The post about the film version of A Month in the Country neglected to mention one of the most appealing things about the production, that the screenplay was written by playwright and memoirist Simon Gray. Gray's Smoking Diaries is one of the most engaging first-person narratives we've read in the past few years. And now it appears that a third volume of these "diaries," The Last Cigarette, was released in the UK the other month. It features an attractive trompe l'oeil cigarette-box cover (as the first volume did).
This excerpt (stolen from the book's Amazon page) gives a sense of Gray's mocking voice, which dares you to find him endearing despite—or more likely, because of—his flaws:
"So here I am, two hours into my sixty-sixth year.... The truth is that I'm nastier than I used to be back when—back when I was sixty-four, for instance, when I was nastier than when I was at sixty-two and so forth, back and back, always the less nasty the further back, until I get to the age when I was pre-nasty, at least consciously, when the only shame I knew was the shame of being found out, which was when I was, well, about eight, I suppose."
I wonder if Da Capo will release the book in the US as they've done with the other volumes. If they do, perhaps they'll drop the misguided cover they chose for volume one—which appears to show the author at a carnival, posing before a cardboard cutout Rousseau painting.
Those covers are rad. I wonder if they would track to specific brands or are they just based on the universal, time honoured, formulae for ciggy packet designs. I suppose the concept of 'trademark' suggests the latter.
Posted by: peacay | July 15, 2008 at 12:45 PM