The Name of This Author is Secret

The eerily personal voice of Pseudonymous Bosch set the tone for a set of five books without a real author,which closes this year with a DIY mystery called Write this Book. Very little is known about Bosch. He is obviously a fan of Hieronymus Bosch,the pseudonym of the 15th century fantastical-moral artist Joen van Aken. It is ­generally believed that he dislikes ­mayonnaise and favours chocolate and cheese,though finer points such as whether white or bitter and Swiss or American remain suitably mysterious.

The children’s writer Pseudonymous Bosch has been accused of being the adult writer Raphael Simon in real life,a charge that the latter has rejected. Though Bosch dedicated his first book to a real schoolgirl,who started him off in writing by acting as his editor,according to a real interview which appeared in Wired a couple of years ago,he has managed to remain a writer of unconfirmed identity for over half a decade. That’s quite an achievement considering his popularity,which almost rivals that of Lemony Snicket (boring real name: Daniel Handler). After the excitement over The Cuckoo’s Calling,we now know how short the life expectancy of pseudonyms has become,so Bosch’s run is extraordinary.

In half a decade away from the public eye,Bosch produced the Secret Series,a pentalogy based on the five senses. It ended in 2011 with the aptly named You Have to Stop This. All the books concern a secret which cannot be told but it must come out since Bosch is no good at keeping secrets. It is never actually revealed,making Bosch a tease of epic proportions. But then,he never leads you on. Rather,he is at pains to repel boarders. For instance,every letter of the first chapter of The Name of this Book is Secret is x,thus: “X xxxx xxxxxxxxx.” That could mean: “I love chocolate.” Or,“A hard flowerpot.” It’s a cipher which can be only partially,statistically decoded by the length of the strings.

I gave it a go but the sample chapter is so short that the only word I could decode accurately was ‘I’,the only single-letter upper case word which can appear anywhere in a sentence. Why have a chapter marked x? Because the secretive Bosch could not possibly let you read the first chapter,could he? As in all other books,it reveals the setting,the time and the cast of characters. That would have been giving away too much.

It may look like security mania of a scale that Julian Assange would admire,but Pseudonymous Bosch is actually gaming the reader. Bosch hasn’t tried to run under the radar but flings chaff in industrial quantities. He deflects attention from his real persona by showing you something shinier and livelier. See http://www.thenameofthiswebsiteissecret.com and the Hachette website for samples.

Banksy,another powerful pseudonym,has managed to keep the lid on his identity for precisely the same reason. The guerilla street artist has been accused of being a middle-class kid from Bristol with a boring past,but no one really cares. Angelina Jolie and Christina Aguilera are perfectly happy collecting Banksy. Millions of fans of his visual agitprop — such as a fierce drilling rat and a series of Mona Lisas,one carrying an RPG launcher — are more preoccupied with the message than the messenger.

While Pseudonymous Bosch has been identified with a real writer,Banksy has been hemmed in by the media. Alleged pictures have appeared in the Daily Mail. His alleged family,his school,his friends and flatmates,and artists close to him have been identified. All of them have politely sidestepped questions,and the fan base has just shrugged. Bosch should be just as easy to identify. There are enough clues in his books and the odd interview. As noted earlier,the first Secret Series title involved a real person.

Perhaps the secret of successful pseudonymity is to create a persona larger than life,yet very human,and apparently unafraid of being outed. In children’s literature and political art,Pseudonymous Bosch and Banksy have carried it off very well. Only Jack the Ripper did better,retaining his secret for ever.