About three years ago I found myself inside Buckingham Palace, attending a party to celebrate 50 years of the Booker prize. Championing literature was the Queen Consort, Camilla’s thing (the royals all have a thing), which meant she had kindly offered to host us: a few literary critics among a misfit crew of namey authors who had won the Booker, or perhaps should have.
It was an odd night out: even the most famous faces looked uneasy with all the pomp, sipping wine in that gilded room. Just before I left to drink a pint somewhere normal, I spotted a fellow Australian: two-time winner Peter Carey who, clearly doing a Harold Holt, had seen my group of young women writers on his way out. “Night ladies!” he boomed. “Hope you enjoy … the rest of whatever the hell this was!”
