Sad as it may be, the observation that, culturally speaking, we are losing the power of the Novel, is now stating the blatantly obvious. Remember the bookshops that once lined main streets? They're gone. They're sitting around retail heaven, waiting for the last few record stores to join them. Hello, DVD, HDTV, Web2.0. The literary world? It's over, baby. It aint coming back. But, that said, the skies are not entirely grey for the budding author - not if you're lucky enough to be linked to someone famous. Then, you've got a story everyone wants to hear - a story that, thankfully for the publishing industry, can still only really be told in the written word. That's bad news for the young novelists, out there - but pretty good news for people like Christopher Ciccone, brother of Madonna ("Life With My Sister Madonna"), and Lynne Spears, mother of Britney ("Through the Storm"). What better way is there for the literary world to satisfy the modern mindset - the obsession with celebrity, the sadism that runs through that obsession as a terrible kind of bloodlust - than with the celebrity "tell all"? We won't pick up a book to learn about the world we know so little about, or to go, inside the mind, to an imaginary place that may just tell us something about our own lives, heavens no - but is Madonna really a tight-ass bitch who treats everyone like slaves? And was Justin really Britney's first shag? Was that before, or after, her first line of coke? This is the stuff tearooms are made of. It feels good to know those lucky people who have everything are actually really fucked up. It feels good to have the power of judgement over them. We feel a little bit better about our own inadequacies and insignificance. 

 

The irony is that this is no doubt, in its own way, an element of truly considering what is, let's face it, pretty foul: a brother, or - even worse - a mother, who would happily sell their sister or daughter's dirty laundry - the very intimacy of family life - for a quick buck and slice of fame, all of their own. We live in the shadows of the celebrities we worship, vicariously - and that's easy to resent them for - but these people literally live in the shadow of someone else's fame. Who, here, can honestly say that they have never felt a sense of comparison, an anxious pressure of judgment - however slight - in their interaction with family members? Have I ever turned my nose up at my little brother, when he delivers my parents something I am incapable of giving them? Sure. Has any parent here honestly never been in a situation where they have measured their child's success against their own? Have you ever felt something, in response to a family member, that maybe - just maybe - smacks a little bit of "that isn't fair"? These emotions are negative - I'm not justifying them - they should be overcome. But they're certainly not unique. And to consider the siblings and parents of the most famous people in the world, is to imagine this anxious emotional temptation on a massive scale.  

 

That doesn't mean we cannot rightly judge the author by their ethics - or lack of - in such a decision, as to make a name and fortune off selling a family member's "story". It's hard to have any respect for Christopher Ciccone or Lynne Spears. And, in all fairness, most people don't. I was interested to explore people's reaction to these books, and their personal stance on the morality of actually writing the books, and most people I talked to - and most of the discussions I viewed online - were savvy enough to see through the authors' ridiculously delusional justifications for writing such a book. Most people can see what is actually rather obvious: that it's a sly act, born of bitterness and desperation. Very true, it goes without saying.

 

But why, then, do people engage it, anyway? Why do these books sell? Because they do; "Life With My Sister Madonna" was the bestseller for three weeks, and Spears' "Through The Storm" will no doubt do even better. Furthermore, we see the media and press happy to use the books (and publicise them, in doing so, of course) for material. They know that, to most people, this actually qualifies as "news"! MADONNA FORCES BROTHER TO STAY IN SERVANTS' QUARTERS WHILE MAID GETS KEYS TO THE CASTLE went one headline. Today, we have MOTHER'S BOMBSHELL: BRITNEY LOST HER VIRGINITY AT 14! I mean, really, this is news? C'mon, it's not. You know the cliche about how there are kids dying in Africa, and all that jazz? What happened to that? Let's bring that cliche back, and have a good, long think about what we're consuming, and where our interest is. I can't tell you much about what happened in our world, yesterday; but I do know that Britney Spears shagged some footballer in her treehouse, when she was 14. Thank you, Britney's Mother - I really needed to know that.

 

So, it's all very well for people to sit around, saying, "Oh, yeah, it's totally wrong - what a bitch! Can you believe someone would do that to their own daughter?" What does that mean, so long as you entertain it? So long as that "coming up, after the break: the mother of fallen popstar, Britney Spears, tells all" actually makes you stick around, through eight bullshit ad campaigns, then, really, what does it mean to be able to disclaim it with your "awareness" that it's actually a really screwed up thing? That's all it is, then - a disclaimer. And we have plenty of those to justify what some part of us knows we probably shouldn't be consuming and engaging. But part of us is addicted to the Cult of Celebrity and the thrill it offers us: to blast through someone's human rights and enjoy their darker moments. We feel not so little, then. It's wrong, and all - but the impulsion is too hard to resist.

 

The problem is, we will always be offered it. The poison apple will be put in front of our faces, time and time again. Every time we turn on the TV; every time we google into cyber-oblivion; every time we pick up a magazine, when we're bored at the supermarket; every time we sit on a bus and listen to the radio, the apples are basically put in our lap. So long as we keep biting, it will continue to be there. The culture industries offer whatever it is they know we'll bite. They don't have ethics - they never particular did, and certainly don't, anymore. That leaves the onus on us. Bummer, dudes.

 

I read "Life With My Sister Madonna". I refused to pay for a copy, and presumed it would go unread, until a friend of mine who works in a bookshop literally put a copy in my lap. That was at 11pm. I'd finished it, cover to cover, by 4am. The ashtray was lined with perfectly formed cigarettes of ash - the still remnants of all the Alpines I'd simply forgotten were there, in the dazzle of stepping inside the bitter world of this poor, pathetic, damaged man, who just happened to have the most famous woman in the world for a sister. 

 

It is quite badly written - even the editor and co-writer couldn't save that. I'd never read such a book, before, I must confess. I engaged The Latham Diaries, without having read any more than the few paragraphs exclusively published in the major papers. And, in some ways, I think it's worse if we engage the tabloid stories these books generate, without actually reading it. Of all the people who engage Britney's virginity on the six 'o' clock news, not even half of them will actually buy the damned thing and read it. They'll happily spread the stories that are turned into tabloid fodder, in tearooms across the nation, but they won't bother to place it in the right context. And we all know how context can be... well.... altered to suit press and media.

 

The press have very clear agendas with their 500 word stories. They know who they're demographic is, and, based on this, the book's content will be used to either slander or protect the star. What makes both Madonna and Britney so right for this market, is that they are both women (it is always women, unfortunately - and quite tellingly) who are favourites for press bashings. The media knows that many major demos love to feel good in reading something derogatory about either of them. 2006's viciously constructed story of Madonna as the "baby kidnapper" is probably as bizarre - and cruel - as I've ever seen that become, where we saw the public actually enjoy this ludicrous idea that someone who adopts a baby from an African orphanage is actually some kind of evil force, using the adoption for publicity purposes and her star status to illegally sidestep international law. It was truly absurd - not to mention hypocritical (an immoral construction, designed to paint the other as immoral). But, people bought it. And, as long as they bought it, those apples were put into their laps. It showed just how far society had come, in terms of the insidious resentment and sadism that lies beneath our addiction to celebrity culture. Unlike Madonna, I don't have much interest in Britney Spears - musically,  or otherwise - but it saddened me to see her, a year after Madonna's adoption fiasco, used by one of the biggest productions and companies in the world, MTV, served up to a vicious market, on a platter. There she was, a young girl in a very bad space, who was still battling a severe bout of Bi-Polar Disorder; drugged out of her mind, after having been institutionalised in front of the entire world; her once million-dollar figure, exposed, just so we could point the finger at her aesthetic - irrespective of the fact that she was hardly "fat", and that the weight-gain was the result of anti-psychotic medication. We ripped a young girl who was forced into living too hard, too young - a girl suffering severe psychological distress and dysfunction - to pieces. And we loved every second of it. 

 

Is that press release, sent out from a publishing house, with the headline, "MADONNA TELL ALL" or "BRITNEY TELL ALL" - above point forms of dirty laundry the press can now report on - going to take the interest of the press? Um... yes. No matter what these women go through, they will always be happily thrown to the salivating public for another round. And these books promise the most intense hit of the obliteration of their privacy, as possible. Talk about fly on the wall - what greater intrusion can be gained, than that of a brother or mother? I mean, hello, they grew up with these people. What it's really offering is a view to the dark side of these celebrities that only a family member can give. If you know virtually everything about someone's entire life, do you think you could come up with a few moments where that person had perhaps acted dubiously? C'mon - think of your own brother, your own child, your own mother. If I waved a wad of cash in front of you, and said, "C'mon, why can't you have your moment in the sun? You deserve it! Think of all the times they've never been there for you - think of how mad they've made you feel. Can you remember a time when they acted like a complete dickhead?", I'm sure you'd be able to - if you wanted to, that is - come up with at least a few moments where that famous sibling would look like an absolute monster. I'd argue that it is generally only our families that have been privy to the darkest parts of ourselves. And that's what makes it so despicable. There is that trust within the family relationship that should not be broken - it's actually really important to us, psychologically, on so very many levels. Our families, no matter what, are supposed to be there for us. Our families know that dark side, but they love you for the totality of who you are. And, even when we have great fall outs with family - as we always will, at certain points - unlike the relationships we have, socially or romantically, these moments are undermined by a bond that, unlike other bonds, cannot be broken. I told my Mother I didn't want to speak to her, again. For a while, I didn't. But it was never going to last, because she's my Mother. Family is the one thing you have to come back to. The difference between our family and everyone else in our world, is a fine line of loneliness. They're not supposed to write books that ruin your career and expose you, irretrievably, to the entire world. Words cannot describe how violent that act is, psychologically and emotionally. It's wrong. When you engage it, next time, try to remember just how wrong it is.

 

It is quite clear, in "Life With My Sister Madonna", that Christopher Ciccone still loves his sister, very much. The lashing out of a broken sibling, who cannot reconcile his own feelings of failure with the symbol that is Madonna, the most famous woman in the world, is exceedingly clear. I don't know if it would be so clear to others reading it, but to me, that book's a no-brainer, in terms of what is driving the brother. In that way, I'll confess I found it fascinating - the bizarre, but obvious, Freudian undertones to his obsession with his sister, the mental torture of knowing that his success is actually just on her back (which it is, mind you), and then the ultimate rejection of having his sister pass judgment on his failure and effectively banish him from her life (until, as she makes it quite clear, he gets his shit together), the jealousy of Guy Ritchie, the man who he perceives as taking his sister away from him - it's all there. It's an extreme case, in some ways; but underneath the extremities of the details (that it all happens under the spotlight of a super-celebrity in the A-list world) is something remarkably ordinary about the broken relationship. It's just that usually, in that lowest moment, the sibling doesn't get to make a million bucks off writing a book that lashes out at you, and deliberately swipes at your career and image, as a result of that anger and resentment, of that family spat. I didn't mind the book, in so many ways. But I just couldn't get over the fact that it came to me as it did - as a book, as a gross invasion of privacy, that he had sold to some rotten publisher who was happy to exploit this poor guy for the cash to be made in offering the public a celebrity to intrude and crucify. I felt dirty, having read it. I wish I hadn't.

 

And now, we have Lynne Spears, well and truly one-upping Christopher. In the end, for all the sensationalist tabloid fodder, not that much dirt gets dished in Christopher's book. His bossy sister yells at him, during a concert, where he has been employed to change her costumes during the show (he carries on with the deliberate image of him being "made to wipe the sweat from my sister's body", which is - hello - actually quite normal in a show) because he has busted her bra starp, and bobby-pinned it without telling her. This goes on, and on, until it culminates at her wedding, when Madonna pays for him to stay in the castle she is married in - he eventually gets his nose out of joint, because her maid has a bigger room than his. She then finds out that he's secretly been ripping her off for the jobs she gives him decorating her homes (he charges 40% on top of the goods he bills her for, without telling her the prices are fudged) and that he's been blowing coke with supermodels while she isn't there, and she tells him - not too surprisingly - to basically fuck off, until he gets his head sorted. That's pretty much it. 

 

What will Spears give us? Decidedly more than that, it is suggested. While Christopher does reveal how Madonna lost her virginity (in the back seat of a car, when she was 16), there's no denying that there's something just so much nastier in Lynne's revelation that her daughter did not lose her virginity to Justin Timberlake, as the world has always presumed (not that it's anyone's business), but at 14, in her treehouse, to an older footballer. She apparently also describes her daughter's infamous battle with mental illness, in graphic detail, and discusses the origins of Britney's damage and pain, as well as outlining her drug abuse, as a teenager. The publishing house deliberately coincided the book's publicity and release, just ahead of this Sunday's VMA Music Awards, where Britney will attempt a comeback, to show the world she is getting back on her feet again. While Britney has been rehearsing how she will try to show us she has made steps towards recovery and resurrection, her own mother is on a publicity tour, giving interviews about the sordid, private details of her life that she, as her mother, knows.

 

What do you think about that? And what do you think about the material - the product - that is a result of this?

 

Rest assured, the variety of products that spins - news stories, blogs, the actual book - will be in our faces, for the next week, at least. Probably, more. Those apples are going to be plonked, right in our laps. A troubled superstar, a mother who seems to have misplaced her moral backbone, a batch of juicy revelations. 

 

Wanna bite?