Featured on The Book Show on Sky Arts on 6 May 2010.
Partly a psychological thriller and mostly about the obsession with fame society now has Campbell draws together characters from the worlds of business, journalism, politics and film and creates a world full of sycophants and morally ambiguous people. Gripping stuff and probably quite close to the bone.
March 2010 Good Housekeeping selection.
Former New Labour spin doctor Alastair Campbell’s second novel, Maya, looks at the world of celebrity. The storyteller is Steve, best friend and confidant to the fictional film star of the title, who finds he’s becoming scarily obsessed with her.
Maya Lowe is one of the world's most beautiful film stars She still thinks she can lead a normal life, despite the fame that has made her a celebrity on both sides of the Atlantic. The twists and turns of her public and private life are observed by Steve Watkins, her friend since school-days. He, too, swears that their relationship hasn't changed since they were teenagers. But such a relationship becomes unbalanced. under threat. threatens survive a fame as great as Maya's? Can a man like Steve seriously remain part of her life? He certainly thinks so. But amid the twists and turns of Maya's public and private lives, the gulf between what Steve thinks and what is actually true gets ever wider. And in a world where the obsession with celebrity seems to make everyone want to be one, truth is hard to find. Set in modern-day Britain, America and France, Alastair Campbell's second novel is part psychological thriller, part exploration of the psychology of fame. Steve is a brilliantly ambiguous figure, narrating a story full of morally complex characters from the worlds of film, business, TV, journalism and private investigation. Whether through stars with a love-hate relationship with their public; agents milking the culture of celebrity; a media that cannot get enough because the public always want more, Campbell depicts a society feeding vainly on fame, and the dangerous consequences for those caught up in its frenzy.
