CHICK LIT MEMOIR
Tabloid Girl - Sharon Marshall (2010)
"As a tabloid girl you will find yourself in the oddest positions, doing the oddest things. You will have to lie, scheme, cheat, secretly tape, con and beg to get the stories. You must crash weddings, funerals, and lives and try not to crash and burn yourself in the process." This memoir relates Sharon Marshall's 10 years on Fleet Street, from a casual shifter to a showbiz tabloid hack with expenses. Marshall spends so much time chasing other people's lives that she hasn't got time to develop her own. The exploits, which she claims are all true, are both mind-boggling and hilarious and really expose the shonky tricks of the competitive British tabloid trade. They include her time spent hassling The Hoff (Baywatch actor David Hasselhoff); and being a wedding guest on the set of Friends. You'll really have to read it to believe it.
British journalist Sharon Marshall's memoir Tabloid Girl looks at her Fleet Street experiences. The summary says: "Sharon Marshall was a tabloid reporter for 10 years. Along the way she saw and did some Very Bad Things. She also had a spectacularly lousy love life. It took the entire decade to realise the two may be connected. In her hilariously honest memoirs she reveals what really goes on behind the scenes at a major tabloid newspaper. What lengths will a tabloid hack go to, just to get the story? What do celebrities (secretly) do to get into the headlines? And can a job which involves fighting with popstars, pretending to be a swinger and provoking a fuming Jeremy Paxman ever make you marriage material?" Tabloid Girl is out in May. Marshall also is a presenter on TV show This Morning and co-authored The Naughty Girl's Guide to Life (2007) with socialite friend Tara Palmer-Tomkinson.