An Exercise In Vanity

I've been agonising lately about which photograph of myself to use on the dust jacket of my latest novel. 

 It's a little like navel-gazing. 

 I had no idea my vanity was so prolific. The thing is, I haven't deviated from using the same photograph which appeared in the author's blurb in my first book. 

Was that particular photograph taken a good eight, nine, or ten years ago? I'm embarrassed to say the same shot appeared in books two and three and, if truth be told, and if memory serves me, made its way into book four. 

 Vanity convinced me to stick with it, given the photograph was, dare I say it, rather flattering. However, using multiple times could be construed as a little fraudulent, as age has certainly worn me out since that picture was snapped.

My latest novel comes out in the next couple of months, and knowing that the question of an author's picture would arise set me to thinking about authors and their images on their respective dust jackets. Looking to the experts, I browsed several novels from our library to see if authors generally feel the same way as I do.

 I noticed John Grisham has seemingly not aged a jot in the twenty or so years since he began churning out a novel every year. There he stands, nonchalantly, leaning against a wall, gazing confidently into the camera's lens, smug in the realisation that his latest tome will sell several million copies. 

 I wonder, do bestselling authors become modern-day Dorian Grays? Do they retain their youth while somewhere, in a gloomy attic, a book cover grows old on their behalf? 

 The handsome Mr. Grisham, with his boyish and devil-may-care stare, says everything about him. If his next novel is a tome about the intricacies of Norwegian Folk Dancing, it would fly off the shelves of any bookshop in the world. 

 Having read Howard Jacobson's "In the Land of Oz,' I was captivated by this hilarious romp through some of the less visited regions of Australia. Throughout the book, Mr. Jacobson constantly refers to his faith and his Jewishness,' waxing lyrically about his adoration for Woody Allen. 

Bumbling around the continent, he regales his readers with hilarious tales of snorkelling the Great Barrier Reef (even though he cannot swim), quaffing beers with tough bikers in outback pubs, and encounters with 'Gray nomads' in remote caravan parks scattered across the top end of the country. 

The book is written in the first person, and I had to conjure up an image of what Mr Jacobson looked like, as the dust jacket does not include a photograph in the author's credits. From here on, I will forever have this image of him as Woody Allen, a nervous Jewish man from New York, wearing a pair of oversized black-framed glasses. 

Racy spy novels, romantic Victorian tales, and edge-of-your-seat thrillers are written by people who I guarantee look nothing like the characters they invent, even though we delude ourselves to the contrary. 

You know the ones. 

The suave, unflappable heroes who, under harrowing circumstances, still manage to resemble George Clooney. They are calm and composed, destroying a nest of evil bad guys in a brutal war zone. 

Perhaps this is why we invent stories to fulfil our shortcomings regarding looks.

I pleaded to use the long-ago picture for the author's page for the upcoming novels as, well, don't we all like to stay forever young? 

My long-suffering publicist would have none of it, telling me in no uncertain words to 'man up' and admit we all get old. I supplied him with several 'recent' shots, all rejected as they originated in the same era as the original. 

Consequently, a few weeks ago, a photographer arrived at my house and promptly wandered around the grounds, looking for a suitable location. His assistant whisked me off to my closet and spent an hour selecting and discarding almost every item of clothing I possess. 

We somehow managed to cobble together a suitable outfit that satisfied the dresser and the photographer. They plonked me in various positions around the garden, and for the next two hours, the photographer shouted out baffling instructions, "Chin up. No, too much. Chin down. Look 'bookish" 

You get the picture. 

A week later, 'the photograph' was selected from the scores of images shot that day. How would one put it? It is an 'honest' photograph as it clearly shows that I've moved on quite a bit, age-wise.

After staring at it for hours, I am thinking of following in the footsteps of Dorian Gray and placing the dust jacket in a musty attic where it can age, far from the madding crowd, while I swan about the world looking fabulous. 

Paul v Walters is the best-selling author of several novels and anthologies of short stories. When not cocooned in sloth and procrastination in his house in Bali, he occasionally rises to scribble for a few international travel and vox pop journals.

His latest novel,  RITUAL, will be released in early 2024.