Really not happy at all

Bits of Me are Falling Apart by William Leith

Some years ago, a young scribbler named William Leith began a column for the Independent on Sunday that divided opinion among readers and, indeed, other young scribblers like me. Instead of writing about the world outside, as columnists had previously felt obliged to, he wrote about himself and his collapsing life in simple, unadorned prose. I remember reading it every week to the sound of my own grinding teeth, partly because I couldn’t see the point of it, but mainly because at the time I was consumed by professional jealousy of any contemporary who was clearly doing better than I was. I completely missed the boldness, even fearlessness, in his writing. In an extrovert industry, where displays of excessive confidence are all but mandatory, here was a train-wreck of neurosis, self-doubt and self-destruction — almost like a younger Jeffrey Bernard, with a full set of limbs, but writing as a form of therapy, in a desperate and almost certainly doomed attempt to make sense of it all.