Mortification allots 70 writers roughly three pages each in which to describe a moment of personal embarrassment, and most of the contributors—who include Margaret Atwood, Edna O'Brien, Rick Moody, Chuck Palahniuk, Margaret Drabble, and Irvine Welsh—respond with direct, stripped-down yarns on the same handful of topics: readings, signings, or lectures that were sparsely attended or not attended at all; overheard insults by promoters, or direct insults from audience members; uncomfortable and unprofitable awards ceremonies; cases of mistaken identity and other awkward public encounters; or just the sheer humiliation of not being recognized at all. Taken individually, their stories are usually colorful and painful, whether told with philosophical detachment or with wry, self-effacing humor. But repetition makes these minor humiliations seem first common, then tame, then just a bit whiny.
The book's saving grace, apart from its writers' overall flair for storytelling, comes from the contributors who step outside the worst-literary-moment template to do something different. Welsh's scatological anecdote is truly horrifying, as is D.B.C. Pierre's hunting sojourn. John Hartley Williams and Simon Armitage both contribute funny fictionalized vignettes that add a lunatic spin to Mortification's common theme. John Lancaster stretches an average tale about a verbal misstep into an incisive essay about why literary events are a conceptual mistake. And David Harsent turns a story of public drunkenness into an authentic howler, punchline and all.
Still, Mortification could do with more variety. As Armitage insightfully notes, "Literature offers endless opportunities for embarrassment and humiliation because it operates at that boundary where private thought meets its public response." The problem is, after a while, all those public responses start to sound the same. Given the talent on display in Mortification, it's a pity that editor Robin Robertson didn't champion a broader theme. Whining bastards or no, writers are people, too, and their experiences are more varied than Mortification tends to imply.
