The Press and Journal - 11th March 2000 - (UK)
Death and the Spin doctor
First there was the detective thriller.
Then came the legal thriller. Now, the PR thriller is
on its way. SUSAN MANSFIELD spoke to David Michie, whose
first novel is setting the trend
PUBLICISTS are pulling no punches about David Michie's
first novel. "Better than The Firm or your money back,''
reads the band around the hardback
edition. Selected as lead title for the month by its
publisher Little Brown, Conflict of Interest is tipped
to do well, and David's second novel, Pure Deception,
is in the bag already with publication planned early
next year. It's entirely appropriate that Conflict of
Interest should have slick PR, but it is also ironic,
since the novel is set among the merchants of slick,
the country's top PR operators.
David Michie, in his immaculate grey suit and bright tie, looks every inch the PR professional he still is: smart, articulate, confident without being pushy, if he was any more polished, he would shine. But also reflected in his book is the fact that he has also looked long and critically at the PR business, and has been shocked by what he has found. David, 38, was born in Rhodesia where his parents, from Aberdeen and Elgin, respectively, had emigrated and worked as teachers. He studied at Rhodes University in South Africa. It is with a wry smile that he describes Conflict of Interest as his first novel: it is the 11th he has written, although the first to be published.
"I wrote my first novel when l was 18" he said. "It was a Boy's Own adventure thriller. Looking back, I shudder with horror at the thought, but I sent it onto a few publishers and agents. It was roundly rejected by all of them ''
Undaunted, he continued to write, while working in public relations. He moved to London in 1988. By the mid-eighties, with 10 completed novels, he decided enough was enough. "I felt I was just banging my head against a brick wall. I decided to give myself a break from any form of writing. Ironically, within six months of making that decision, I had my first publishing contract''
He was on holiday in Los Angeles with his Australian wife when inspiration struck. "I realized l had worked my whole life in PR. I had all this material which I had never used. New Labour was coming to power. People were just becoming aware of spindoctors.'' The result was The Invisible Persuaders, a non-fiction expose of some of the more sinister practices of corporate, celebrity and political PR, published in 1998 to some controversy.
It was the springboard he needed for the publication of a novel. Quickly, he found himself snapped up by a top agent. "To my great delight, after 16 years of having novels rejected, two publishers were bidding in an auction for my book.''
The ideas for Conflict of Interest came together when he was visiting his father, now returned from Africa and living at Whitehills, near Banff. Parts are based on his own experience, including the opening chapter, when PR consultant Chris Treiger is offered the job opportunity of a lifetime with London's top firm, the fictitious Lombard.
"Like Chris, l had a call from a recruitment man who was chasing me. He said he had this job which would pay me loads of money and I'd be brilliant at it. I was not all that interested.
"He tried to persuade me to reconsider and that's when he said the words the recruitment guy says to Chris: 'Don't you think your career is worth a l00 yard walk?'''
The place where the stories diverge is the stratospheric salary Chris is offered, although David says it is no exaggeration for a major firm in the City. Chris finds his new job more than he bargained for, since a major client has committed suicide and his brother and sinister American spindoctor has moved into the breach.
Already a financial analyst who dug too deeply is dead, and Chris and his former lover, journalist Judith Laing, could be next in line.
It is a well-written, fast-moving book with sharply constructed characters, well worth the claims on its cover. The details of how the PR company works are taken largely from David's personal experience. "But I had to tone down things quite a lot to try to make it believable,'' he said mildly. For The Invisible Persuaders, I researched real-life dirty-tricks campaigns, in which a company will hire a PR firm not to say positive things about it, but to pass on negative stories to journalists about its competitors. "I'm not saying that PR firms bump off analysts on behalf of their clients, but more subtle pressures do exist.
"I'm not and-PR. I continue to work in PR, and the vast majority of people who work in PR are ethical, normal people. But there is a small, but incredibly powerful minority who are far more interesting.''
This is the world of Lombard: so secretive it is almost invisible, yet so powerful it claims to be able to control the media, through controlling access to its vast client list. David says there are fewer than a dozen I companies like this in Britain, and his fictional portrayal is based on a combination of some of them.
"The fundamental different between a normal PR jobber and a true spindoctor is their client list'' he said. "If you have a large slice of the top 100 companies among your clients, or some major celebrities from rock music, movies and sport, you are the gatekeeper for those clients. You control what gets said."
He believes that just as legal thrillers help explain how the mysterious world of the law actually works, his novels will do the same for PR. But he says the jury is still out on whether he is creating a genre. That will be proven only lf others follow suit.
"As PR has come of age, public awareness and interest about what goes on has increased,'' David said. People are very aware of political PR and spindoctors, but most people are less aware of the other types.''
Conflict of Interest also shows the darker side of the trend towards "ethical business'' in the 1990s. "The greed-is-good trend in the 1980s has given way to high moral ground and corporate citizenship.'' David said. "In a sense, the greed-is-good thing is far more true of what people are doing. It's far more true for companies to say: 'We're going to go out and make a killing', rather than: 'We're going to help communities, be good to the environment, and help small children and fluffy animals', when in reality what they want to do is make money.''
As a Buddhist, David has taken a sidelong look at the money-chasing culture of the City, which pays high salaries, but demands a person's life in return. "Personally, l find the rise of consumerism quite tragic. People chase after something as a source of happiness which can never be a source of happiness. lf you could put happiness is a bottle, somebody would be selling it. The relative absence of spiritual values is why there is so much depression and unhappiness in the UK today.''
He has no plans to give up PR, although he now lives and works in Australia. "lt's not that I am not optimistic about the books from a financial point of view, but l find writing quite isolating. In PR, you are on the phone constantly, and meeting people constantly.
In my ideal world, what I'd like to do is write part-time, and work part- time doing PR for a charity. That's something I'm working towards.''
Conflict of Interest by David Michie, published by Little, Brown.
By Susan Mansfield