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[Josh Greenman <josh.greenman AT gmail.com>]

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article6730971.ece

July 29, 2009

Chimpanzee's 'autobiography' is nominated for the Booker Man Prize

Ben Hoyle, Arts Correspondent

He has more facial hair than Salman Rushdie, more caustic opinions
than Martin Amis and more chance of lifting the 2009 Man Booker Prize
than a host of famous writers.

He is also a chimpanzee.

Me Cheeta, The Autobiography is the stand-out title on the 13-strong
longlist for the Man Booker announced yesterday.

Presented as a scurrillous Hollywood memoir, the book’s author was
originally credited as “Cheeta”, an ape listed by Guinness World
Records as the world’s oldest non-human primate who was supposedly
Jonny Weismuller’s co-star in umpteen Tarzan films and is now living
in pampered retirement in Palm Springs.

He confesses to a threesome with Marlene Dietrich, claims that the
“universally despised, impotent, alcoholic” Rex Harrison tried to
murder him and damns Maureen O’Sullivan, who played Jane opposite
Weismuller as “a harmless old trout”.

Keen readers will have spotted a catch here though: only works of
fiction qualify for the Man Booker. Me Cheeta is of course a satirical
novel lovingly disguised as an authentic autobiography, complete with
photographs and an index (both firsts for any book in contention for
the prize).

Weeks of speculation in the literary world about the identity of the
mystery “ghost writer” were settled in October when it was revealed to
be not Amis or Will Self as some suspected but James Lever, the
Oxford-educated son of a High Court judge who was a schoolboy in
Bolton when Weismuller died in 1984.

James Naughtie, the broadcaster and author who chaired the judges said
that it was “one of the strongest lists in recent memory, with two
former winners, four past-shortlisted writers, three first-time
novelists and a span of styles and themes that make this an
outstandingly rich fictional mix.”

Ion Trewin, the literary director of the prize, called it a “great
vintage” which continued the Booker’s journey from exclusively
highbrow fiction to something more representative of what people
actually wanted to read. Last year Tom Rob Smith’s Child 44 became the
first thriller to be nominated.

“Now I think Me Cheeta proves that it’s absolutely possible that any
novel can get on (the list) if it’s done well enough. You don’t have
to write what we used to call serious literary fiction to be
considered for this prize.”

He added that the judges were so entranced by Me Cheeta that they
spent some of their three-hour meeting yesterday taking turns to read
out their favourite bits.

In whittling the field down from 132 books the judges discarded new
novels from seven previous winners, including Margaret Atwood,
Penelope Lively, Thomas Keneally, John Banville and last year’s winner
Aravind Adiga. Books by Nick Hornby and David Peace also missed out.

The bookmakers’ favourite is Summertime by JM Coetzee, the South
African writer who has won twice before with Life & Times of Michael K
(the winner in 1983) and Disgrace (in 1999). He would be the first
writer to notch a hat-trick of Booker wins.

A.S. Byatt, who won in 1990 with Possession, is also on the list along
with three first time writers.

They include the author of Me Cheeta. He was hired to write the book
after his publisher at Fourth Estate read a news report about a 75th
birthday party thrown for the “real” Cheeta, who has become a minor
animal celebrity again in his old age.

Lever, a book editor, turned it round in threee months after reading
more than 30 memoirs by Hollywood stars of the 1930s and 1940s. The
novel has been hailed as a comic triumph although the monkey who
inspired it has since been exposed as a fraud who was probably born in
1960 and never acted in a Tarzan film.

The long-listed books tackle subjects as diverse as the court of Henry
VIII, a 19th-century Essex asylum, an African war zone and a
futuristic Brazilian city. The £50,000 prize will be awarded on
October 6 at the Guildhall in London and the winner can expect a
substantial increase in sales. Adiga’s The White Tiger, which won last
year, has now sold more than half a million copies.

The judges this year are Lucasta Miller, biographer and critic;
Michael Prodger, Literary Editor of The Sunday Telegraph; Professor
John Mullan, academic, journalist and broadcaster and Sue Perkins, a
comedian, journalist and broadcaster.

Latest betting

J M Coetzee, Summertime 3/1

Sarah Waters, The Little Stranger 5/1

Colm Toibin, Brooklyn 6/1

William Trevor, Love and Summer 6/1

James Scudamore, Heliopolis 8/1

A S Byatt, The Children's Book 10/1

Samantha Harvey, The Wilderness 10/1

Adam Foulds, The Quickening Maze 10/1

Sarah Hall, How to Paint a Dead Man 12/1

James Lever, Me Cheeta 16/1

Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall 16/1

Simon Mawer, The Glass Room 20/1

Ed O'Loughlin, Not Untrue & Not Unkind 20/1

Source: Ladbroke’s