Oh the excitement in the office when we heard that Ambition was being reissued 24 years on from its original publication. This rude, raunchy, sleazy, addictively readable, guilty pleasure still has the power to shock and as Julie Burchill says herself 'it makes Fifty Shades of Grey look like Anne of Green Gables'. The plot - nakedly ambitious deputy news editor, Susan Street, wants the top job and ruthlessly immoral media baron, Tobias Pope, will give it to her provided she does EVERYTHING he wants her to do… but really he just wants to break her. Welcome back the un-PC Grandmother of Mummy Porn!
Julie Burchill is attending the Brighton Festival on 20th May 2013 - for tickets click here.
Click here to read an exclusive Q&A Lovereading had with Julie about the re-issue of her debut novel Ambition.
'Writing Ambition was one of the most pleasurable and profitable acts of my long and lurid career. And even now, it makes Fifty Shades of Grey look like Anne of Green Gables' --Julie Burchill.
'I'm sick of breaking bimbos - it's no fun, no challenge. Strong, hard career girls - they're the new filet mignon of females. Girls like you. Oh, I'm going to have fun breaking you, Susan.' Tobias Pope ruled his communications empire with fear and loathing - his employees feared him and he loathed them. But he may have met his match in Susan Street, the young, beautiful and nakedly ambitious deputy of his latest newspaper acquisition. As they fight, shop and orgy from Soho to Rio and from Sun City to New York City, getting what she wants - the top job - seems so simple. If she doesn't break first. No taboo is left unbroken, no fantasy left unfulfilled in this shocking expose of the lengths to which one woman will go to become editor of the UK's bestselling tabloid.
‘The raunchiest, sleaziest book about journalism I have ever read’ Brian McArthur
‘A really rude, really naughty book’ Spectator
‘A sexplicit blockbuster’ Daily Express
‘Read it and pant’ Elle
‘Civilisation will not lightly forgive her' Literary Review
‘Julie Burchill writes like Zola on speed’ Richard Heller, Mail on Sunday
Author
About Julie Burchill
Julie Burchill has written more than a dozen books, with the TV adaptation of one of them, Sugar Rush, winning an International Emmy. Her hobbies include spite, luncheon, philanthropy, writing short stories and learning Modern Hebrew. She has been a journalist since the age of 17 and is now 53 years old, and currently writing for the Daily Mail and Observer. She is married and lives in Brighton.
Click here to read an exclusive Q&A Lovereading had with Julie about the re-issue of her debut novel Ambition.