A long out-of-print novel about a deadly virus by Stanley Johnson, the father of UK prime minister Boris Johnson, is to be reissued this summer, two weeks after it emerged that he was trying to find it a new publisher during the coronavirus pandemic.
Having been pitched to UK publishers as “an urgent, exhilarating novel” by “a tireless self-promoter”, Johnson senior’s 1982 novel The Virus has been snapped up by Black Spring, an imprint of Eyewear Press, an independent publisher founded by poet Todd Swift. Originally titled The Marburg Virus, the novel follows an epidemiologist who must race against time to develop a vaccine when an unknown virus breaks out in New York. Based on a real event in Germany in the late 1960s, it also stars a US president desperate to come out on top.
In a new afterword, Johnson writes: “Will the fight against Covid-19 be as successful as my fictional hero was in fighting the Marburg virus? ... Thinking back to my own book, and its eventual happy ending, I can’t help feeling that governments around the world, our own included, need to be ruthlessly focused on the search for an antidote or a vaccine. Without in any way diminishing the importance of precautionary measures of containment or mitigation, mass immunisation would surely prove a crucial factor in stopping the spread of Covid-19 or in preventing further outbreaks, eg the ‘second wave’ we are hearing about.”
On Monday, Swift would not confirm the size of the deal, but said that they “were able to agree a deal that works for both a smaller indie press and a household British name, to forge a dynamic, unexpected alliance of strengths”.
Jonathan Lloyd, Johnson’s literary agent at Curtis Brown, said the novel was presented to four publishers but it “did not get a positive response” until Black Spring responded.
“You would think it was a no-brainer, that a publisher would jump up and down at a novel that is already edited and ready to go,” he said, adding: “They are entitled to their opinion, I just found it rather disappointing. They may well live to regret it, but that is the fun of publishing … you may not agree with Stanley and his politics, or his son, but it is a jolly good thriller and it is extraordinarily valid today. If anyone thought ‘I’m not going to buy it because I don’t like Stanley Johnson’, I think that is rather pathetic.”
When it emerged in early May that he was attempting to get a new publisher, the 79-year-old author denied he was being opportunistic. “I’m a professional writer,” he told the Guardian. “Is it opportunistic for journalists and newspapers to be writing about the coronavirus?”
Secondhand paperback editions of The Marburg Virus have recently been listed online for more than £50. “All the more reason to produce a new version now,” Johnson said. “I do hope it happens … I had such fun writing it.”
The Virus will be published in print and ebook formats alongside a reissue of Johnson’s environmental thriller The Warming, which follows a journalist who uncovers a global conspiracy involving a miracle mineral that could stop the climate crisis.
Reviews of the novel are mixed online. One Goodreads reviewer called it “fast paced and entertaining” but said the plot “bordered on gross inaccuracy and strained credulity”, while another wrote: “Made it about a third of the way through this before I got too annoyed with its stupidity and quit.”
