March has been a very colourful month for one English synaesthete writer

I've only just found out about the Julie Myerson controversy. Some people are calling it a witch-hunt. Others are characterizing it as a fair reaction to a form of child exploitation. If you want to read about it see the references section with links below. My thoughts on the controversy:

It's interesting that so many people are happy to deal the harshest criticism to Julie Myerson for writing about her own children and benefiting from this writing, while I rarely read the slightest objection to the dozens of parents of autistic children who churn out top-selling family memoirs centred their autistic children's lives. I can't imagine how any of these kids could live down this type of fame. I guess people assume that the futures of these children are not worth protecting, because they assume that such children have no futures. We need to be very careful what we write about young people who can be identified, as they have their lives ahead of them.

For many children, their parents' jobs bring perks and also disadvantages. The offspring of parents who own a fish and chip shop might well expect to spend many a hot, unpleasant hour lifting wire baskets of fried foods out of hot oil. The offspring of a miner might see their miner mum or dad only every other week. If Dad is a muso or a tradesman or a technician, expect noise at home and perhaps burnt feet from stepping on a soldering iron. If one's parents are famous, expect your privacy to be compromised. If mum is a writer, expect to be written about. It's much better than having parents who have no jobs at all.

Was the Myerson's son's privacy destroyed by his mother's writing? How much privacy does anyone really have in the UK, a place that is famous for its high coverage by camera surveillance and DNA databases? The Myerson's are high-profile people and people gossip about the personal problems of famous people. How much privacy did the boy really have to start with? Not much, I'd guess. Parents who are having serious problems with their teens or children need to be able to tell their story, in some form through some medium, in the hope that they might receive support from other parents or others who understand or sympathise. This can be an ethical minefield.

Regarding the Myerson's son, I'm surprised that it appears that there hasn't been any exploration of the possibility that the errant son's bad behaviour could have been as much due to the influence of some anti-social youth sub-culture as due to the influence of a drug.

The fact that so many people have dismissed the Myersons' concern about the new and potent forms of cannabis just goes to show how abysmally low social standards have fallen in the UK. Compared to Australia, the UK has a much higher level of public housing dependency, and residential property values and the economy in the UK are apparently in much worse shape than ours. I don't know whether Brits are aware that many Aussies look down on people from the UK, because of the attitudes that many Brits show towards the welfare state, violence, alcoholism and the drug culture. In the Australian city where I live there is a handful of geographically diverse suburbs in which British migrants tend to congregate. I'm sure it is no coincidence that these same suburbs have low property values, high residential real estate turnover rates and high levels of violent crime. There's one thing that I know for sure; I'm glad that we don't have young Mr Myerson as our next-door neighbour.



Julie Myerson b. 1960, English novelist, columnist, non-fiction writer and a regular panellist on BBC2’s Newsnight Review, married to playwright and journalist Jonathan Myerson. In 2003 Myerson wrote about her coloured word synaesthesia in an article that can be read at Telegraph.co.uk. In March 2009 Julie Myerson has been at the centre of a controversy in which ethical questions have been asked about her writing about her own offspring. Myerson wrote the book The Lost Child about her son Jake's alleged use of a potent form of cannabis and the decision to evict him from the family home. Following the extensive press coverage the publishers have decided to bring forward the publication date of the book. Myerson has also written an anonymous column titled Living with Teenagers in The Guardian, which was reportedly axed when one of the children's school friends identified the family. The press have reported that Myerson's angry, troubled and apparently intelligent son Jake is changing his name. Another media story has reported that he has spent some time studying literature. It seems possible that Jake might one day become a writer, which is possibly a cause for concern for other members of the Myerson family.


References about Julie Myerson
Julie Myerson. (accessed 2009) Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Julie_Myerson&oldid=281091716

Myerson, Julie (2003) I see words as colours, hypnotic collisions of sound and meaning. Telegraph.co.uk October 14th 2003.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/3604489/I-see-words-as-colours-hypnotic-collisions-of-sound-and-meaning.html
[Myerson writes about her coloured word synaesthesia and the advantages it can bring, and also writes about some other contemporary literary people who may have synaesthesia]

Robertson, Lynn C. & Sagiv, Noam (2005) Synesthesia: Perspectives from Cognitive Neuroscience. Oxford University Press, 2005.
http://books.google.com.au/books?id=QmDePNu1s08C
http://www.scribd.com/doc/7002493/SYNESTHESIA-Perspectives-from-Cognitive-Neuroscience-Lynn-C-Robertson
[identifies Myerson as a synaesthete writer on page 25]

Biographical writing by Julie Myerson
Myerson, Julie (2006) Not a Games Person. Yellow Jersey Press, 2006.
[A brief memoir about an anxious girl who hated doing school sport]

Myerson, Julie (2008) Living with Teenagers. Headline Review, 2008.
["Based on Julie Myerson's anonymously published newspaper column about the trials of a middle-class family." The 2008 edition published with an anonymous author, the 2009 edition published with Myerson as the author]

Myerson, Julie (2009) The Lost Child. Bloomsbury, March 20 2009.
[The book at the centre of the controversy]

Myerson, Julie (2009) Julie Myerson: Telling my son Jake to leave makes me want to die. Telegraph.co.uk March 7th 2009.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/4952671/Julie-Myerson-Telling-my-son-Jake-to-leave-makes-me-want-to-die.html
[extract from the book The Lost Child]

About the Myerson family memoir controversy
Craig, Amanda (2009) The Lost Child by Julie Myerson. TimesOnline. The Times. March 13th 2009.
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article5902291.ece

Koval, Ramona (2009) The Julie Myerson controversy. The Book Show. ABC Radio National. April 3rd 2009.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bookshow/stories/2009/2532168.htm
[listen to this radio report over the internet]

Leitch, Luke (2009) Julie Myerson's family revelations were far from her first. TimesOnline. The Times. March 11th 2009.
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article5884305.ece

Muir, Kate (2009) Why Julie Myerson and James Frey upset us. TimesOnline. The Times. March 14th 2009.
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article5901407.ece

Myerson, Jonathan (2009) This is an emergency. Guardian.co.uk The Guardian. March 10th 2009.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/mar/10/cannabis-drug-abuse

Myerson, Julie (2009) The Lost Child. Bloomsbury, March 20 2009.
[the book at the centre of the controversy]

Myerson, Julie (2009) Julie Myerson: Telling my son Jake to leave makes me want to die. Telegraph.co.uk March 7th 2009.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/4952671/Julie-Myerson-Telling-my-son-Jake-to-leave-makes-me-want-to-die.html
[extract from the book The Lost Child]

Power, Brenda (2009) Warning: addiction to oversharing can harm your kids. TimesOnline. The Sunday Times. March 15th 2009.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/article5909541.ece

Wardrop, Murray (2009) Jake Myerson brands his mother 'obscene' over drug addict claims. Telegraph.co.uk March 7th 2009.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/4951593/Jake-Myerson-brands-his-mother-obscene-over-drug-addict-claims.html

The controversy in The First Post
Jake Myerson changes his name. TheFirstPost. March 23rd 2009.
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/people,2124,jake-myerson-changes-his-name,78515

Julie Myerson book row escalates. TheFirstPost. March 9th 2009.
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/people,2066,julie-myerson-book-row-escalates,76551

Julie Myerson lied to her publisher. TheFirstPost. March 12th 2009.
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/people,2083,julie-myerson-lied-to-her-publisher,77089

Julie Myerson’s son denies stoner claim. TheFirstPost. March 3rd 2009.
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/people,2042,julie-myerson-son-jake-denies-stoner-claim,75895

Why Julie Myerson threw out her son. TheFirstPost. March 2nd 2009.
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/people,2038,why-julie-myerson-threw-out-her-son,75722