"A close associate of his gave an interview in which the book was described as quotes 'fiction from being to end'. I suffered trial by tabloid for a couple of weeks, lots of insults in the press, in the columns - this man should be put in the tower and so on"
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“Trial by tabloid” is a neat bit of self-indicting theater: Holden frames a press pile-on as a quasi-judicial ordeal, with him cast as the accused and the newspapers as a mobbed-up court. The phrase does two things at once. It protests unfairness while conceding the real mechanism of power: in celebrity-adjacent journalism, the verdict is social, not legal, and punishment is reputational.
The bungled-but-barbed phrase “fiction from being to end” (clearly “beginning to end”) is telling. It captures how accusations land in public life: not as precise rebuttals but as blunt labels, designed to be quotable, repeatable, and morally clarifying. “Fiction” is less a factual claim than a delegitimizing stamp. By attributing it to “a close associate,” Holden points to the modern chain of deniability: the principal keeps clean hands while proxies do the dirty work.
Then come the medieval flourishes: “put in the tower.” That language is almost comically disproportionate, which is the point. He’s spotlighting the punitive fantasies that tabloids sell - not just criticism, but confinement, humiliation, exile. The subtext is about status control: the press doesn’t merely report; it disciplines. Holden’s intent, as a journalist himself, isn’t only self-defense. It’s a critique from inside the trade, exposing how quickly a contested book becomes a referendum on the author’s character, and how “a couple of weeks” can feel like a lifetime when the news cycle turns your name into a moral sport.
The bungled-but-barbed phrase “fiction from being to end” (clearly “beginning to end”) is telling. It captures how accusations land in public life: not as precise rebuttals but as blunt labels, designed to be quotable, repeatable, and morally clarifying. “Fiction” is less a factual claim than a delegitimizing stamp. By attributing it to “a close associate,” Holden points to the modern chain of deniability: the principal keeps clean hands while proxies do the dirty work.
Then come the medieval flourishes: “put in the tower.” That language is almost comically disproportionate, which is the point. He’s spotlighting the punitive fantasies that tabloids sell - not just criticism, but confinement, humiliation, exile. The subtext is about status control: the press doesn’t merely report; it disciplines. Holden’s intent, as a journalist himself, isn’t only self-defense. It’s a critique from inside the trade, exposing how quickly a contested book becomes a referendum on the author’s character, and how “a couple of weeks” can feel like a lifetime when the news cycle turns your name into a moral sport.
Quote Details
| Topic | Justice |
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