Book review: Maya

Published on Friday 5 February 2010 18:06

Maya by Alastair Campbell Hutchinson, 416pp, £18.99

ALASTAIR Campbell's evidence to the Chilcot inquiry was notable for his chummy name-dropping of top-rank public figures. His cloying view of celebrity, which he shared with his boss Tony Blair, and his loyalty despite the call of duty, are both evident in this curious novel about a man's psychopathic love for a famous actress who was once his schoolfriend.

So is Campbell's training as a writer for Forum magazine. The sex scene, when it finally happens, is rather pleased with itself: "Our tongues ended a two-decade courtship, circled each other again and again, till I sucked her hard into my mouth, and she me into hers. She grabbed at my belt, helped me open my trousers, then forced them to the floor and she pulled me on top of her … I thought the walls were going to fall down as we stroked and screamed our way through hours of pleasure …" But perhaps you have heard enough?

The actress who is the lucky beneficiary of this writing is called Maya, a "girl next door" who becomes preposterously famous. The cover portrait on the novel looks like Cheryl Cole but the woman I reckon Campbell had in mind was Diana, Princess of Wales. We know from his diaries that he became slightly unhinged by her, imagining a flirtation between them. He wrote of her: "Diana was spellbindingly drop-dead gorgeous … when she spoke I had to fight to hear the words because I'm just lost in her beauty."

Campbell's partner, Fiona Millar, seemed to endure his infatuation with Diana, just as the sensible fictional wife Vanessa in Maya puts up with her husband. The first of many flaws in the book is that the Campbell character, Steve Watkins, is such a lousy husband and such a useless employee from the start that it is surprising his wife and boss are so patient.

The novel is endorsed by Campbell's friend Piers Morgan and he has clearly consulted Morgan about life-changing aspects of showbusiness fame. The first 100 pages or so are a breathless account of the life of a celebrity, with some creaky commentary about the loneliness and lack of privacy.

Then the plot hots up when Campbell, I mean Watkins, commissions and misuses some secret intelligence.

The story takes us from London to New York to the White House where there is even a walk-on part for Bob Geldof. Will he be happy with his fictional quote to Maya? "Hey babe, Presidents shit and fart the same as all of us."

As plots go, this is a good one and in the hands of a better attuned writer might even have made a decent novel. As it is, Maya is a perfectly enjoyable airport read and could make a cable TV drama. Piers Morgan could produce it. Celebrities love stories about celebrities.