Two weeks ago, my debut book, Writers in Whites, was published. It’s been an enormously exciting time for me, and the outcome of years of work.
The book’s full title is Writers in Whites: How a group of literary cricketers changed English culture. It’s a nonfiction book about a coterie of writers who played cricket together for three generations, from JM Barrie, Arthur Conan Doyle and PG Wodehouse, via Evelyn Waugh and Edmund Blunden, all the way through to Henry Blofeld and Michael Morpurgo, and how their cricket-based friendships influenced their careers and the wider literary landscape.
Writers in Whites spans eight decades, from the 1880s to the 1960s, charting the rise and fall of cricket’s role in London’s literary world amid the changing national culture. Along the way, there are scandals, controversies and numerous funny anecdotes and human moments – often in the participants’ own words – about the writers’ cricket-field antics. I would say it’s 40% a cricket book, 60% literary biography and cultural history. Although based on my PhD research, it’s written to be an accessible, enjoyable read for laypeople: if you’ve heard of Sherlock Holmes and you’re aware that cricket is a team sport involving bats and balls, you ought to know enough to enjoy this book.
We had a double-header launch: a cricket match (what else?) on Sunday 17th May, followed by a more traditional pub launch in Vauxhall the following evening.
The cricket match was the Authors XI versus the Gold Bats, the cricket team of the PG Wodehouse Society. Since the book is all about writers playing cricket together, often in teams called the Authors XI, and since Wodehouse is a prominent character in the book, the teams could not have been more thematically appropriate. The ground was Brasenose College Sports Ground in Oxford: the site of one of the cricket matches described in Writers in Whites. I played for the Authors. I did not impress. I was sent in to bat first, and immediately got out. (The Authors, nevertheless, won.)
There was a good turnout of onlookers, and one of the Gold Bats posted an enjoyable YouTube video of the match. An American spectator (a member of the PG Wodehouse Society) was having the rules of cricket explained to her when she was struck on the leg by a tremendous six – the only six of the match – and thereafter she watched from the safety of the pavilion. This was the day’s only mishap.
Twenty-four hours after the end of the cricket match, I arrived at the Jolly Gardeners pub in Vauxhall for the “main” launch. It was a wonderful, albeit delirious and somewhat overwhelming, experience. Three descendants of major characters turned up, among an eclectic mix of friends and cricket-world people. The turnout must have been well over a hundred, and I signed scores of books until I wasn’t sure anymore how to spell the most basic names.
I did a Q+A with my literary agent, Charlie Campbell, who also happens to be the captain of the present-day Authors XI and was the person who originally pointed me in the direction of this project. Then I signed more books. I hope everyone had a good time – I was far too busy to speak to anyone for more than half a minute.
As well as the launch events, there have been a couple of other especially exciting moments in recent weeks. The London Review of Books published a very generous review of Writers in Whites, calling it “superb… Randall charts the decline of cricket as a cultural influence with just as much brilliance and assiduity as he chronicles its rise.” This was actually published before the book had even gone to print. The reviewer, Ferdinand Mount, kindly turned up at the Vauxhall launch, where he explained that he’d been researching a piece on E.W. Hornung for the LRB and, while Googling in search of Hornung references, had stumbled upon an advance press announcement for my book. Hornung is a major character in Writers in Whites; so he asked for an advance copy, in the form of a PDF. Serendipity indeed.
Things have been very busy since then. I wrote an article about the book that was published in The Times. More early reviews have started to trickle in – and I’m thrilled with how positive they are. I have a string of speaking engagements in the calendar. My friends have rallied round and been brilliant. Onwards and upwards!
If you’re after a copy, Writers in Whites is available to buy here!