity is good publicity' sphere here — all the publicity builds excitement for the book."

He went on: "It's a false premise to say that because people hate him, they won't want to buy his book. They might find him a megalomaniacal, egocentric person, but also a fascinating study in his own right."

Ms. Allen, the Waterstone's spokeswoman, said that Mr. Blair's book had become "a must-read for people wanting to participate in daily life."

"A book can get to the point where if you haven't read it, and you don't know what it's all about, then you are out of the loop," she said. In addition, she said, political memoirs, particularly of former prime ministers, have been selling briskly for some time.

"There's definitely a heightened atmosphere, and an appetite for reading political books," Ms. Allen said.

Mr. Blair has a number of planned events in the United States next week, Mr. Bogaards said. These include a conversation with Katie Couric at the 92nd Street Y; an appearance on "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart"; and an appearance at the National Constitutional Center in Philadelphia, where he is to receive the 2010 Liberty Medal from former President Bill Clinton.

Those will undoubtedly help lift sales, too.

As Mr. Denny pointed out, "The number of protesters is still pretty small compared to the number of buyers of the book."