The Spectator: A Novel

by Timothy Balding

Roger P., a convicted double killer, escapes from custody, leaving a manuscript in his cell recounting fragments of his life and the events which result in his trial for murder. Entirely narrated by his inner voice, the document charts his rise and fall as star reporter of The Daily Hack, a scurrilous popular tabloid.As the Hack’s Investigations Editor, P. uncovers celebrity and political scandals, all the while promoting the anti-immigrant, anti-social benefits agenda of his owners and their bent politician cronies. Happy at first in this scabrous life exposing sex criminals and financial fraud, rubbing shoulders – and often sharing beds – with actresses, secretaries and various informants, P. is increasingly troubled by an incessant, critical voice in his mind telling him that he’s a liar, worthless, shallow, a swindler, and that he should face up to it. Interrogating P. insistently about the charade of this tabloid life, his inner voice – who likes to be called The Spectator – begins to mock and abuse him, calling him an ignoramus, a philistine and a cheat who must change before it’s too late to be saved and his life falls apart.The scene is set for this contemporary social novel about the poisoning of a nation’s psyche by tabloid media and the existential torments of one man struggling to escape his fate as both one of its villains and its victims.

211 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 2, 2024

About the author

Born in 1954 in London of mixed Scottish and English parentage, Timothy Balding grew up and was educated on a British military base in Germany. He left school and his family at the age of sixteen to return alone to the United Kingdom, where he was hired as a reporter on local newspapers in Reading in the county of Berkshire. For the ensuing decade, he worked on local and regional titles and then at Press Association, the national news agency, covering politics in Westminster, the British Parliament. He exiled himself to Paris, France, in 1980, and spent the next thirty years working for international, non-governmental organizations. For twenty-five of these, he was Chief Executive Officer of the World Association of Newspapers, the representative global group of media publishers and editors, established after World War II to defend the freedom and independence of the press worldwide. A Knight (First Class) in the Order of the White Rose of Finland - an honor accorded him by Nobel Peace laureate Martti Ahtisaari, former Finnish President - Timothy Balding currently lives between France and Spain and devotes himself to writing. Homo Conscius is his first novel.

Reviews

[Yves Bocquet · Rating 5 out of 5]

From the point of view of the hero's conscience! The whole truth, nothing but...

I'll tell you right off: Roger did it, we know that right away. What we don't know is what he has done, so we keep reading (and also because Sandra is lovely).
Balding pulls the reader laughing and crying through the reality of life and that of the current human condition, where the philosophy is borne from the tabloids, social media and other purveyors of conspiracy theories.
Don't misunderstand, this is a serious book, but that doesn't mean it cannot be funny. It's not because "you have to get the nature of the man from the inside" that you cannot smile.
As much as the other ones of Balding's books, if not more, I thoroughly enjoyed this one. It promotes a deep philosophy of life in a simple and direct manner that resonates in the reader's mind and make him\her think he\she understood. It also has a touching love story (like his other books) and I am a sucker for love stories.
Reading Balding is like listening to a wise and funny man who does not take himself or his fellow humans too seriously.
What bothers me now is that I will have to wait months or years for the next book. I will probably have to read this one again soon.

I have only one recommendation: buy The Spectator, swap for it or steal it. If you get caught, you will have something to read in jail.

[Carla · Rating 4 out of 5]

A devilishly different book! A novel of a creepy, dishonest, disrespectful tabloid reporter and his sleezy life. All the time, his inner voice, called The Spectator, calls him a huge cache of names and descriptions have him look at his life, and make changes before it's too late. This isn't a formulated novel. I have always asked the question of how media influences us, and shapes how we think and behave. It's scary. Quick read.

[Ted Bun · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting book, mainly an account of an internal dialogue between the main character and his internal voice The Spectator.
A pretty damning inditement of the tabloid press, psychologists (and related ologies) and the intellect of the population at large.
Most works of fiction follow a story arc with a beginning, middle and end. This one has no end, nor middle ... it is all beginning.