Me And Steve McQueen

This year almost saw me rekindle my relationship with the 'King of Cool'. Almost.

It’s been a pretty crappy year for a lot of people has 2022. However, for a short while in January, it looked like this was going to be a year for the ages, at least for this resident of Castle Luck.

First, a bit of background. In 2000, I wrote a book about Steve McQueen for the Pocket Essential series. Due to a conspiracy on a par with the Kennedy assassination, said title was denied a place on the best-sellers lists and soon found itself cluttering up the country’s remainer shops. I myself still have sufficient copies from which to construct a small fort.

Having given neither the book nor the ‘King of Cool’ too much thought of late, you can imagine my surprise when a publisher got in touch last winter asking whether they could re-publish my McQueen book, what with the rights having reverted to me in 2020. A fresh airing for one of my more substantial pieces of work; a few quid in my pocket - yes, this was just the sort of pleasant surprise I could get used to.

After I sent a very positive reply, the publisher got in touch again to ask whether I could send her a copy of the original book so she could get a better idea of what changes would need to be made and what new material might be required. One quick trip to the post office later, and I returned to my desk, excitedly waiting for the money truck to back into the square.

And I waited. And I waited.

Eventually, a follow-up email seemed in order. It was only after I asked about the state of play, that I received the sort of response I might have been deemed tragic had it not left me laughing out loud.

The gist of the publisher’s apology was this: ‘We’re terribly sorry, Richard, but we thought your book was about the OTHER Steve McQueen’.

That’s right - the publisher had come to believe that I, Richard Matthew Goodwin Luck, had in the year 2000 had the foresight to realise that Steven Rodney McQueen, despite having not yet made his feature debut, would become a very big deal in the world of British film comes the 2010s.

As for how easy it might have been to work out that I had in fact written a book about the other Steven McQueen, well, you can try that out for yourself, if you’ve access to a decent search engine and a spare 20 seconds.

There was a happy ending to this - perhaps by way of apology for the mix-up, the publisher hired me to write an essay for a book commemorating the anniversary of the birth of the British blues rock scene. Not only that, but I was asked to attend a launch event at which I signed my first autographs in eons, met one of my heroes, Nick Drake biographer Patrick Humphries, and participated in a lively Q&A.

And my contribution to the discussion? You’ve just read it. The people at the launch event were nice enough to laugh, as do I whenever I think about the Steve McQueen book that wasn’t and the Steve McQueen book that could’ve been.