Rejection normally hurts, but receiving a rejection letter from Jilly Cooper was one of the happiest moments of my career.
It happened when I was living in London in 2010, shortly after giving birth to my first child. I had been obsessed with her ever since reading my first Jilly Cooper novel, Polo and it was my dream to meet her.
I was starting a new mummy blog, Paparazzimum and I wanted to kick things off with a celebrity interview. Having worked in Breakfast TV in the UK and Australia I’d met many celebrities, but to me Jilly Cooper was on a different level.
I decided to write her a letter to ask for an interview. In it I told her that as an adult, her books gave me the same thrill of escapism that Enid Blyton had given me as a child. Just like The Magic Faraway Tree, her books transformed me to another land, Rutshire, a fictional village in the beautiful Cotswolds countryside. I posted the letter to Jilly’s house, which was also in the Cotswolds. Her address was surprisingly easy to find.
A few weeks later I received a reply in the post. Jilly Cooper had typed the letter on same typewriter she used to write her novels. She told me she had a deadline approaching for her latest novel and sadly couldn’t make the time to be interviewed.
“Dear Fiona, It is so kind of you to think of me. I’m afraid, at the moment, I am cross-eyed with work and not doing interviews. I’ve got a nightmare deadline at the end of March to hand in my new book which is longer than the Bible and needs massive cutting and I’m typing it out all myself on a manual typewriter with a very, very dodgy broken thumb and so you can imagine I just don’t have time to do anything. Then once I’ve handed it in, there’ll be awful re-writes and editing and messing around and so I am afraid I’m really a write-off until later this year, so perhaps you could get in touch with me then. But I do wish you all the luck in the world and it sounds like a very good idea and a big hug to your baby too. Love, Jilly Cooper.”
I was sad that Jilly had said no to my interview request but when literary royalty, your idol, takes a break from her novel writing to type you a letter on that same typewriter, and then post it to you, that’s pretty great.
I have read all of Jilly Cooper’s novels. I’ve read Polo at least five times, probably more.
Jilly Cooper was in a league of her own. Yes she wrote “bonkbusters” but she was was an incredible writer. People often wouldn’t understood that about her. A former journalist, she was a brilliant wordsmith, researcher and storyteller and she knew how to connect with her readers. She had this insane ability to intertwine a huge number of characters and the detail of the subject matter she was writing about was encyclopaedic.
An article by Olivia Allen in British Vogue described Jilly Cooper novels as the antithesis of self help. She said “if you occasionally need to escape the clutches of an online world overflowing with curated perfection, Jilly Cooper’s carefree escapism might be exactly what you need to put a pep in your step.” I can’t agree more.
When the Disney produced TV series Rivals brought Jilly Cooper’s books back into the spotlight, I was thrilled another generation was connecting with her stories. On top of the bed swapping and debauchery, the series celebrated an era before smart phones and automated call centres where people dropped in for house visits unannounced and drank and ate without thinking of the consequences.
Vale Jilly Cooper. I always hoped to meet you over a G & T at your local pub but I will be forever grateful to have your beautiful rejection letter, which will now be framed and hung my office where it will hopefully inspire me to write my own blockbuster novel but also remind me there is always time for kindness.