The antipathy from those who did not like the book showed that the character created out of my imagination had genuine differences of attitude to the normal run of people depicted in novels of that time. Some of the wilder utterances of Arthur Seaton were based on my own views of earlier years, but sloganized from long entries in notebooks and blended with sentiments which would come naturally to him. Such views were genuine because I had heard them while working in a factory, and things had not changed in that respect during my conversion to another life. The objection of many was that such remarks had found their way into print, and in the form of a novel that might be in danger of becoming popular among the people it was written about. Rough hewn or not, style was married to narrative as neatly as I knew how, though some reviewers commented on the uneven story line, as well as on the form — whatever was meant by that. It was evident that, a kick having been aimed at the door, the whole structure was found to be rotten.
Perhaps it is unjustifiable to devote so much space to the genesis and appearance of a first novel, but the book is still in print after thirty-five years, and count has been lost as to how many million copies have been sold in all versions and languages. This phenomenon is still as much of a surprise to me as it no doubt is to others, though I hardly ever need tell myself that to sell many copies is not necessarily an indication of a book’s literary excellence. In my opinion much better work was to come, but the sales and film success of Saturday Night and Sunday Morning enabled me to live as a writer, and not have to earn money in ways which could only be regarded as a waste of time.
After publication I was for ever racing down three flights of stairs to answer the telephone in the entrance hall, one call being for a live television appearance in Birmingham. Brendan Behan was on the same programme, and in the lounge of the hotel, and in the studio later, he was surrounded by publishing and publicity people who wanted to see him sufficiently drunk to perform in the unorthodox way they had come to expect, yet not so blindoe that he would lapse into obscene humour, in which case the technicians would be compelled to cut him off and the show would be ruined. Behan responded to a certain extent, though was astute enough to know what was going on. We were introduced, and cordially greeted each other, but I stayed on the periphery of the circus. As it happened, the media people knew what they were about, and Behan’s interview turned out well.
We visited my brother Brian, who with his Shropshire wife lived in Dawley. Walking through woods along the banks of the Severn near Coalbrookdale we came across abandoned chimneys and forges, perfect relics of the Industrial Revolution in a better state of preservation than the ruins of many Roman cities, and possibly as interesting in the history of Man’s attempt to create a civilization.
From Dawley we went to Nottingham, where I gave interviews. My father, ill with cancer of the palate, was no longer at work. While I was in the house he picked up the copy of my novel, turned it round and round in his large analphabetic hands and said: ‘My God, our Alan, you’ve written a book! You’ll never have to work again!’ — a reaction difficult to forget.
In November another ninety pounds came from W. H. Allen, as well as a two hundred and fifty pound advance from Alfred Knopf publishers in the United States, who had accepted the book after fourteen other American firms had turned it down. Including Ruth’s earnings, and my pension, over seven hundred pounds had come into our coffers since leaving Spain, which gave enough money for entertainment. In one week we saw Endgame and Krapp’s Last Tape at the Royal Court, Gorki’s Childhood at the National Film Theatre, and Brendan Behan’s The Hostage put on by Joan Littlewood at Stratford East. A few songs in this last show were good, and much of it funny, but the squalid execution of a young soldier by the IRA at the end left a bitter taste.
My policy was to accept all interviews, since writing a book was one phase, and helping its sales was another. Whether a newspaper was left- or right-wing didn’t bother me, since any publicity, whether positive or negative, was good. I was interviewed by the News of the World, and photographed by Mark Gerson. Several literary agencies enquired about the possibility of representing me. Letters from various people said how much they had enjoyed my novel, and a corrected typescript went on show, with other material from local authors, at Nottingham Central Library, in whose reference section I had written the first chapters of The Deserters seven years before.
With one or two exceptions the backwash of rejection slips dried up, and editors were asking for work. At a cocktail party the managing director of a publishing firm regretted that the manuscript of my novel had not been sent to him, and some satisfaction was felt in replying that in fact it had, but his editors had rejected it.
In December we stayed a fortnight in Amsterdam, at the flat of Constant Wallach, our journalist friend from Majorcan days. The weather was wet and raw but, perusing a Baedeker, we spent hours at the Rijksmuseum and in the Rembrandt House.
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning was taken by Pan Books for a paperback edition, and was featured as one of the best novels of the year in the Observer. Shortly afterwards a contract was signed for the novel to be turned into a film, which deal made a happy end to an unusual year.
Chapter Thirty-seven
Early in 1959 we moved to a furnished cottage in Whitwell, twenty-six miles north of London, paying two hundred pounds in advance for the year’s tenancy. An extension built on to the back made it a large enough place, with a garden going down to the banks of the reedy and sinuous Mimram. On wet nights in late spring, new green frogs, as flat and small as buttons, would find a way under the kitchen door, and amuse us by hopping across the tiles as if in some kind of sack race, till I lifted each one on to a piece of newspaper and put it carefully back on the grass outside. Their activities reminded me of those which sported around the water pump near our first house in France.
Our literary earnings up to the end of the tax year in April were such that we now felt reasonably secure, though for another year or two — habits of parsimony taking a long time to relinquish — accounts were still kept of every item spent to the nearest halfpenny.
Harry Saltzman, who was to be the producer of the film, rented an opulent flat on Kensington Gore from which to conduct his operations. When I went to see him he told me that I should write the script, at the same time implying that the job would be easy, because all a director need do was turn the pages of the novel while making the movie. The book was so cinematic in the unrolling of its sequences that he wondered if it had been written with a film in mind. I told him that it had not, though perhaps it was natural that my work should give that impression, since I must have seen as many films as I had read books. Whether his assumption was a ploy to fob me off with a smaller fee is hard to say, but it was certainly hammered in, as all of us involved knew it had to be, that the film must be made as economically as possible.