Spectator competition winners: misery memoir blurbs

Reader Tom Dulake suggested that I invite competitors to submit a blurb for a misery memoir, which struck me as a good idea. Who knows what drives the reading public’s appetite for other people’s suffering, but they seem to lap it up. The ‘Painful Lives’ sections of bookshops heave with mis lit, harrowing accounts of torment and degradation, though publishers prefer to describe the genre as inspirational lit, or inspi-lit for short (the idea being that it shows how the human spirit can transcend even the most horrifying abuse). The entries printed below feature a bit of triumph but mostly torture, and unsure whether to congratulate or commiserate with their authors, I award the bonus fiver to W.J.Webster; the rest take £25 each.

W.J. Webster ‘Slow Drags the Harrow’ is Len Sprague’s fearless account of a life survived through sheer unyielding endurance. When he was seven his mother was convicted of poisoning his brutally sadistic father.