The story revolves around the narrator’s experience of getting his first book published and learning that he wasn’t the only writer in his parents’ social circle. The parents reveal that an old university friend from Holland, referred to as Jörg, also published a book. This comparison was unwelcome to the narrator due to the difference in the subject matter and style of their books.
The narrator’s book was a result of leaving his job as pot-holes correspondent on the London Evening Standard to freelance in post-Saddam Iraq. Although it wasn’t quite like the renowned ‘Dispatches’ by Michael Herr, the author believed it was more engaging than writing about roadworks on Streatham High Road. On the other hand, Jörg’s book was a self-published narrative of his campervanning journey across America in the prior year. The book was 500 pages long, double the length of the narrator’s book.
The narrator is the former chief foreign correspondent of the Sunday Telegraph and the author of ‘Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: The mission to rescue the hostages the world forgot.’ The piece doesn’t delve into the content of Jörg’s book or provide a critique of it, but it subtly highlights the diversity and personal