Was it any good? I've been wondering about this since I finished Emperor's Children. To start with, I took Murray's opinion as definitive. But Ludo and the publisher both thought it was great and were planning a big publicity tour. Now I'm thinking it was along the lines of Prozac Nation -- something current, catchy, zeitgeist-y. Something with enough snap that Marina could have had decent sales, done the talk shows, and been able to move on to real journalism (as her father would define it). Actually, the topic sounds completely dull to me, but I think that Ludo has excellent commercial sense.

If "Emperor's Children Have No Clothes" could have been successful, then it casts Murray's criticism in a more baleful light.

Overall, its difficult to judge a work of art that you only know through another work of art. Like trying to determine whether Lily Briscoe painted a good painting in "To the Lighthouse."