Edel Coffey: A rising tide lifts all boats - Paul Lynch's Booker triumph is all of ours

"If we looked at each other as friends, how much gentler and more positive might our experience of life be?"

Paul Lynch kisses the trophy after being named as the winner of the 2023 Booker Prize for the novel Prophet Song, at an award ceremony in Old Billingsgate, London.

‘Every time a friend succeeds, I die a little’ is one of Gore Vidal’s better-known aphorisms but the more my friends succeed the more I wonder at Vidal’s own qualities as a friend. 

I can understand being irked by an enemy’s success, sure. Every time someone I dislike succeeds, I can’t say I’m thrilled, but a friend? Can you even call yourself a friend if you can’t be happy for a friend’s success?