THIRTY YEARS AGO, when the Secret Author was but a young shaver wandering wide-eyed along the approach roads to Grub Street, people used to be very exercised by an entity known as the “literary establishment”.
In the manner of Bloomsbury, half a century before, nobody was ever quite able to define this tantalising abstract, but like most establishments throughout history it was thought to be corrupt, conniving, conservative, elitist and exclusionary, bent on promoting the careers of its favourite children and anxious to slam the door
