Dear Shannon,
Thank you for your most effusive letter. It is so many years since our university days and my mind is forgetful, but were you the American girl who didn’t go to any lectures and still passed the exams? I am sure that was you, it is good to hear from you after all this time, do you still have blue hair? It is not every day that one is invited to herald the British debut of a work that has already achieved legendary status across the Atlantic — a land where, as you so vividly demonstrate, neither ambition nor metaphor recognises natural boundaries.
We are, of course, aware of How to Find Oil in Almost Any Back Garden’s remarkable reception in North America — both as a self-help manual and, in certain circles, as an avant-garde work of satire mistaken for literal instruction. The news of a British English edition is welcome indeed, though we note that your editorial amendments will have to wrestle with the fact that the average British “back garden” is scarcely large enough to conceal a bicycle, let alone an oil derrick. Still, this constraint may only serve to heighten the metaphorical power of your vision.
As for your generous offer to pen the preface, the proposition has sparked animated discussion in our editorial rooms (which, we hasten to add, are perfectly civilised and contain no actual drilling equipment). We should be delighted to take up the task, provided you understand that the British palate favours irony as a seasoning rather than a main course, and that our Edwardian gravitas tends to come paired with a quiet sense that the entire affair, whatever it may be, is rather silly — which, happily, seems to align with your own sensibilities.
We shall send the preface forthwith and look forward to reading you Mémoires. I wonder if they will contain the chapter we have already tentatively titled, “The Leak at Pimlico.”
Yours sincerely,
Algernon Pyke
CAO
