So much misery

Misery memoirs (recalling the writer's terrible childhood with all its cruelty and abuse) seem to be as popular as ever.

Britney Spears is the latest person to have recalled not only her childhood misery but her adult misery as well. How she was harassed, taunted and belittled by her husband, how her heavy-drinking father had legal control of her life for over 13 years, and so on.

I suppose some people would argue that there's no need to recount all this negativity at such length, that lots of people have been exposed to childhood misery of one type or another, who needs to be told about it yet again?

I disagree. The more we know about the appalling way some people have been treated as a child, the more incentive there is to ensure children grow up with caring and supportive parents who encourage them to make the most of their lives.

Mind you, that's assuming all those misery memoirs are truthful in the first place, and haven't been somewhat embellished and exaggerated to attract more readers.

The English barrister Constance Briscoe successfully defended herself against her mother Carmen's accusations that her "true story of a loveless childhood" was "a piece of fiction".

But Kathy O' Beirne's story of abuse in a Catholic institution, Don't Ever Tell, was denounced as unreliable by her family, while James Frey was discredited for his fictionalised autobiography A Million Little Pieces.

I'm surprised people feel the need to exaggerate their experiences, which are probably horrifyingly awful in the first place. I would say the more misery memoirs we read, the more we know the truth about the dreadful childhoods some people have endured.

Pic: Constance Briscoe

Dashed hopes

People like to trumpet their successes, but they tend to keep their disappointments to themselves. Which gives a very false impression of effortlessly capable individuals who never put a foot wrong. Well, except for those misery memoirs where every possible indignity and trauma is given an airing, as that sells much better than a happy upbringing in staid suburbia.

So anyway, in the interests of balance and an accurate portrayal of my chequered life, here are a few of the most memorable disappointments.

(1) Six and a half years in a spartan, freezing bedsit in an inner London borough, owned by a slum landlord who never did any maintenance and let the rising damp creep up the building.

(2) Being far too staid and suburban to become a wild, drug-addled, out-of-control rock star, and settling for the more sedate occupation of bookselling.

(3) Various sexual let-downs with various attractive but incompatible women, which had the fortunate effect later on of steering me away from extra-marital flings.

(4) Not being born in Australia and spending my life in the sodden, chilly, gloomy British Isles, trying desperately to keep warm for six months of every year.

(5) Not travelling more when I was younger. I should have done the classic round-the-world backpacking thing but I was too unadventurous and unresourceful to do so.

(6) Discovering I wasn't a natural writer and I was never going to rattle off that stunning, award-winning literary novel I'd fantasised about for most of my childhood.

So there you are - the secret lows of Nick's existence. I could mention a few more but enough is enough. I don't want to detract too much from my carefully polished image as a debonair city-slicker. I have my pride, you know.

Misery memoirs

You must have noticed all those tales of childhood pain-and-suffering known to booksellers as misery memoirs (or to you and me as shit-lit). It seems people can't get enough of all this vicarious torment, and sales have gone through the roof.

There's so much demand for these shocking stories of vicious parents and damaged lives that publishers have raked in over £24 million. The best known are Frank McCourt's "Angela's Ashes" and Dave Pelzer's "A Child called It".

Personally I can't understand why so many people want to wallow at such length in harrowing accounts of personal distress. Surely they're more depressing than inspiring?

But more to the point, many are a pack of lies from start to finish, a cynical hoax on a gullible public who take them at face value. Which is one reason why this lucrative market is now flagging.

Margaret B Jones, who wrote about growing up in gangland Los Angeles, later admitted she had made it all up. The tale of a masochistic rent boy by J T Leroy also turned out to be pure invention. James Frey's account of his alcohol and drug saturated life was found to be full of fabrications and alterations.

A heart-rending book by Misha Defonseca about her survival during the Holocaust was translated into 18 languages and filmed before she admitted it was all bunkum. She hadn't in fact lived with wolves to evade the Nazis, hadn't trekked 3000 miles looking for her parents - and wasn't even Jewish.

A hunger for fame and fortune prompted a lot of unscrupulous individuals to jump on the shit-lit bandwagon and dish out their own portion of psychic mayhem.

Unfortunately they didn't bargain on the growing suspicions of a few hard-nosed readers that reality had been hastily abandoned on page one.

It's one thing to stir people's sympathy and horror at painful experiences no child should have to go through. It's quite another to loosen their tears with a whopping pile of porkies. The publishers' crock of gold has turned abruptly into scrap metal, and red faces are everywhere.