A novel form of revenge

Things have been quiet for a couple of years in the world of the media-land roman à clef – that amusing country where a former journalist publishes a novel in which former colleagues and enemies appear under carefully adjusted names, and starry media figures are given a good kicking. It seems ages since Amanda Craig's A Vicious Circle skewered the reputations of several literary time-servers and media tarts and the first version of the book had to be withdrawn amid complaints from Ms Craig's former beloved David Sexton (literary editor of the London Evening Standard) about her fictional portrayal of a louche and revolting literary editor.

Now, two novels from planet Spritzer-in-the-Groucho have come out in quick succession. Last month, Stephanie Merritt, deputy books editor of The Observer, published Gaveston, a black comedy about a newspaper proprietor not a million miles distant, in some respects, from Rupert Murdoch. It also featured Mervyn Bland, the luxuriantly coiffed arts supremo.

More alarming for the sensitive skins of newspapermen is Harry Ritchie's Friday Night Club, published last week by Hodder & Stoughton (£14.95), a comedy of modern manners partly set at a successful newspaper called The Sunday Chronicle. Alarming because Ritchie was literary editor of The Sunday Times from 1993 to 1995 and left, it was rumoured, after a bilious row with the editor, John Witherow, to take up writing books full time. Would his book plunge a dozen poison pens into the flesh of his former colleagues?

The prospect alarmed me, too, for Ritchie was not only a co-worker of mine; he'd been my deputy for four years, around the turn of the Nineties. We ran the Books office at The Sunday Times with much raillery and manly banter, sometimes to the outrage, but more often to the scorn, of our lady colleagues. At the Wapping plant, we worked in a little glass hothouse at what was called the "shallow end" of the paper (with the Arts, Style and Travel sections).

I sometimes seethed with jealousy about Ritchie – he was devilishly good-looking in those days; most of the lady hacks had swoony crushes on him, and City Limits magazine once put him among the 20 most eligible men in London ("Younger, taller and easier on the eye than his sidekick, John Walsh..." the write-up crushingly began) – but I learnt to control it. We shared schoolboy jokes, exchanged literary views with ex cathedra pomposity and conversed in a high-camp, smoking-jacket, Anthony B-B-Blanche delivery. The air used to be thick with "my dear"s and "dear boy"s. He wouldn't dream of lampooning his kindly, indeed saintly, old boss. Would he?

Actually, no. Friday Night Club doesn't try to recreate this paradisaical scenario, but Ritchie has a lot of fun evoking the camaraderie of the subs' desk, as they fight over who draws the short straw to edit the "Tamara's World" column (based on Tara Palmer-Tomkinson's vapid outpourings) or the columnist Josh Todd, who can write only about his own weekly search for a subject (until he finds a girlfriend and writes enraptured smut instead). He captures the atmosphere of intrigue in which staffers send one another electronic messages all day, rather than talk to one another, the little jokes about bad grammar and dangling modifiers, the shared resentment about interference from the editorial chair, the wanly supportive esprit de corps (at the end of a shift, they sing a version of the Pretenders' "Stop Your Sobbing", as: "It is time/ For you to stop/ Aw-all of your subbing..."

When it comes to the depiction of the editor, though, a more satirical note is sounded. The Chronicle's helmsman is Jonathan Witherington, who comes across as a philistine, under-briefed, smug and autocratic bully. He is a chap of "sudden authority", well known for his filthy temper. His main trait is an epic ignorance about the modern world. His staff keep lists of the famous names and trends with which he professes to be unfamiliar: Ballet Rambert, kiwi fruit, Kate Moss, Glastonbury, Mr Bean, Ruud Gullit, Marco Pierre White, Philip Glass, the Superbowl, Ted Hughes, Anthea Turner, Our Price records, salmon farming, EM Forster, Real Madrid, Pizza Express, Blind Date, aromatherapy, Center Parcs... Witherington has a habit of saying, "I have already spoken on this matter..." with awful dignity. He abuses the literary editor for signing up famous writers: "I said I wanted names, big names, not your obscure chums from literary parties."

It would not take a genius to infer some connection between Witherington and the real John Witherow. (You may need a quick update here. When Harry Ritchie joined the paper, it was edited by Andrew Neil. Ritchie became Neil's literary editor when I left, in 1993. Neil left for Fox TV in 1994, and Witherow took over the editorship. Clear?)

The novel's narrator remarks on the brisk and unforeseeable transition by which the chap who used to be "Jonathan in News" became "the editor". Witherow himself had been in the news room, then foreign editor, distinguishing himself when running the foreign desk during the Gulf war. He was a shadowy figure to the journalists at the "shallow end" – tall, bespectacled, held-in, hard to get to know (the only fact I knew about Witherow, apart from his job title, was that he once predicted a female colleague was pregnant before she found out herself). But he and Ritchie had several run-ins.

In the nothing-happening month of January, Ritchie and his deputy commissioned an essay for the Books pages by John Updike. Witherow glanced down the list of Books section articles. "This is a nothing list," he observed. "I want celebrities on these pages."

"I mean, my God," seethes Ritchie today, "this was a newspaper whose allegedly top writer was AA Gill."

Other such episodes finally provoked his resignation. Seven years later, Ritchie still fumes about his crossing of swords with Witherow. I rang The Sunday Times to find out who would be reviewing the book. "The publishers haven't sent us a review copy," said Caroline Gascoigne, the literary editor, "so the question doesn't arise."

Back to Ritchie. "Yes, I told the publicity department not to send the book to The Sunday Times. I knew a roman à clef about the editor would have no chance of being fairly reviewed, so in effect I banned them from reviewing it."

Beneath this good-natured, funny book lies a subtext of resentment and frustration. It's a welcome addition to a genre we may call the revenge à clef. Had his opinion of Witherow changed? "Not really," said Ritchie. "I hear the latest thing he claims never to have heard of is Manolo Blahnik."