I'm on holiday (although not, as ever, from this column; it must be something to do with writing fortnightly, every other week off being deemed quite enough holiday from the world of literary journalism already, thank you very much - thus the words is away shall remain forever unprinted at the bottom of this page). I brought with me what I felt was a fine cross-section of high to middlebrow reading: Philip Roth's The Professor of Desire (the first David Kepesh novel, the second of which, The Dying Animal, has just been made into the movie Elegy); Rebecca Miller's The Private Lives of Pippa Lee; Imran Ahmad's memoir of growing up Pakistani in London in the 1970s, Unimagined; and Rachel Cusk's In The Fold. I was entirely content with this selection, convinced it would satisfy all my reading chops, until I realised that my partner was bringing Christopher Ciccone's Life With My Sister Madonna.

Morwenna (my partner: not to be confused with Madonna) would, I know, want me to tell you that she also brought two Joan Didion essay collections and Meg Wolitzer's new novel, The Ten-Year Nap, but there's no getting away from the fact that, in the first week of our holiday, these eminent works stayed firmly on the bedside table, while Life With My Sister Madonna made a very regular appearance in front of her face on the by-the-pool lounger. There's also no getting away from the fact that, enthralled as I was by The Professor of Desire, and its microscopic mapping of the tortuous somersaults of male sexuality, a small - perhaps even a medium - part of me was glancing over, wanting to know why she chose Carlos Leon to father her first child. Similarly, even though I liked The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, and became entangled during the reading of it as to how much the main characters were updated versions of Arthur Miller, Inge Morath and Marilyn Monroe, every so often I found myself wondering how uncomfortable it was dancing in that pointy bustier.

This must be a common problem on holiday, so much so that it should perhaps form an updated section of the Ten Commandments: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his ox, nor his or her choice of holiday reading. Like any form of covetousness, it is of course entirely self-defeating - it simply distracts you from being in your own reading moment - and of course entirely impossible to overcome. The only thing that will cure it, in fact, is your partner finishing her bloody book, and handing it over. I have a suspicion, in this case, that Morwenna was deliberately making it worse; on seeing me glance over, she would knowingly raise a prurient eyebrow, or look over-shocked, or take a sharp, surprised breath, all conspiring to give the impression “Good Lord! Who knew?!”

A few choice titbits were chucked my way, like fishfood: odd chunks of kabbalah, a little crumb of Guy Ritchie's closet. This just made it worse. Finally, halfway through the week, the back cover, with its black and white brooding photo of Christopher, was closed on to the front one emblazoned with his sister, and the book was placed into my salacious hands.

And here is the cure for covetousness, the old, old truth about the grass and its greenness, and getting what you wish for: I found it a bit dull. It may have been that Christopher's prose suffered a bit juxtaposed with Philip Roth's, or his storytelling abilities with Rebecca Miller's, but the main truth is that, metrosexual though I may be - and sympathetic to Mr Ciccone about the homophobia he claims to suffer at his sister's second wedding - I am just not gay enough for Life With My Sister Madonna. I realised this is as early as page 13, with the sentence: “For the next number, Vogue, Daniel has added a black sequinned headdress to her outfit, part Erté, partly Zizi Jeanmaire”. This is basically so gay it's a different language. I have heard of Zizi Jeanmaire, but only because she turns up in the second line of Peter Sarstedt's Where Do You Go To (My Lovely). Appropriate to the Madonna story though that haunting ballad of overarching feminine ambition might be, I'm not sure it's an intended reference.

Similarly, later on, Christopher meets “a fourteen year old Colombian schoolboy named Esteban” (already, let's face it, not the butchest sentence ever written), whom he senses is a true original, burning with talent. One wonders how he will turn out: a great film-maker, perhaps, or a writer, or even, maybe, an iconic pop star, like Madonna herself? No: “At the time of this writing, Esteban has just been appointed the head of women's wear for the house of Ungaro. I almost burst with pride for him ...”

Unfortunately, this is round about the time I burst with heterosexuality, and have to put the book down. It's taught me many things, Life With My Sister Madonna - how much Cristal champagne costs, what kind of doorknobs LA interior designers prefer, exactly how bitchy the bitter relatives of the super-famous can become - but mainly to be happy with my own choice of holiday reading.

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