Cause Celeb

April 2, 2001
Fans of the sarcastic humor and rapid-fire dialogue found in bestselling British author Fielding's Bridget Jones's Diary
and Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason
will be delighted with the U.S. release of her 1995 debut novel, which juxtaposes the death, disease and despair of a refugee camp against the vacuous mid-'80s London celebrity scene. Gorgeous twentysomething literary publicist Rosie Richardson travels to the fictional African country of Nambula to heal from a particularly rough breakup with a devastatingly handsome TV personality. Caught up in the allure of volunteerism, Rosie goes high profile, bringing from London 40 tons of food, a television crew and the ad hoc group Charitable Acts, an assembly of image-conscious celebrities who plan to air an African broadcast of a speeded-up version of Hamlet.
Fielding's tale filled with huge egos lends itself exceptionally well to audio, and Quigley scrupulously brings Fielding's vapid, iconic characters to life with her uncanny ability to switch between accents and mood at the drop of a hat, achieving a subtler style of comedy than listeners may expect. Simultaneous release with the Viking hardcover (Forecasts, Dec. 11, 2000).

Starred review from January 1, 2001
Fielding's first novel, published now in the States only following the success of her second (Bridget Jones's Diary), is a sometimes hilarious, sometimes moving, occasionally scurrilous delight. Rosie Richardson, the administrator of Safila, a refugee camp in the fictional African country of Nambula, needs funds fast. The usual relief agencies are tied up in diplomatic knots, a long-promised supply ship is always 10 days away and it looks as though thousands of refugees are about to come streaming over the border. If they arrive before the food does, hundreds of people will starve to death. Rosie, desperate, does the only thing she can think of: she quits her job, returns to England and organizes a celebrity fund drive. This effort is complicated by the fact that her ex-boyfriend, a manipulative TV presenter named Oliver, is her only access to celebrities. On top of dealing with the self-centered celebs, she must also come to terms with her old attraction to him. This is a tall order, as he is devastatingly handsome and unspeakably selfish. Unsurprisingly, the book turns out to be about growing up; the interest comes when it turns out that Rosie isn't the only one obliged to do so. Crosscutting from past to present, this is a two-for-the-price-of-one story: an amusing satire of the celebrity-obsessed West, and a sharp report on the callousness and inefficiency of relief work in Africa. Swinging from laugh-out-loud funny to heartbreakingly sad, this book will please Fielding's old fans and win new ones. (Feb.) Forecast: Those who doubted Fielding could sustain her momentum may be surprised by her staying power. While this novel won't match the sales of Bridget Jones's Diary, it should do very wellDit has sold more than 500,000 copies in the U.K. and EuropeDwith sales boosted by the February release of the paperback edition of Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason and, in April, the release of the film version of Bridget Jones's Diary.

November 1, 2000
In Fielding's first novel, written before she made her name here with Bridget Jones's Diary, Rosie rights her life by getting celebrities involved in famine relief.

Copyright 2000 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 1, 2000
Although it's just now being published in the U.S., " Cause Celeb" is actually Fielding's first novel, written before the phenomenon that was " Bridget Jones's Diary "(1998). The novel's protagonist, Rosie Richardson, is a publicist for a well-known publishing house who gets to mingle with the "Famous Club," London's A-list celebrities, when she starts dating a vain, controlling television journalist named Oliver. After a few tumultuous, damaging months of dating Oliver, Rosie leaves her cushy job in England to work at a refugee camp in Africa. Several years later, a crisis looms over the camp when Rosie and her colleagues hear of a possible locust infestation threatening a neighboring country that will send countless refugees to the camp. The problem is that supplies are dwindling, and a promised UN shipment seems to be indefinitely delayed. When the UN is slow to act despite Rosie's insistence and the mounting proof of a potential disaster, Rosie takes matters into her own hands. She returns to England to organize her old celebrity acquaintances for a televised appeal for help, but once she gets there, she finds the obstacles in England may be every bit as difficult as the ones she faced in Africa. Though the vacuous and annoying celebrities are sometimes too jarring a contrast to the horrors of war and starvation in Africa, Fielding, for the most part, manages to balance the elements in a first novel that is both humorous and sobering.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2000, American Library Association.)