'huge, queer and tawdry' but 'much admired by the public'

I just finished The Writer's Tale myself... from my point of view the first half is brilliant, forcing me to reconsider all of my assumptions of the man. The second half, i.e. the "expanded" Writer's Tale after they knew they had another bestseller on their hands no matter what they did, is two incredibly self-indulgent prima donnas backslapping one another's "hilarious" text message witticisms, to the great detriment of one of them's ability to concentrate on writing the last few specials of a certain TV show. Which reconfirmed all my initial prejudices against RTD. Truly a paradoxical volume!