Beyond the Book: Background information when reading It's All Right Now

Beyond the Book

This article relates to It's All Right Now

This first novel by 72-year-old retired civil servant Charles Chadwick caused quite a ripple pre-publication as much for the age of the author as for the book itself.  It's All Right Now is Chadwick's fifth novel but his first to be published (he received nothing but rejection slips for the others).  When Chadwick received the news that his novel had received advances worth several hundred thousand dollars he said "I am utterly astonished - The phrase 'beyond my wildest dreams' has now taken on meaning for me."

His editor at Faber (UK) said, "As a first novel it is astonishing; as the product of a lifetime's experience it becomes explicable." 

During his career Chadwick's postings as a British Council official spanned London, Kenya, Brazil, Canada and Poland.  He embarked on his master work while in Nigeria in 1972 after reading Joseph Heller's Something Happens. 

His agent, Caroline Dawnay, has been reading It's All Right Now as the author wrote/rewrote it for more than 5 years before it was presented to publishers.  Speaking of Dawnay, a grateful Chadwick says, "One is conscious of having been rescued from oblivion by Caroline, especially if one is getting on a bit in years - and especially if the whole novel is so big."

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This "beyond the book article" relates to It's All Right Now. It originally ran in August 2005 and has been updated for the July 2006 paperback edition. Go to magazine.