Martine McCutcheon was "expecting" to receive criticism of her debut novel.
The former 'EastEnders' actress' literary debut, 'The Mistress', has received a volley of negative press, but Martine said she is ignoring the critics and looking forward to the public's reaction to her work.
She said: "I never expected to win a Booker Prize, but I worked really hard on the novel and hope people give it a chance, that it entertains and maybe makes people question a few things about relationships."
Martine also said she's always had a volatile relationship with the press, but has always been jeered on by the ordinary people she has met.
She added to Hello! magazine: "There have been times in my life when I haven't been the critics' choice and times when I've been the critics' darling.
"But the one thing that has never wavered is how unbelievably loving the public has been towards me, to the point where I've got into a taxi, sobbing my eyes out because I've read something horrible about myself, and by the time I've got out I'm beaming from ear to ear because the cabbie has made me feel like Madonna."
The first chapter of 'The Mistress' was published online in September. One blogger called it "a work of parody that should make the nation's satirists hang their heads in envy and snap their pencils in two."
2 November 2009, 04:00pm
