When stories end - ghostwriting and the world
The story of 'Please, let me go'
This is a story of how ghostwriting really works - it's long, and it's not what I usually blog about, but it has been bothering me, so here we go ...
A few years ago, a young woman got in touch with me after reading a book I’d ghosted about a survivor of sexual abuse. She had been through the most horrific experiences since the age of 14 and she was ready to tell her story. Innocent, vulnerable, and naïve, she had been raped by a man in her own home while her parents were at work, and, from that one appalling act, her life spiralled out of control. She was passed from man to man, from group to group, a victim (and I use that word deliberately) of trafficking and abuse for years.
When we first met, in a London train station café, Caitlin was nervous – understandably – and I wasn’t sure whether this was the right route for her to take. She wanted to talk, but I needed her to know more than how many interviews we would do, or how many pages we would produce.
I talked her through the process, as always being very cautious about her chances of publication, even though I believed this to be an incredible story that the world needed to hear. In retrospect, I don’t think I spoke enough about the other aspects of going public – the people who hate you for telling the truth, the trolls, the extremists, the ones who would rather find a dozen reasons why it is your fault rather than the fault of the perpetrator.
As time went on, my agent said that no publisher was interested. Caitlin wasn’t surprised – she’d been told to keep quiet for years. Why would it be different now? As tales from Rotherham and Rochdale hit the headlines, Caitlin’s experiences at the hands of trafficking gangs had a political and cultural element that had prevented her from getting justice since she was 14 – she was almost expecting it. However, sometimes things do indeed happen for a reason. After parting company with my agent, I decided to see what I could do with Caitlin’s story on my own. I was told that I couldn’t take it to any publisher who had been previously approached, nor to anyone different in publishing houses where someone else had been approached, which left me with very few people.
But you only need one.
I had worked with a particular editor on a previous book when she was at a different house – now, at John Blake, she was someone I was keen to collaborate with a great deal. Sensitive, professional, straightforward – but would she see what was there, would she see what was in Caitlin’s story?
She did. Instantly.
We had our publisher years after Caitlin had first contacted me – but the journey was just beginning. The book – ‘Please, let me go’ – came out in September 2017 and was an instant bestseller. Caitlin was featured across the UK media, before her story was picked up internationally. We had known that the grooming gang element would be the focus of much of the coverage, even although many of Caitlin’s abusers were white, but we were not prepared for the vitriol she would receive.
From the left came claims of racism. From the right came offers of solidarity. Caitlin could easily have become a poster girl for hatred and bigotry, but, the nervous young woman I had met all those years ago was changing before my eyes. She had a patience and calmness online that was way beyond anything I could manage. She dealt with her detractors and her right-wing fans with the same solid reasoning – this is what happened to me, these are my words, this is my truth. Read the book, don’t use me for your own ends.
She was told that she was lying (we had evidence of what she had been through).
She was told that she was profiting from her own story (I’ve never been sure why it is considered so awful to be paid a small advance from a publisher in exchange for writing a book).
She was told that she was a racist (she is far from it – she blames attitudes and minds and the abuse of power for what was done to her, not the colour of someone’s skin).
She was told that she could have left at any time (by people who really need to understand psychological control more than how to be a keyboard warrior).
There were men who attacked her online, men who wanted to save her online, men who wanted to kill for her, men who wanted to be her personal vigilante – a few men who got it, but, mostly, sadly, not.
There was, however, support too. Wonderful, amazing, skin-tingling support. From women who had been there or women who worked in the area. From Hollywood stars to teenagers going through the same thing at this very moment. Those mattered. Those kept her going. Caitlin and I have had many conversations over the years, and I dread to think how many of those have been at midnight in the past few months, when the darkness hits her and she remembers the things she’ll never forget. She is strong, and I have seen a huge change in her, but she can’t get to the end of the book’s final chapter and then be magically free of it. She lives this every day and always will.
People often ask me whether, as a ghostwriter, I get upset by the stories I hear, the stories I write. My honest answer is, I really do try not to. I get angry, I get ashamed that we have a society that ignores these things (colludes in them at times), but I try not to get upset as that helps no one. It’s rare for it to creep through, but it happens.
A few weeks after Caitlin’s book came out, I was staying in a London hotel with my youngest son. We were there to do what he always wants to do - look out for supercars during the season when they have drag races in the streets in the middle of the night and hang out at the Dorchester during the day. One night, I woke to the sound of something that sounded expensive and nearby. I got up to check whether it was worth waking him, but it was too late – instead, as I watched from the window, I saw 3am London.
I saw the taxi cabs outside the hotel and casino. The teenage girls in short skirts with an air of resignation and acceptance that I could see even from three storeys up. I saw the men talking as the young girls and women stood further back, as the money changed hands, as they got into the taxis or the cars or walked back into the hotel. I watched all these Caitlins and felt sick at the conveyor belt of it all.
Caitlin Spencer was – is – just one story, and I genuinely have no idea if anything will ever change. I hope that her book helps, I really do, but when I see the anger and hatred that has been levelled at her by people who would rather kick a survivor than question a perpetrator, I’m not so sure.
So, I try to think of the good people, the ones who have supported this amazing woman. I think of the household names, the actresses and campaigners who didn’t need to reach out, but who did; I think of the women and girls who will be reading ‘Please, let me go’ and wondering how someone else could have had pretty much exactly the same things happen to them, the same excuses from those who could stop it, and the same feelings of self-hatred and disgust. And I hope we’ve helped, I really do.
Stories don’t end when the final chapter is written, because life keeps on writing more. All I can do is keep helping the Caitlins of the world to get their voices heard – unfortunately, neither of us can make people listen.