It is getting a bit crowded today. Five interviews in one. A bunch of authors, all published by those fine people at Snowbooks, have answered a series of searching and difficult questions which I spent all of two minutes thinking up. I feel just like Melvyn Bragg.
The authors in question being questioned are:
Andrew Sanger, author of The J-Word
Paula Brackston, author of The Book of Shadows
Fiona Robyn, whose latest book is The Blue Handbag
Thomas Emson, the man behind vampire novel Skarlet
And Alastair Sim, who I am guessing isn't the guy who played Scrooge and was in all those St Trinian's movies but is instead the author of The Unbelievers
SP: We are in the age of Twitter. Please pitch your book to me in 140 characters or less.
Andrew Sanger: Jack denies he's Jewish. When antisemite gang beat him up, he & little grandson Danny track 'em down, meet out justice. Jack learns lesson.
Paula Brackston: Immortal witch pursued by evil warlock from 16th century, thru' Victorian London, Passchendaele 1917, to present. She must finally face him. Will he claim her soul?
Fiona Robyn: Gardener Leonard (who appreciates a nice pint) becomes reluctant detective after a mysterious discovery in his late wife Rose's blue handbag. (OK, that's 141 with the full stop...)
Thomas Emson: Hi, Scott - I think you said it best about Skarlet - "Twilight it ain't". That's concise, to the point, and "gets" the novel completely. Otherwise: "Fear grips London as dozens of clubbers die after taking a sinister new drug. But that's only the beginning. 24 hours later, the dead clubbers wake up - and it's open season on the living."
Alastair Sim: Bad people die in witty and ingenious ways in Victorian Edinburgh. Good(ish) person investigates - but may become bad person in the process.
SP: What is your favourite line from your book?
AS: "I should be Jewish all of a sudden?"
PK: How can you ask me to choose!? They are all my darlings. If I must, then 'My name is Elizabeth Anne Hawksmith, and my age is three hundred and eighty-four years. Each new settlement asks for a new journal, and so this Book of Shadows begins.' OK, that's two lines. Sorry. How about 'Your mother was a witch!' which is sort of what kicks the whole thing off. Now all my other lines will hate me.
FR: He lets out a perfect circle of smoke.
TE: That's difficult. I'm quite ruthless like that. I've got a "kill your darlings" attitude to my books, so if there a line in the draft that I'm sitting back and admiring, and it's stopping me getting on with the story, I'll cut it out. Every word should fight for its place in the book. Words and lines shouldn't be flashy or showy - they should serve a purpose, I think. Sorry, not a good answer for you.
ASim: 'The stench was worse here, a toxic mixture of industrial effluent, faeces and rotting seaweed. The smell of crime, thought Allerdyce, breathing deeply. This is the manure which feeds it.'
SP: Was is always going to have that title? If not, what options were rejected?
AS: No - my working title was Yid. This was completely impossible, of course, so I changed it to The Jew. But even this seemed sort of unsayable, unmentionable. And that's partly what the story is about - so it had to be "The J-Word".
PK: A Book of Shadows is traditionally a witch's journal, where she records important events in her life, recipes and spell and their efficacy, and so on. This is Elizabeth's journal, and I felt the title was absolutely right.
FR: It was a controversial choice for some, as it conjures high heels and lipstick rather than a slow-living 62 year old gardener, but it all starts from the handbag...
TE: I'd thought of Skarlet, Krimson (Part Two of The Vampire Trinity), and Kardinal (Part Three) as titles long before I had any idea of the plot. I knew they were going to be about vampires, and that "skarlet" would be a drug, that was all. The titles came first.
ASim: 'The Unbelievers' was always the title. I woke up one morning with the key characters, the main plot and the title, and never thought of changing it. It's partly about how peoples' various beliefs and attitudes cause and enable the crimes in the book, and partly about two different sprirtual journeys, in two differnt directions, between belief and unbelief.
SP: This one is nicked from my son who used it when he was interviewing someone. If you could have a quote from anyone on your cover who would it be and why?
AS: A good choice might have been Benjamin Disraeli, the 19th-century Jewish prime minister and author who converted to Christianity to help him succeed in life. I wonder if the story would have touched a nerve in him. Actually I really wanted Linda Grant to endorse the book - and she did. She has made a name for herself covering the ground of secular Jewish identity, which is what interests me, too.
PK: Cynically? JK Rowling - to boost sales. Honestly? Barbara Erskine - I love the way she writes and always find myself caught up with her characters and transported to another time. Which is what I aim to do for my readers.
FR: Good question. It would have to be the great late Sir John Peel, as he's my hero.
TE: I'd have to go with Stephen King because he's the biggest name in horror, and also respected outside the genre
ASim: Ian Rankin: 'OK, I've had my time, but now it's Alastair's turn.'
SP: Finally, can you recommend a good book to read once we have finished yours?
AS: The Plot Against America, by Philip Roth. It's an 'alternative history' in which America supports the Nazis instead of fighting against them.
PK: Blatant plugging alert! My next book, 'Lamp Black, Wolf Grey', is out this winter. It is of a similar ilk to Book of Shadows, and has lots of mystery and magic. If you can't wait that long, my contemporary comedy, 'Nutters', is out August 1st, under my pen name, PJ Davy.
FR: For a heartbreaking read, Michael Kimball's How Much of Us There Was. For contemplation, The Book of Silence by Sara Maitland. For laugh out loud funny, anything by Anne Lamott. Oops, I cheated.
TE: Non-fiction, I've just read The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, and I'd recommend that. In fact I think it's a vital read. Fiction, Fourtold - which are four horror/dark fantasy novellas - by Michael Stone.
ASim: Cormac McCarthy's 'The Road' is brilliant and unsparing and an utterly serious meditation on what makes life worth cherishing. Everyone should read it. If you want something lighter, I've just started another Victorian investigatory romp, 'The Widow's Secret' by Brian Thompson, and I'm loving it. It's got a great heroine - an outwardly respectable (if sexy) widow who moonlights as the author of racy senastion novels. Hows that?
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I do hope that at least one of these authors have taken your fancy. You can always find out more about them at the Snowbooks website. Snowbooks also have a rather splendid online thingy called White Magazine which includes lots of free stuff, features and advance extracts from forthcoming books.
Yes, yes, they have....I am going to need more bookshelves at this rate.
Posted by: DJ Kirkby | July 13, 2009 at 07:02 AM