Melville House Books

Rachel Johnson, Bad Sex Award-winner

I’m aware that Dennis doesn’t want this to be the kind of blog that publishes posts of the “Last night I got drunk and went to a book reading” variety. I agree with him absolutely — Mobylives is better than that. So, with that in mind, this evening I went to a literary prize giving and didn’t get drunk. And I’m not going to give a nepotistic plug here. The Literary Review Bad Sex Award would just be another excuse for champagne and merriment, if it weren’t for the intention behind it. In his opening speech, master of ceremonies Alexander Waugh (author of several brilliant books including The House of Wittgenstein) described the great effect that the prize has had on modern literature: Sebastian Faulks apparently became so bitter that he wrote a Bond novel without any sex in it at all, while many authors have started including awful sex scenes in their books in the hope of being shortlisted and thereby adding 50,000 to their sales. This was not the desired result and writers are kindly asked to desist immediately.

John Updike, winner of a Bad Sex lifetime achievement award, revealing the source of his best ideas

Two character actresses read out the seven scenes on the shortlist. If laughter alone had cast the vote, the winner would have been either John Updike, for his blowjob, or Kathy Lette, who coined the immortal phrase “it was as big as a monument in a small village”. The eventual winner, however, was Rachel Johnson, sister of the London Mayor and writer of Shire Hell, whose use of animal imagery swung it. She professed pride and a great deal of interest in the man chosen to present the award, Dominic West, better known as Detective McNulty from The Wire. He stayed in character and spent the rest of the ceremony checking out Nancy Dell’Olio, who accepted a lifetime achievement award on behalf of John Updike, the only author yet to have received four nominations in a row. He’s probably at home working on number five – but perhaps the rest of us could take a gentle hint and lay off the lust. Otherwise it might be you being howled at this time next year.