Wattpad brings you a guest post from Andrew Crofts, author of non-teen fiction “The Overnight Fame of Steffi McBride,” “Secrets of the Italian Gardener,” and “The Fabulous Dreams of Maggie de Beer”:
London has provided many great fictional characters, from those that cram the pages of every novel by Dickens to the murky spies of the Cold War, fabulous Victorian monsters like Dr Jekyll/ Mr. Hyde and fictionalised versions of real historical characters like Thomas Cromwell in Hilary Mantel’s prize winning “Wolf Hall” and “Bring up the Bodies”.
Since it was the glamour and history of such characters that formed part of the magnetic draw London held for the central character in my first Wattpad book, “The Fabulous Dreams of Maggie de Beer”, some of my top five are linked to either Maggie’s life or my own.
1. Dorian Gray from “The Picture of Dorian Gray” by Oscar Wilde. A story about the fleeting nature of beauty, full of decadence, glamour and vanity. Dorian sells his soul in exchange for keeping his beauty – just as Maggie gives away her child in return for a chance at fame - while a hidden portrait of him ages instead. It provides a dark and seductive picture of London at the end of the nineteenth century, one of its most glamorous periods.
2. Karim Amir, the mixed race teenager from “The Buddha of Suburbia” by Hanif Kureishi. Like Maggie, Karim is desperate to escape from the suburbs of London and immerse himself in the exciting centre of the city in the 1970s. “I am an Englishman born and bred,” he says, “almost!” The novel resonates with references to pop music of the time, particularly the work of David Bowie who recorded a soundtrack for the book when it was later dramatised for television.
3. Johnny Chrome, a talentless glam-rock star from the same period who, in “Johnny Come Home” by Jake Arnott, has one enormous hit single and struggles with the consequences of his unearned stardom – the sort of stardom that Maggie de Beer would happily sell her soul for.
4. Nazeen, the central character in “Brick Lane” by Monica Ali, who is actually born in a hut in Bangladesh but, through an arranged marriage, ends up living the bleak life of an immigrant in London, seeing the modern city through a totally different lens.
5. The unnamed ghostwriter at the heart of “The Ghost” by Robert Harris (played in the film by Ewan McGregor). Here I have a vested interest because Mr. Harris quotes me at the start of every chapter and the character is basically living a fictionalised version of my own life. It is not only an accurate portrayal of a ghostwriter’s life, but a tense thriller about the aftermath of Tony Blair’s reign, written by an insider of the period.
I would be very interested to hear other Wattpadders’ nominations for their favourite fictionalised Londoners.
Listen to our podcast with Andrew Crofts, “The King of Ghost Writers”!
You can also read Andrew Crofts’ stories free on Wattpad.