13 Writers Who Grew to Hate Their Own Books | Literary Hub

To be clear: Fleming did like this novel, at least at first. Then he heard what the reviewers had to say, and he was so upset that he wanted to more or less disown it. The book is a departure from the rest of the James Bond novels - narrated by a girl, for one thing (saints alive!), and James Bond only comes into the picture later on. Fleming wrote the book this way for a specific reason, but the reviews were bad. In a letter to his publisher, dated only three days after the novel's publication, Fleming wrote: Both I and all of you have treated the whole of the James Bond saga with a light heart and so, with one or two exceptions, have the reviewers, most of whom for the first nine books have been very kind. But in the reviews of The Spy I detect a note of genuine disapproval. This surprised me because of the genesis of this particular book which should perhaps now be explained to you.