The Afterparty begins with an e-mail from a freelance journalist from London (sound familiar?) to a literary agent submitting the first chapter of a new book. He’s called William Mendez and the novel is called Publicity***** – so far so good. We then get to read the first chapter of this book. It starts in a club at a film star’s birthday and through a series of chapter submissions via e-mail we eventually get to read the whole thing; a spiral of events from party to afterparty culminating in sad disaster, whilst simultaneously following the progress of the novel towards publication.

Who is William Mendez though? It transpires he’s an elusive figure who would like another freelance journalist called Leo Benedictus (sound even more familiar?) to stand in for him as the novel’s author. They decide to change the book’s title to The Afterparty and it looks to be published by Cape (hang on a second…)

Of course the novel is a novel and one that reviewers have delighted in labelling postmodern and metafictional, which, as Benedictus points out, “it certainly is.” (For the record, Benedictus is fine with being labelled – “I just think it’s disrespectful to readers to think you’re too good for labels. I’m all up for it. Label me as much as you like.”)

Still, I am mightily glad when a man saying he is Leo Benedictus picks up the phone, juggling baby in one hand and nappy in the other – “a nice little insight into my life at the moment”. Even if the book claims he didn’t, in fact, write it, he seems overwhelmingly well informed on his subject and more than happy to talk.

In light of the recent phone-hacking scandals, the book, in its inquisition of the relationship between celebrity and press, seems proud of its contemporary relevance. Amazing then, that Benedictus actually began writing it in 2004. “As I was writing it I found that lots and lots of stories come up that now seem to resemble or be a reference to [the novel]. I haven’t changed it so that it doesn’t resemble them but there are a lot of comparisons.”

He cites, as an example, the 2006 Mark Blanco case involving Pete Doherty. “I didn’t know about that story when I wrote the story about Calvin [a reality TV mangled pop creation starting out on his career] falling off the roof. I didn’t know about the comparison between Pete Doherty and the Pete Sheen character…I mean talk about life imitating art, this is life imitating unpublished art – I didn’t even know it existed yet!”

Despite this, the pages of the book are littered with real celebrities. Elton John makes an appearance, Gordon Ramsay crops up, as do a ream of media figures such as Andy Coulson and Rebekah Wade. Is this too close to the nail?

“There’s sort of a negative and a positive reason for this,” Benedictus says, “There’s an extraordinary aura around real celebrities because we all know who they are. They have a kind of majesty almost – which isn’t too grand a word – around their name and appearance.”

Clearly some of the characters are fictional but Benedictus feels that by mixing them with bona fide celebrities and encoding them with references to real people they take on a life of their own. From this springs the positive reason: “I want people to read the book as much as possible in a genuine uncertainty as to what’s true and what isn’t…all over the book are buried quotations, like Elton John at one point talking about Madonna lip-synching – that’s real.”

Reading the book does leave you with a spine-tingling sense of confused reality.  Not least because “the book becomes a fictional object in itself.” Metafiction can, as the author acknowledges, “be regarded as commercial poison” as “people get put off by the idea of novelists turning up in their own novels – it’s often considered to be ‘oh, it’s all very clever and modern but it doesn’t really go anywhere and it’s no fun and really, ordinary readers won’t be interested.”

Being “no fun” is not, however, something that Benedictus should be too worried about. From its very first pages The Afterparty announces itself as far from dry and high brow. The time has come to talk, quite literally, about shit.

Any novel that begins with the protagonist letting go ‘a knobbled cosh…stately and momentous as an ocean liner’ is not competing for Dostoevsky’s place on the classics shelf. Although, I did find myself marvelling about the potential poetics of defecation. In fact, I have to confess to Benedictus that his opening scene was read aloud to much hilarity, although possibly inappropriately, around our kitchen table at Easter. Thankfully, he laughs.

“Believe it or not, it’s been quite divisive. If you look at the book’s reviews on Amazon, some people like the book, which is lovely, but of the people who don’t, the majority say ‘this book’s kind of alright BUT I JUST COULDN’T GET PAST THAT OPENING SCENE, IT’S SO UNNECESSARY.’ I check this later and yes, one disgruntled customer even suggested that he nearly threw the book away after the first chapter, as he ‘couldn’t see the relevance of going into the minutiae of an individual going to the toilet.’

Benedictus doesn’t seem to mind these criticisms at all though. He seems, rather, to enjoy them. “I don’t know if I wanted to shock people but I just wanted to say ‘HELLO,’ big-spinning-bow-tie, let’s have fun, this is going to be outrageous and enjoyable and if you don’t like this you probably best move on but I don’t want you to move on but you know, come on, everyone SHITS.”

Well, yes, quite.

It certainly wasn’t a last-minute, gimmicky decision to start the book in a way “that appeared to be suicide”. In fact, this was rather the appeal for Benedictus – he just wanted to drop it in there - ‘drop’, of course, being the operative word.

This makes Benedictus’ writing style sound pretty spur of the moment. Rather though, the novel is the work of a perfectionist. “I spent 95% of the time working on this book just rewording and rewording.” He can barely move onto the next sentence, he says, if he is not happy with the previous one.

Part of this springs from an earlier career in advertising, fresh from an English Literature degree at Oxford. “You realize that, in advertising, never has so much money been spent on so few words. I used to spend a week working on a headline and if you don’t get it right, people are more than willing to tell you.”

Beyond advertising and journalism, his sensibilities are much more grounded in the English degree and the “ideas of storytelling” that he learnt there. Journalism, he admits, is more a way “to subsidize the writing” than anything else. When I ask him how it was to swap between journalism and fiction, the response is enthusiastic and immediate.

“Oh, it was an absolute joy! Some people talk about being frightened of the big, white page in front of them when they’re writing fiction but I just love it and it may well be that the endless limitations of journalism has stimulated even more of that love. I just think ‘wow, it’s just me and the words on their own’”.

The day job, it seems has been something of a hindrance. “In practical terms, it’s a bloody nightmare.” A week’s novel-writing can, at the drop of a hat, be interrupted when the papers come knocking, wanting a piece. The Afterparty is a travelled manuscript. It’s been written on trains, on Benedictus’ phone, even in a hospital waiting room when he broke his wrist.

Thankfully, these obstacles have been overcome to create what is a truly original fiction even if the Harold Bloom conception of anxiety of influence is “undoubtedly true”. He cites Martin Amis, “a fantastic writer who is ludicrously abused by a lot of people”, as one such influence. You can’t though, as Benedictus points out, “pretend that other books don’t exist, particularly because, in a reader’s head, other books don’t stop existing when they’re reading other novels.”

He is also “immensely proud” to come from the same publishing stall as Amis, although unlike William Mendez who incites Leo to ‘slag off some big name authors and hope they retaliate’ all in the name of publicity, he hasn’t managed to irritate any of the other big names at Cape, not even Ian McEwan who he interviewed a little while ago and says is “incredibly nice”.

He has his own innovative marketing strategy, though, which seems to be doing well without him hitting the papers in a literary slanging match. “I can’t believe that someone hasn’t previously written a book which includes its own covers and its own marketing and its own design within its own fiction.” Reader participation is key; you can even apply to have a cameo appearance in the next edition.

It is this mixing of the fictional and non-fictional which makes The Afterparty such a brilliant debut. Not only does the prose have the stinging sharpness of popping candy, but it also revels in its own cleverness, pulling the reader right along with it.

So, this leaves me with just one more question: have I been talking to Leo Benedictus?

“Yes I am. But I could just be saying that…ha, no, honestly, I really am him!”

Leo Benedictus has offered Varsity readers the chance to own of The Afterparty, complete with personal dedication. Simply end your tweet to @VarsityUK with “#afterpartybook’ and, if you’re one of the 3 lucky winners, you’ll receive a copy of the book. And Benedictus himself will sign your message inside.

Deadline for entries is Sunday 22nd May - get tweeting!