The Bookseller.com

17th May 2008

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Alastair Campbell turns to fiction

25.02.08 Philip Jones

Former political spin-doctor Alastair Campbell is to publish a fiction book with Random House imprint Hutchinson. All In The Mind is a "compelling story of a psychiatrist, his patients and family, and the pressures they bring to bear upon each other", the publisher stated.

Hutchinson has acquired UK and Commonwealth Rights to the debut novel from Campbell's literary agent Ed Victor. Caroline Gascoigne, Hutchinson publishing director, said: "Alastair told no one that he was working on a novel until it was finished. It's a book that will surprise, intrigue and fascinate everyone who reads it."

Campbell said: "I have really enjoyed the challenge of writing a novel, which is very different to any kind of writing I have done before. It is something I have always wanted to do. In fact, I started to write a novel in 1986 and it was near completion when my partner Fiona accidentally wiped it from our then very primitive new computer, which in hindsight is perhaps for the best. A psychiatrist and his patients are the main characters in All In The Mind, but though I have required psychiatric treatment myself from time to time, this is a book by me, not about me."

Last year Random House published The Blair Years: Extracts from the Alastair Campbell Diaries, selling, so far, 150,000 copies. The paperback of The Blair Years will be published by Arrow in May and the full diaries will be published in a set of chronological volumes in the coming years.

Philip Jones Rights deal Random House Alastair Campbell Hutchinson The Blair Years