Letters of a Desperate Man

An archive collection of letters gives an insight into the truth behind "The Naked Spur" story.

Sorting material in my archive I came across a file marked “The Naked Spur Letters, 2000-2005”. I hadn’t seen it for a decade. I knew what it contained: copies of about 50 letters relating to a wild scheme to make a living from selling contemporary nude paintings, pre-made and to commission - the basis of my novel The Naked Spur.

Opening the file I was transported back to 2002, when I broached to my friend (called “Mack” in the novel) selling paintings. On 26 August 2002 I wrote “Dear M., I have just quit my job without lining up a replacement. As you can imagine, the consequence is that in a fairly short space of time I will be completely broke. Enclosed are some photographs of paintings.” I suggested that he show them to colleagues and contacts in the music industry, where he worked as a video director. The idea wasn’t crazy but depending on it (and M.) was reckless in the extreme. Letters chart rapid progress and equally rapid disintegration of the project, in an arc of self-awareness and disillusionment.

For those familiar with the novel, you’ll see that the contents of these letters - the location, precise dating (including times of day), manner of address and basic concerns - completely match the “fiction” of A.’s hopeless scheme. There is more humour here than in the novel. (I don’t think any other letter in history has ever begun “Trying to cut down on the open-leg paintings.”) The bald accounting of my finances is chilling. The madness of hoping the project would pay rent and loan repayments is laid bare in sobering statistics.

If the letters have more humour and contain more raw data than was appropriate for the novel, they also underplay the terrible anxiety that gnawed me. Only in a later letter (written in 2005 to a housemate of “Mack”) is there an account of The Fear that went hand-in-hand with exhilarating risk-taking. (I’m reminded these are letters written by a 29-year-old, who relished the extravagant gamble.)

One reason for making these letters public is to show a wider range of emotions than went expressed in the novel. Another is to allow you to immerse yourself (again) in the world of “A.” in his single rented room in Greenwich.