Exploring the chilling mind of Ramsey Campbell

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, this is Alexander Halak and welcome to the Music
is Talking podcast.
For over three decades now I'vebeen an internationally
published music photographer andin that time I've met and
worked with some amazingcreative people.
To see some of my musicphotography, check out
instagramcom slash the music istalking, or visit my website,
which is wwwthemusicistalkingcom.

(00:22):
So join me as I speak with awide variety of creatives,
including musicians, filmmakers,authors, artists and many
others, to talk about theirpersonal creative journeys and
their unique ways of makinginnovative and original work to
help connect the wider creativecommunity through shared
experience.
Welcome back to the Music isTalking podcast.

(00:43):
Here on episode 2, we have aspecial early Halloween treat
for you all.
Heading from Manchester.
Our guest is a master of thedark in the macabre.
This episode will bring us intothe world of dark fiction with
the incomparable Ramsey Campbell, a world fantasy grandmaster,
award-winning author with a bodyof work which spans five
decades.
In that time he has writtenover 30 novels and hundreds of

(01:05):
short stories.
He is a true master of horror.
So get comfortable and followus into the mind and world of
Ramsey Campbell here on theMusic is Talking.
Good afternoon, ramsey.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
How are you, hey Alexander?
How are you doing?

Speaker 1 (01:19):
Very well.
Thank you so much for takingyour time out to have a
conversation with us on thisepisode of the Music is Talking
with yourself my pleasure, andso let's begin.
You're a novelist, an editor, afilm critic of over 50 years

(01:40):
and you started out very earlyin your journey.
Can you walk us through theearly days in the journey of
Ramsey Campbell?

Speaker 2 (01:53):
Oh, where do we start ?
Is probably the question.
I mean, really, by the time Iwas 11, I was writing complete
short stories.
I mean they were very bad, and Iwill share with you a single
sentence representing them,which was the door banged open
and the aforementioned skeletonrushed in.

(02:16):
I leave you to imagine the restof it.
So that was where I began.
I sort of stick together bitsof favourite stories, favourite
authors I read, with noparticular regard for coherence,
but, to be fair, they did havean actual narrative, they did
have a beginning, middle and anend, and I was very well versed

(02:40):
in the field.
I mean, I've been reading MRJames and indeed Edith Horton
since I was six.
I mean my precociousnessrivaled that of Wilbur Wensley
by the time I was 11.
I got on to Herman Melville andso forth, specifically a story,
bartleby which I thought andstill do think was a kind of a

(03:00):
horror story, and I encounteredit first in a book called Best
Horror Stories.
But despite the fact that I wasso well read, there is this
thing about writing it exposesyour maturity and however well
read you are, you still writelike an 11 year old, which I

(03:21):
duly did.
So I then, not very long afterthat, I then began to try, in a
very sort of instinctive andhaphazard fashion, to model
myself on favourite writers, orat least try to well, I put it
that way.
It wasn't even that conscious.
What I was trying to do wasconvince myself I was as good as

(03:41):
they were, which, believe me, Iwas not.
So Arthur MacKinn was the firstto get the treatment and I
wrote about 50 pages of what wasplanned to be a trilogy, in the
MacKinn-esque way, of which Ionly remember the title of what
would have been the final volume, which is the Broken Moon,
which I would still say is thetitle.

(04:02):
Maybe I could find a use for itsometime.
Arthur MacKinn came John DixonCarr, the detective story writer
, who well specialised inapparently impossible crimes,
very influenced by actuallyinfluenced by both DK Chesterton
and, at times, mr James.
He had a real sense of theuncanny and macabre and

(04:25):
occasionally he would embed aghost story in the middle of an
otherwise naturalistic ornon-supernatural, to any rate
detective story.
So I had two tries at writing adetective novel in his manner.
The first time I got around 60pages done.
Second time and this is kind ofinteresting I think I started

(04:45):
from scratch.
Rather than trying toincorporate as much as possible
with the first draft, I kind ofused it as being an example of
how not to do it and started allover again, using pretty well
the same characters and, Isuppose, the same plot, but to a
certain extent improved.
I'm now 14 years old.
But what happens then is my museis hijacked because and you and

(05:10):
I'm sure everybody else who'slistening will find this
difficult to believe but in 1960there had never been a single
paperback collection of HPLovecraft ever published in
Britain.
You couldn't find them.
You found the odd short storyin anthologies, but that was
your lot.
Came a collection called CryHorror, which actually was

(05:30):
originally called the LurkingFear, came out from Avon in the
late 40s, edited, I believe, byDon Walheim, who was later
defwned to found Dural Books CryHorror.
I found it at a bookshop withwonderful decaying monstrosity
painted by Richard Powers on thecover, which was worth my half

(05:51):
a crown all by itself.
Got the book home, scribed offschool the following day, read
it through from cover to cover,was utterly immersed in
Lovecraft, who I'd onlyencountered when I had read the
Colour Out of Space when I waseight.
But that was my baptism of fire, believe me.
Looked for Lovecraft ever since, but very little to find.

(06:11):
Now I had him and basically Ithought I mean remember, I'm 14.
I thought not many was eitherthe greatest horror writer I'd
ever read, to whom the entirerest of the field led, if you
like, aspired, if you want butalso the greatest writer I'd
ever read.
Well, that's going a bit, youknow, but nevertheless, you know

(06:31):
I found enormous things toadmire in the work and I was
still plugging about trying todo the John Dixon Carr novel
murdered by Mood Light, mypastiche.
But you can see in the laterchapters that Lovecraft begins
to creep in.
You know, I'd begun to want towrite like Lovecraft and shortly
after I abandoned this novel,about 140 pages in.

(06:55):
It has actually been publishedthat version in a strange
collection called the VillageKillings, another novellas from
PS Publishing.
But I've done a lot ofannotation to it to use it as a
kind of glass through which tolook at my psychological state
at the time.
But I then, as I say, Iabandoned it and I started

(07:17):
writing Lovecraft pastiches.
Now I have to say I waspastiching the easy bits, the
purple prose.
I mean infinitely more to thatwith Lovecraft, you know, even
some of his admirers as well asmany of his detractors think
that's all there is to hiswriting.
But actually, to my mind,nobody better exemplifies

(07:38):
modulation of language within anarrative to precise effect, you
know, and care with structure.
Now, I didn't do much of that.
As I say, I did just the bitsthat seemed well readyous to
imitate.
We wrote half a dozen of thesestories.
A friend of mine correspondedPat Kearney, who was then a

(07:59):
fanzine editor we were bothLovecraft fans and fans of Weird
Tales magazine and so forthhaving been put in touch by the
British Science FictionAssociation Library at the time,
peter Mayby and Pat got well.
I mentioned that I'd writtenthese stories to Pat and he
asked whether he could read them.

(08:19):
So I duly, such as myamateurism, that I sent him off
through the ordinary mail theonly copy handwritten of this
collection.
So if that had got lost he'dprobably not be talking to me
right now.
I'd be still in a cornersobbing.
But now he got there safely.
He read it and asked whether hecould publish all the stories

(08:41):
and I duly said yes.
And then he and one of hisreaders, an American fan called
Betty Kujawa, suggested I shouldsend them off to August Dirlith
for his opinion.
You know, you obviously needLovecraft's publisher and that
was all I planned to do.
It was not in any way to submitthem officially to Dirlith.

(09:01):
But I simply sent him a lettersaying you know, dirlith, you
are the world's foremostauthority on Lovecraft.
I've written these stories.
Could you tell me, are they anygood?
And he duly wrote back sayingwell, look, we hold the
copyright on the mythos.
Well, this is arguable.
But you know, that's what,certainly what he said.
And we need to approve them andgive permission before you can

(09:25):
publish anything of the kind.
So I typed them up, sent themoff, waited some weeks and got a
little back saying, basically,these stories need a lot of work
.
And by gun, did they ever?
That's absolutely true.
I may be able to perform you alittle of the first draft at a
moment to indicate how much theyneeded work.

(09:46):
But he said OK, they need work,they need to be fleshed out.
You need to learn to showrather than simply tell.
You need dialogue, which, oddlyenough, I had previously used
in all the stuff I've writtenpre Lovecraft.
But because you know, havingread Lovecraft, they thought, oh
, you're not supposed to usedialogue in a horror, so I can't
do this anymore.
And he also said you know,expand the stories and perhaps

(10:11):
write more in the same vein.
But if you do all this work, wethink it's possible you might
have an Arkham House book here.
But you're 15 years old by gun,you know.
When I'd recovered from first ofall the editorial suggestions
and then the idea that maybethis could be a book, I got on
with it.
He published my first storywhen I was 16.

(10:35):
Now this is a story called theChurch in High Street.
But he, having read my readwrite, said he wanted to do some
more editing on it.
And because of the schedulingyou know he did, I don't think
he had time to let me do theediting to his suggestion.
So I had to agree to allow himto do some tinkering, which I
duly did, and you know, to befair, he did a very good job.

(10:59):
I would have preferred to do itmyself, but, fair enough, the
story appeared and so it is.
It's by Ramsey Campbell, jRamsey Campbell, as I then was,
and August Earth, if you like.
I then followed up on hissuggestions, wrote more stories
and my first book came out whenI was 18, the Inhabitant of the

(11:20):
Lake.
But I was threatening you witha bit of the first draft, wasn't
I?

Speaker 1 (11:26):
Yes, you were, yes, you were.

Speaker 2 (11:29):
Well, are you unwary enough to invite this?
I'm ready, you're ready, but isthe world ready?
That's the question.
Well, I've read this so oftento audiences to great hilarity
that I think I would probably doit verbatim for you right now.
It's in what was then the tombbird which became the church in
High Street, and the narratorhas gone to visit his friend

(11:50):
then in 10, in Kingsport,because I had to move everything
to England and create my ownnew milieu at Dirlis Suggestion.
Anyway, the narrator has goneto visit his friend who has
disappeared and finds a telegramwhich the chap was apparently
writing out on the table when hewas dragged away by amorphous

(12:14):
things.
And the telegram, I think Imight say the telegram goes as
follows and do remember folks,this was meant to be a telegram.
So it says to Richard Dexter,come at once to Kingsport.
You are needed urgently by mehere as protection against

(12:34):
entities which may kill me orworse if you do not come
immediately.
But what is this?
To trample them speakably downthe corridor toward this room?
It cannot be the abominationthat I bring from the mangrove
vault beneath the carter tochurch in Hesquith Place.

(12:56):
Yeah, yeah, richard, that's itNow, whether you get that past
the post office?
I certainly do, but there youare.

Speaker 1 (13:03):
That was the telegram .

Speaker 2 (13:05):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (13:06):
But, as you say, this was your first story at 16,
which has 16 to be published byArkham House.
That's amazing, you bet.
You bet I mean, even in thisday and time, if one was 16 to
be published in Arkham, Icouldn't even fathom that.
And to think that was the end.

(13:27):
And it wasn't the days ofemails that you could email,
send off and get a quickresponse.
Maybe in a day you'd have towait weeks for the letter to go
and then back.
That's just so.
Yes, so your first novel comesout at 18.

Speaker 2 (13:47):
Well it says the collection of the novel, but
yeah, and how did that feel?

Speaker 1 (13:54):
Did you feel at that point you've made it as an
author.
Or did you then think, okay,now the world is open.

Speaker 2 (14:03):
Well, I suppose both in the right in a way.
Really, that first short storywas when I thought I'm a real
writer.
I mean not least because here Iam, at 16, alongside the likes
of Bob Block and H RussellWakefield, john Nettcarp, heroes
of my childhood.
Well, here's a man, adultreading too, but these people I

(14:26):
could have dreamed I could betogether with within the same
cover.
So in a sense that was it.
But then, yeah, when the bookcomes out, much more so, you
know, a real book, an actualbook, an Arkham House book for
him, say, and the thing was thisI kind of felt, almost as soon
as I'd finished Well, now, evenbefore that, before the book

(14:49):
came out, I actually finishedwriting those stories as I just
turned 17.
Now it's just about to become,you know, it was round about,
you know, end of end of 19.
Yes, end of 60.
End of 62.
Yes, indeed, I think about justabout 17.

(15:10):
Now there was a crucial factorthat then came into play,
because I still remember, on theway on a railway bookstore, on
the way back from staying withmy relatives, my mother's, my
mother's relatives up inYorkshire, I tried to book a
couple of Lolita.
Now, no, in those days.
Well, I was sort of I.

(15:30):
It was kind of supposed aforbidden book was no longer
forbidden because it waspublished in Britain.
But you know a naughty book,certainly you know one that was
not, you know, not not quite thedone thing, which of course
didn't in some ways, and so Ibought it and I read, I suppose
no more than the first few pages, and I thought, you know,

(15:51):
there's so much more here than Iwas expecting.
This is, this is like nothingelse I've ever read.
You know the glory of prose andyou know that the, the, the,
the extroits of comedy that thisbrought to bear on the most.
You know what would seem themost unlikely material in an
absolute revelation, and I readit from cover to cover and I

(16:14):
devoured Nabokov in the way thatI devoured Lovecraft, and I
then went and bought everythingelse by Nabokov that I could
find, and it actually had luckwith habit.
Ale Fire came out very shortlyafter that in paperback, which
is equally astounding novel, andthis pointed me in the
direction I wanted to follow.
So the next story that I wrote,which is a story called the

(16:36):
Stone on the Island, is stillkind of Lovecraftian, I still
said in my, you know, sevenValley locale, but it's much,
much more playful with narrative.
The thing I previously read wasobviously written really and,
you know, I would say, much moresure of itself in terms of of

(16:57):
the range of prose, and so thatsent me off in a different
direction and I now felt, well,okay, you know, I've done
Lovecraft, I want to do me, ifyou like, now.
It took some time and I think Iwould probably argue that my
first real, the first story ofmine that I really recognize as
being a whole lot more like methan like the influences that by

(17:19):
now I have subsumed, and thestory called the Sullars, which
I wrote in 65s I'm now 19 yearsold and, crucially, it's set in
Liverpool.
They set very much in theLiverpool of the time at which I
was writing, and the, the, theactual description of the city
centre, in that the actual walkthat the central characters take

(17:45):
to get to these subterraneanvaults that are the subject of
the story, is exactly.
It's a historical snapshot bynow of what Liverpool actually
looked like at the centre inthose days, and so I was, I was
I'm also very much so in termsof the treatment of character,
which is very naturalistic and I, for instance, I'm very fond of

(18:07):
the fact that the, the, themoment where the, the central
characters, being told a tale of, you know, of the background,
the basic of what has happenedto the chap she went down the
vaults with, and it's cut offnot because it's so horrific but
because she's just gettingbored listening to this of the
friend of us, grown on about it,and that that that I still,

(18:30):
like you know the fact thatthat's kind of more like it to
happen in a way, so that you'regoing to you know your brain
will be blasted by by whatyou're listening to.
So I know that that that, to me,was a kind of a turning point
for me.
I've, indeed that that comes inbetween as well.
Really, you know, after, aftermy, after my doing love God was,

(18:54):
was reading Fritz Laiber andspecifically smoke ghost, which
I've always felt was a crucialdevelopment in the, in the urban
supernatural horror story.
Because, you know, whereaspreviously the everyday may well
be invented by the supernatural, and in fiction story it's the

(19:15):
source of the supernatural, theeveryday city at night.
And that again was something Iwanted to pursue, and so all
those things kind of cametogether to into what I then
tried to set off doing, and youdo this at 19.

Speaker 1 (19:31):
And so you feel, at 19 is when you developed your
voice.
It was no longer theamalgamation or the of what you
were reading.
It was now yours in where youwere living.

Speaker 2 (19:45):
Yes, I think so.
I think so, it must be said,because I'm a huge instinctive
writer, you know I I mean thesedays I've planned an advanet
lesson.
I used to, but so you know, Iwasn't really aware of what I've
done there.
And so the next few storiesthat I wrote well, some of them
are okay, but several of thefirst drafts of later stories

(20:09):
over the next few years areactually very clumsy.
They're trying to do what I didthere, but because I didn't
really see what I was doing,they didn't do it, and so I
rewrote a whole bunch of them,ultimately, most of which
appeared in my, my second ArkhamHouse book, also in some other
Arkham House anthologies.
But I I once again, I just tookthe first draft of us how to do

(20:33):
it, you know went to thematerial all over again, but
from a completely differentdirection and with, you know, a
different approach to prose.

Speaker 1 (20:42):
Do you suppose in some way you were trying to copy
yourself, but you didn't knowwhat that formula was, which you
did?

Speaker 2 (20:50):
Oh, it's more trying not to copy yourself in a way,
but I try to avoid, you know, toavoid repeating myself.
That's really the things I wastrying to do, new things, but
but not not yet being reallyequipped to be able to do them
all.
I'm a great believer in incoming back to stuff later on
where you, where you'vedeveloped the skills

(21:11):
sufficiently to do the thingsyou probably couldn't do, like
you know, five, ten years, 20years ago.

Speaker 1 (21:19):
And what is it that drew you to the horror genre?
Because you say that you werevery also influenced by Nabokov.
So yes, what is it about thehorror genre that you drew you
as like as the biggest threadfor you?

Speaker 2 (21:37):
Well, I mean, I've always loved it.
I think it's like a spark.
As far back as I can rememberthat's going back all the way.
You know um why I remember it'sbeing.
It's being frightened anddisturbed by, by fiction.
I don't mean that thateverything I read frightened and
disturbed me.
Well, I mean is that what staysin my mind are the things that
you did, and I mean the veryfirst I got there was may not be

(21:59):
a familiar thing over there,but but Rupert Baird, does that
mean?
Does he ring any bell?
Yeah, I remember.

Speaker 1 (22:05):
Yeah, oh, okay, good enough.

Speaker 2 (22:07):
Well, there was one story.
I again you say I'm talkingabout this horrible
precociousness yet again.
I mean I was reading prettyfluently about I was 18 months
old, so that time I got to betwo, I was on my Christmas
presents, or you know, I wasn'tquite two actually.
I got a Rupert Baird annual andthere was one story in that in
which Rupert acquires of whatappears to be a sort of magical

(22:30):
Christmas tree that eventuallyskips off back to the forest.
Now, this is presumably supposedto be a slightly ear retail for
kids, but the whole elements,you know him hearing a sort of
little high voice behind thetree on Christmas Day, obviously
in the tree in fact, finallygoing down in the midst of the

(22:51):
night and discovering that thetree has gone, with the trail of
earth leading outside the frontdoor, and then kind of
scratching sounds and go out andsing this silhouette scuttling
away into the, into the forest.
Well, this absolutely terrifiedme and I think you know in many
ways it's the, it's the stuffof MR James.
In many ways you know all thoseimages and the reticence of it,

(23:13):
the way it's told, that I meanpresumably the idea was not to
be too, you know, disturbing forkids, but for me what?
What happened was it showedjust enough to suggest far worse
as you know, as.
MR James does, has lovecraftdoes, and that's how it worked
on my mind.
So that that.
But the point was that when Irecover from several sleepless

(23:37):
nights and believe me, I did lieuneasily awake, but for quite a
few of them I then wanted to doit again.
I wanted to read this again.
Now, obviously, or you know, inretrospect, it seems obvious to
me that the effect is that Imust have been apparent and it
had quite even got rid of.
So I couldn't find it.
I didn't find it again fordecades, you know, and they.

(24:00):
I happened upon a copy in a bookfair, going for, I think, 25
pounds, I mean.
So I immediately stumped up andbought it and was amazed to
find that when I read it, allthose images are still there.
I mean, they're not, they'renot, they're not quite as potent
to me now, but still what I sawis still there.
I can still see what I saw andwhat affected me that way, of

(24:23):
course, once I got onto well,you know Tales of Terror, I do,
I don't tell the term, but I wassix years old, I was, I was, I
was, I was hooked, basically,and it was again.
I think this is what you knowdistinguishes the, the horror
aficionado for people who don'tcare for it, and is that when
you know you want to repeat theintensity of experience that

(24:46):
that that fiction has given you,and either you know by
rereading that or seeking outyou know similar in in some way.
Now I have to say, perhaps thisagain sort of answered your
question.
You know that I only wish therewere things that still did
affect me that that profoundly.
I mean few things do.
One of the few things that doit are half a dozen of the films

(25:09):
of David Lynch which actuallytake me almost to the edge of
off terror, to the extent thatI'm thinking can I cope with
this?
And occasionally I've only justdone so.
So you know, lynch has it nowfor me.

Speaker 1 (25:23):
Now, what fascinates me with this is nowadays one can
go onto something like Amazonand it will recommend you books
and say oh, you might like this.
You back then, of course, therewas no Amazon.
How did you find these thingsat such a young age?
Was it from the cover art thatdrew you, or yeah, what, what,

(25:47):
what.
How did you find them?

Speaker 2 (25:49):
Well, it was mainly just just the public library to
begin with, because I mean, yousee another and decided
obviously that was mature enoughto use her tickets at the age
of six, when I was six.
So I was getting adult booksfrom the public library and,
interestingly, I was almostnever stopped from doing so, not
by the mother and not by thelibrary, and the only time that

(26:12):
they said no, no, no, youmustn't take that, it was
girlgolfs, dead souls, Iremember, which it was only the
title that had made me think of.
Maybe this, you know, has hassomething for me, but otherwise
it was just a lot of trailingthe shells and, and you know
which I've always enjoyed, I'vealways liked that, that, that

(26:32):
serendipity of stumbling alongthings that I might never
otherwise have found.
So you know things like, say,jb Priestley's solitary
collection of of strange fiction, which I think is called the
other place of our membercorrectly.
Or you know, lp Hartley, whowas not primarily associated,

(26:53):
obviously, with with thesupernatural but wrote a several
, several dozen very effectivestories in in the field.
But you know, usually it wasanthologies actually, and wasn't
only supernatural.
In fact I have to say it wasmore usually science fiction.
But you know, the mostscientific anthologies in those
days had quite a high proportionof the horrific.

(27:15):
So, you know, you would findthe old Lovecraft story,
something like from beyond, orbeyond the wall of sleep, or or
or.
But then equally, you know, Imean there were several, there
were derroth anthologies, therewere Groff Conklin anthologies I
remember where, in one of whichI actually encountered the
color out of space.
But there were things likeMargaret Sinclair's the Gardener

(27:37):
, which is basically, you know,a horror.
It's often said that alien isthe old dark house in space, but
I mean the gardeners and ourJames in space, pretty well,
genuinely horrific, littlelittle story by a writer who
actually did a bit severalstories to weird tales.
And so it was basically that tosome extent I, having read the,

(27:58):
the, the authors in theanthologies, I would then seek
out their books, if there wereany in the library.
So that's how it operated, andso one of the things that was
kind of crucial, I suppose thatyou know, I had my grounding in
the classics by the time I was,long before I was a teenager,
because they were mostly whatyou could find.

(28:18):
Now I wasn't allowed to buymagazines, books.
Yes, to some extent, but Ithink I probably had a couple of
MR James paid to backcollections.
But I was 10 or so 10 years old.
I was kind of released.
I was apparently old enough todo magazines, and that's great
luck would have it.
And around that time a lot ofBritish digest editions of

(28:41):
American magazines were beingremanded to get them for six
months a copy.
And so the last few issues ofweird tales for instance, I was
able to grab and certainlyinvested in, because I actually
seen a cover of one of those ina, in a or just a general store
window actually when I was maybeseven or eight and this
actually haunted me.

(29:02):
I wanted this thing.
You know I have been of courseeight years old.
you can't have a pulp magazinethat looks like that 10 years
old.
Okay, well, maybe they'redigested, so maybe they're not
quite superb, even thoughthey're the same magazine that I
did begin to collect weirdtales and, and you know, and
some years after that ArkhamHouse, when I look they still
existed.

(29:22):
And you know, you see, before,you know, you know, a collector
for many years.

Speaker 1 (29:30):
Right, right.
So for you, going down thoserabbit holes, you would find the
short story.
Look for the novel.
Expand your reading.
Which expanded?
Yeah, that would be it.
Yes, yes.
And so when you're writing theface that must die from you know

(29:51):
, from a killer's point of view,and quite terrifying and it's
an uncomfortable read, but youdon't want to read more.
How do you put yourself intothat frame of mind to write this
?

Speaker 2 (30:09):
Well, there were a few things involved there.
Actually, I suppose it's worthsaying that I've written other
novels to some extent that aresimilar, other novels from the
viewpoint of a psychopathiccharacter, and certainly short
stories as well.
I mean something like, say,secret Story, for instance.
But that's just to put thatinto a bit of a context.

(30:30):
The Face of Us Die is a specialcase for a variety of reasons.
First of all, I have to say,sadly, that many of John
Horatio's traits are my mother's.
Basically she had many of thoseattitudes, the homophobia, the
kind of casual racism, that kindof a thing.
She was also, I have to say, anundiagnosed, paranoid

(30:55):
schizophrenic who she got worseas the years past.
But even back then, I meanreally from very, very young I
was having to sort of what sheperceived from what was real.
Three years old I was having todo that.
I was perfectly well aware thatthere weren't really coded
messages in radio soap operasthat were aimed directly at her.

(31:17):
She was convinced there were,and she had this particular
thing about people beingdisguised as other people.
Her neighbors were writingabout her under assumed names of
the newspaper, this kind of athing, and sometimes she would
be convinced that she recognizedsomebody who she didn't.
Basically and it was from thatreally that the face of Us Die

(31:41):
came the whole notion of what ifsomebody with psychological
problems were to be convincedthat they'd recognized somebody
from an identikit picture in thenewspaper and attempted to have
them arrested.
And because they looked nothinglike them, they're not arrested
, obviously, because it's notthe person at all.

(32:02):
And so John Horridge then, asyou remember from the novel then
feels you've driven tointervene in a more direct
fashion.
And that was where that alreadycame from.
But the other thing, in theinterest of full admission here,
that was written in the mid1970s, in my naughty psychedelic

(32:23):
past, where it had theexperience of acid LSD, and very
shortly before I startedwriting of the face that must
die, I'd had a nightmareflashback, and acid flashback
precipitated by, as I think, bycannabis.
Actually, all of a sudden I'dgone into a full trip again,

(32:44):
without certainly meaning to,the first thing I think of which
was when I looked in the mirrorand saw that my mouth was
disappearing not something youparticularly want to see at
night, if indeed at all.
And once I got over this by avariety of means well, basically
by Jenny, my wife, my companion, the best thing in my life,

(33:06):
basically.
She looked after me as best asshe could over that horrible
night.
And also, listening toBeethoven's Last Quartet was
actually remarkably consoling insome ways, or has been a
favorite piece of mine.
But the thing was, you know,once this was over, I had this
fear that it would happen againand I didn't know what might

(33:29):
precipitate it.
And you know, I wouldoccasionally see what appeared
to be the beginnings of aflashback and, you know, flinch
or cringe within myself, and itwas partly writing the face that
must die.
That kind of took me throughrecovery, if you like.
Also, you know sometranquilizers, that's to be

(33:50):
perfectly clear on that.
But I was, I don't know,somewhere through chapter 11, I
think it was and as I waswriting I was right long hand,
the first draft I saw the wordsbegin to wriggle about on the
page, which is not something youwant to see, I can tell you,
and I suppose the fact I carriedon writing you know maybe the

(34:10):
definition of a professional.
So I've somewhere got the bookwritten and then rewritten and
that's the tale they have in theface of us dying.

Speaker 1 (34:20):
Wow, now let's talk about that, because you say you
write the first drafthandwritten, which reminds me of
another author from Litherpool,clive Vaca.
Oh, yes, hand writes his drafts.
He does.
Why for you?
Is there something moreimmediate with the handwriting

(34:41):
for you, or why handwriting foryou as opposed to typing first?

Speaker 2 (34:47):
I think I think it's part of the fluency of it.
I mean, it's not a mechanic,it's it's feels not like a
mechanical process in the red.
I think typing or either usinga typewriter or now obviously
computer tends relatively to doto me, although I have to say I
write nearly all my nonfictiondirectly onto the computer.

(35:09):
This may be a way of keepingthe two processes separate.
I mean, I don't know, I've readvery, very rarely written
nonfiction longhand, very, very,even more rarely written
fiction on the screen.
We're just a couple of storiesthat seem to work better that
way.
But I suppose it may even bejust the most banal possible

(35:32):
answer in the sense that I'vealways done it that way.
You know, I got into the habitof doing it that way and in a
sense perhaps I've never leftthat behind.
But I actually don't want to.
I think partly.
I think partly also, althoughI'm sure there are methods on
the computer you could use to dothis.
But I quite like to have theoption of of putting in second

(35:53):
thoughts immediately but keepingthe first thoughts permanent or
as permanent as they need to be.
So I was right there.
An exercise book.
I always leave the left handpage blank for any immediate
revisions that I want to do.
Or you know, either immediateor you know within the process
of writing, and then the themajor rewrite comes when I come

(36:17):
to the computer.
I mean there's an intermediateprocess actually I've just been
through this with the novel inprogress where, having completed
the first draft and left thatfor some months, I then reread
that draft and discover just howdreadful and clumsy and turgid
too much of it is, and I can seethe problems but not how to fix

(36:37):
them.
But then when I come to thescreen, a completely different
mindset picks in and basicallyeverything is up for grabs.
You know, if it can't justifyitself to me, it goes and I want
to get rid of as much aspossible and improve as much as
possible, whereas the house, Ihave to say in the past sadly I

(36:58):
would turn trying to keep thesalvage as much as the first
draft as I possibly could.
I mean these days absolutelythe reverse.
I only wish you know I got intothat mindset sooner.

Speaker 1 (37:11):
Right right Now.
For those that don't know, youare the most decorated horror
author for the United Kingdom.

Speaker 2 (37:24):
Well it's very kind of people.

Speaker 1 (37:25):
but so they say Is that ever pressure for you when
working on new works?
Do you ever feel that you know?

Speaker 2 (37:33):
No, no, I mean, the only question is to try and do
better than I did last time, youknow, and not to repeat this
all because you do repeatyourself, because you know you
have personal themes that youtry, at the very least, to
address them in a different way.
But no, the thing is, you know,when it's finished and I've
done my best by it and sometimesI think, hey, that's not bad,
you know.
And then, not very long after,I think, well, you know, I wish

(37:56):
it were better.
So, you know, the only optionnow is do the next thing that
fail better, as Beckett used tosay, and that's that's how it
feels for me.
But no, I'm never really awareof the awards or you know
anything like that, but I'mwriting.
It's just the pressure of whatneeds to be written that keeps
me going and that kind ofengages my mind, engages my

(38:17):
imagination, is what I have todo.

Speaker 1 (38:21):
Right, right, if now we can go back back again to the
some of the beginning.
One thing that struck me askind of funny is your first job
was with Inland Revenue.
Yes, yes, did you ever pullfrom that experience?
Did any stories come about?
I think of the Banjoy Divisionthat Ian Curtis wrote she lost

(38:44):
control when he won a similarposition.
Ah, yes.
And did that ever come for you,that certain people, certain
clients, you developed ideasfrom seeing their own lives
unfold?

Speaker 2 (39:00):
Only in a very general sense, I mean.
I mean in fact that that thatthat's that's sort of that we
were talking about much earlier.
The stone on the island, thatthat kind of turning point story
after I've read Nabokov, thatthat drew very fully on the
office environment I was workingin and there are a number of
other stores that do the storycalled down there written oh

(39:22):
must have been a decade or morelater.
Oh, it's longer than that even.
But I do draw on earlyexperiences, but I wouldn't say
I don't usually use real peopleas characters.
I may, I may draw on bits of ofpeople and piece them together

(39:42):
to form a new character, butit's very rare that I would try
and represent somebody directly.
So no, not to that extent.
More stories really came out ofworking in the public libraries,
because I started doing thatfour years after my civil
service stint and that I did thelibraries for seven years.
A bunch of stories came out ofthat Now.

(40:04):
I mean I'm still drawing on itnow in a way, the novel that's
out this year, the lonely lands,actually I went right back and
had my, my, my central character, start working in the libraries
and again there are.
There are details there that I'mstill remembering, so you know,

(40:25):
it certainly is a pool ofmaterial, as you say, I suppose
above all around the turn of thecentury, because our finances
have begun to look precarious.
In fact they weren't as bad asthey look, but that's by the way
.
But I went to work for a fewmonths in a branch of borders
the bookshop chain sadly longgone and that gave me an entire

(40:49):
novel Again, not the people Iworked with, but just a general
experience.
I really wanted to do a shortstory out of it and I thought no
, there's, there's so much hereit can be a novel.
And indeed that's what itturned out to be.
So you know, nothing's wasted.
I'm I'm trying to say even theworst experiences, not that that
was one of them.

Speaker 1 (41:10):
Right.
So when you did the stints atborders, how was this a while
back now, or?

Speaker 2 (41:17):
this was the year 2000.
Yes, and I mean they were verygood, the management they.
They kind of worked my shift sothat I could have a, you know,
at least a morning to work on mywork in progress, writing in
progress.
I think they were kind ofpleased to have a writer, you
know, behind the counter if youlike.
There was certainly, you know,working with books, that that

(41:39):
that's a favorite thing for me.
So it was not something I wasunhappy to do by any means.
But then Jenny went back tofull time teaching and you know
that kind of upped our income abit and then things took off
again.
So you know we're, we're backwhere we ought to be right now
I'm just thinking.

Speaker 1 (41:57):
you know how interesting it must have been
for a fan of yours to come inand kind of me, you know,
believe there are yes, oh sure,yes, yes, yeah.

Speaker 2 (42:08):
No, that was great, that did happen.
A couple of occasions that was.

Speaker 1 (42:12):
That was fun to do, yeah, Now, when you are writing,
do you, does it come to you allat one time Like, or do you get
pictures?
Can you?
Can you walk us through some ofhow a novel comes about for you
?

Speaker 2 (42:30):
Well, yes, I mean okay.
First of all, I haven't plottedin advance for a long, long
time.
I did for the first few novels.
I didn't feel sufficiently atease with the form, in not not
to need some kind of apre-planned structure, but but I
haven't really for, oh Lord,since the 80s really, I, I, I, I

(42:53):
, I, I progressively abandonedworking it out in advance.
What I do is gather a great dealof material and when, when it
feels as if, basically when,when this feels that I've got so
much, it's really kind ofurging me to start writing it.
That's what I, that's what Istart Now I do have.

(43:16):
Well, obviously you must knowwhere, where to start or you
won't start.
So you, you've got to know thatat the very least.
But I do have a sense of the,the, the early developments
usually, and usually you knowsome sense of the major
developments of, of thenarrative and approximately
where they may go within thetotal structure.
But very often the act ofwriting will change most of that

(43:40):
and it'll those things willstill be subsumed into it, but
in in ways that I would not havepredicted.
I mean what I actually want.
I mean here I am at my deskright now talking to you, what I
want every day when I come upto the desk to write, is to
surprise myself with stuff Ididn't know I was going to write
until I wrote it.
And it's not so much picturesUsually it's the words

(44:02):
themselves that I use to graspthe, the material, it's the
prose is supremely important forme, you know, and the and the
to be as precise as you possiblycan to convey not so much what
you're seeing in terms of anactual visual, but in terms of
what you know is there, hasbecome vivid in your imagination

(44:23):
.
I think you know that that ishow it works.
And until I, until I can feelthe, the prose, take hold of the
material, I don't start writing, which is why I always compose
at least the first sentencebefore I ever sit down to write
that, that, that at least giveme something to start on, and

(44:43):
you know, from there otherthings lead.

Speaker 1 (44:47):
Right, and since you are so well read, you have, you
can pull from many sources, as Isuppose, of you, of you're not
just limited to the horror genreand you have a lot of
background in other form.

Speaker 2 (45:04):
Sure, oh, yes, very much so.
I mean, I suppose that's onething I did try to do.
You know, once I learned towrite, like myself, what's to
bring in things that I'd learnedfrom Nabokov, graham Greed a
great favourite Aris Murdoch,you know, was kind of in the
background of your life, beckettcertainly, but also films to

(45:25):
some extent, but not the obviousones.
I don't think I mean theoccasional image from the horror
movies has grabbed mesufficiently that I've kind of
done a version of it.
But there were two films thatwere absolutely crucial to me in
early development of your life,one of which was Los Alvidados,
the Luis Benuel film, which Isaw, actually when I was 14, the

(45:46):
very first subtitle movie Iever saw.
I wasn't expecting this, youknow, sat there for, but then
you're saying well, you knowwhat the hell is this?
It's writing down the bottom ofthe screen.
No, you want to, I want to lookat the image.
Do I read the bottom?
I can't do both, you know youcan get into it, but some way
into Los Alvidados, which is, ifyou like, a social realistic

(46:10):
film, so realistic it kind ofspills over into surrealism, you
know, I mean just a dog therein my seat thinking, you know, I
couldn't have imagined I wouldever see these things on a
cinema screen and the kind ofnerdy of realism and surrealism
in that film kind of showed mehow that could be done, how the,

(46:33):
if you like, the fantasticcould be used to illuminate the
real.
And the other form which I saw,probably a couple of years later
, was last year in Marion Bad,which I, which I, both of which
of those films I still love,that you know there are still in
my well, certainly top, top,top list of all time films of
mine which are many that I lovethe cinema.

(46:55):
But Marion Bad's way with withtime and narrative again, was so
radical that I wanted to dothat too.
There was a historicalconcussion which was in my
second collection, when I triedto do that kind of time shift in
the middle of a sentence, asRené does, you know, by just
editing two shots together, youknow, while you know, just

(47:18):
shifting the time completely iswhat I tried to do in that story
and occasionally since.
So those were a few of thesources and yes, I have tried to
bring things in, things I love,try to bring them into the
field.

Speaker 1 (47:34):
So let's talk about that for a moment.
Some of the things that youlove, some of the films and
music that you I don't want tosay inspire, but that you have a
kinship to, that you that drawsyou.

Speaker 2 (47:52):
What kind of yes?
I mean there isn't any directinspiration in the main,
although, having said that, youknow, this recent novel,
falstones, is very much aboutmusic.
I mean you, you, you, you readthis, alexander.

Speaker 1 (48:05):
I have not.
I haven't read that one yet.

Speaker 2 (48:06):
No, Okay, well, you're interested.
You'll be interested becausethis is very much to the point
of your question.
I mean, the central characteris, or was a child, was a kind
of a musical prodigy, to theextent he had perfect pitch.
He's brought up by by adoptiveparents who are music teachers
and who want to shape themtoward their ends, and he rebels

(48:29):
again, just goes away butultimately goes back to visit
them, and that's the, the mainbody of the novel.
But the book does contain a lotof references to, to music that
I've and experiences of musicthat I've, that I've had and
that you know I give them to him.
So it, you know it lets me writeabout music in a way that I've
not really done before Now.

(48:52):
I mean, what can I say about my, my own layman's view of it?
I mean, among my well, I'vealready said, beethoven's final
quartet, the Opus 135, I thinkis just astonishing.
But the late quartets generally, and actually you know,
beethoven for me is is possibly,well, maybe more like probably

(49:14):
the single greatest composer.
If I had to choose just one, Ithink it would be Beethoven, I
think.
I think what, the, the, the, theperformances I I come to value
more and more, the ones thatgive you that sort of shock of
as if you've never heardanything like this before.
You know, as is so often thecase with Beethoven, almost six
minutes of not merely hearing itfor the first time yourself,

(49:36):
but kind of imagining what, whatin heaven's name, must have
been like for its first audience.
So you know, being hit by, youknow the Opus 127 quartet, or
you know the fifth symphony, theheaven's name, or indeed the
ninth.
So Beethoven, yep is is one.
But then immediately I say thisI think well, what about your

(49:57):
home Sebastian Bach?
You know how, in heaven's name,could I do without all his
music?

Speaker 1 (50:02):
Well, the answer is I can't.

Speaker 2 (50:03):
And obviously in this sense it's a silly thing.
You don't have to do withoutone to have the other, and I
think you know in Beethoven it'sa great radical.
I think, in the best sense alot of Bach is is what's
eternity?
I think eternity might soundlike in the ecstatic sense, you
know, and once I begin listingfavorite Bach, I'd be here all

(50:26):
day, so I won't do that, justjust, you know, kind of take it
as read that there's enormousamounts of work.
And I suppose the other thingis I have considerable numbers
of versions of many of their,you know, of my favorites, of
their work, because I want tohear what other people you know
have done.
And new interpretations withBach, of course, new

(50:48):
instrumentations, because sincehe he went in that for that, to
such an extent, you know, Ithink it's legit on the whole to
listen to how, you know, peoplehave adapted.
There's a wonderful version ofthe, the, the, the Goldberg
variations, for example, aguitar duo to ten string guitar,
which I, which I've fallen inlove with recently, the one

(51:11):
thing, I the one thing on thewhole line, with exceptions,
admittedly, orchestrations ofchamber music.
I mean, there's a, there is a.
I can't, I can't remember whothe perpetrator is, so I could
spare their guilt.
But there's a version of astring orchestra of that final
Beethoven quartet which soundsto me like Montevanni does

(51:31):
Beethoven.
It's a most hideous experience.
So you know, avoid, unless youwant to subject yourself and
find it if it's really as bad asI as I say it is.
So those, those two, you know,paramount to me.
But you know I can go back to.
Well, you know, I'm, I'm, I'mvery fond of the likes of Talis

(51:52):
and William Byrd, the Perot orHildegard that matter.
So you know, my, my favoritesare scattered across the, the
centuries, and I mean RichardStrauss.
I I find profoundly affectinghis, his greater, I mean the
Alpine Symphony, the four lastsongs, you know, these always

(52:13):
will get to me.
Stravintia, I mean kind of, isa, is a great 20th century
composer for the in terms of,not least of.
You know the amount he, the wayhe reinvented himself
constantly.
I think you know is a is avoyage for the listener in
itself.
I'm still kind of striving withSchoenberg, I have to admit,

(52:34):
but there are things I like andthings I wish I liked more, and
those are just a few.
But I mean, you know,contemporaries like James
Macmillan, thomas Addess, judithWeir again, you know I I found
their music very affecting in ina variety of different ways,
and so I mean, there's so muchout there it's impossible to

(52:55):
encompass but you can only try.

Speaker 1 (52:58):
Yes, now let's talk on the literary field.
Any of your contemporaries outthere that you know far too many
.

Speaker 2 (53:06):
Far too many.
I don't mean that in a bad way.
I mean that's in the sense thatwhenever that's the question, I
always dread, simply because Ialways think, you know, I once
I've finished dancing, I've I'vegone away, I've gone, oh God, I
forgot and I forgot, and Iforgot then as well, you know.
And so I look, I've got to I'm.
Suffice it to say I'm not goingto do um favorite horror,

(53:27):
because there are so many that Ithink all I'm going to say is I
think we are in a new goldenage of of horror, prose fiction.
There's an extraordinary amountof the fine stuff out there.
Um, I suppose, if I would sayyou know where you would find it
.
Try well, steve Jones, bestHorror, you know.

(53:47):
Namath Books of Best Horror andEllen Dachloes, best Horror,
anthologies of the Year.
Um, that that will, thatthey'll give you all sorts of of
pointers of where to go.
Of course, Ellen also does um,her sort of, you know, honorable
mentions this at the end of thebook.
So you the the, you know I willagree with great many of her
listings.
So you know, uh, I would Ibasically just send people off

(54:11):
to have a look at her books, and, and, and, and, you know, and
discover the, the, the, the, thewealth of material out there.
I mean in terms of outside thefield, I'll risk that.
Um, oh, I mean, among others.
Or Margaret Atwood, what neverlets me down, uh, ishi Guru, um,
I'm very, very fond of him.

(54:31):
Particularly love the unconsold, which is, I think, the
strangest of his novels.
I also think Never Let Me Go isa a bone of Fide horror novel.
You know, it's a classicinstance of the horror novel.
It's a horror story because thenarrator doesn't think it's a
horror, a horrifying situation.
Uh, not so much.
The.
The unreliable narrators, theunaware narrator, which is a

(54:53):
very powerful, uh element in alot of horror fiction.
Um, david Mitchell are like agreat deal, I mean.
Particularly, he's verycomplicated into woven
narratives that only graduallycome together.
Um, that though, that, those,those, those astonish me a good
deal.
Um, so those are the few namesthat immediately come to mind.

(55:14):
Oh, I think Joanne Harris I'mvery fond of.
Sarah Pindra has been doingsome extraordinary things with
well, with, with, with, withwell.
I suppose the crime story in away, but there's a lot more to
her than that.
Oh, and while I say crime novel.
Uh, one more chap, steve Mosby,m-o-s-b-y.
Um, is is very considerablyworth discovering.

(55:38):
Um is occasionally metafictional stuff, but um, yes,
very, very, very remarkable chap.
So yeah, there's, there's justa few, okay.

Speaker 1 (55:50):
Now, if you don't mind, if we can go way back um
your, um, your mother.
Yes, some of the previousinterviews I've read with you,
she was a very big influence anduh, for you, yes, yes, I'd say.
Did she get to see?
I guess, uh, I don't want tosay you're pinnacle because

(56:11):
you're still quite prolific Didshe get to see a good level of
your work out?

Speaker 2 (56:17):
Oh, yes, oh gosh, yes , I mean yeah, into into the
early 1980s, certainly, um, soyou know, the first almost two
decades of my slow um, and thenmy first book was was dedicated
to her, among other people.
Uh, so yes, she saw the firstseveral collections and the
first couple of novels and ofcourse I mean I have to tell you

(56:40):
, you know she often read themin TypeScript because I let her
read them and in fact she didread, uh, the face that must die
, um, and kind of ironically, uh, you know she didn't see
herself directly in thenarrative but she thought
Pearl's hodge was misunderstood.
So perhaps in a way she didinteract in her fashion with,

(57:01):
with that depiction of her.

Speaker 1 (57:05):
And I think she was very proud of your work.

Speaker 2 (57:07):
Well, yes, I mean, she was very encouraging she was
, you know she, she was veryearly on.
You know she did encourage me to, to, to, to finish what I wrote
basically, and then to send itout.
I did in fact send out that,that very first book, with the,
you know, the aforementionedskeleton in it.
I sent that to a few publishers, the handwritten copy, let me
tell you, I actually said,illustrated in crayon by John R

(57:31):
Campbell, as it then was, and I,I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I
, I, I actually got it backagain.
But let me say this Tomboardman Jr, who was then a
publisher of science fiction, onthe very first British
publishers to do contemporaryscience fiction in hardcover,
send it to him.
And he said back and let us say, well, we must be turned off

(57:52):
because we published ghoststories, um, but we think that
you've made a fine starter andif you continue, we think you
you'll have a good chance ofmaking the grade which, again,
you know, 11, 12 years old.
That's pretty damn encouraging,has it proved to be?

Speaker 1 (58:07):
Most definitely Now.
Would you ever consider puttingthat out as a book, like just
as a?

Speaker 2 (58:13):
It's out.
It's out.
It was, I mean Bob Price.
Robert M Price published as anedition of an issue I beg your
pardon of his magazine Crypt ofClue Clue or Clue Clue or how do
you want to call it.
It's now, I think, rather rareand sought after, but I think
probably still shows up on eBayoccasionally.

Speaker 1 (58:33):
I had no idea, that's okay, and it's there, the world
, the world must carry from itsexistence, and does it include
the drawings?

Speaker 2 (58:42):
It does.
It does Nothing in color.
I have to say sadly, but youcan't have everything.

Speaker 1 (58:48):
For the emerging writer.
What can you warn them about?

Speaker 2 (58:53):
Well, I suppose really because I have only one
says you know, guard againstwriter's block.
And I think you know the bestway is to do it that I found the
way that worked for me and it'sfor me.
And I know it's easier to saythan to do and I know not all
writers would agree with meanyway on this.
But for me what works is youknow, write every day while

(59:17):
you're writing a new piece, atleast the first grabbed, I mean,
even if it's only a paragraphor two.
You know, if you can find thetime not necessarily.
If you can find an optimum timewhen you're most creative and
you can set that aside, thenthat's ideal.
If you can't, the next bestthing is you know, find the bits
of the day when you can do it.
You know when you've got abreak from what you do in every

(59:39):
day life and maybe just thosecouple of paragraphs, always
carry a notebook although thesedays obviously your phone can
function as that or you knowpretty well for everybody.
I did say that one thing aboutyou know always composing the
opening of the session beforeyou sit down to write.
That certainly works for me.

(01:00:00):
That is one way I've kind of,you know fended off writer's
block when occasionally it mightthreaten, and I think,
basically, you know.
But in what, however, this isgoing to work for you?
Engage your imagination withthe material.
You know, don't try to imposestuff on the reader.
It's not a matter of you knowdoing it to the reader, you know
it's fitting it yourself andconveying it to the reader.

(01:00:23):
I suppose you know Lawrence'sdefinition of sentimentalism.
You know working out onyourself feelings you've not
really got.
I mean, you need to in some way.
I think you need to well, tobelieve in it.
It needs to be authentic to you.
I don't mean literally believein its possibility.
If it's fantasy, you won't butit must feel real in the sense

(01:00:47):
of it, must feel like as if,with giving these characters and
given this situation, this ishow it would play out, and I
think part of the business ofwriting is to sort out the
inauthentic from the authentic.
I guess there's no easy way tolearn that, but you know, you
must find it out for yourself.

Speaker 1 (01:01:06):
Yes.
Now, a lot of your work hasincluded themes of sexuality in
relationship between dreams,realities, and so I guess what
my question here is?
The use of language?
Yes, how important do you feelit is?
Because I think you know,nowadays, with so much out there

(01:01:30):
, it's so easy to write.
Basically, yes, how do you seethe use of language and how
important is it to the craft ofwriting?

Speaker 2 (01:01:41):
No, in a word, crucial, essential, I mean, I
think no one also in this field.
Actually, I actually think thebest work in the field depends
on the precise selection oflanguage and the way the prose
is used and the way it'smodulated.
I mean not, it's no easy routeto that.

(01:02:03):
You've got to develop aninstinct for and it will be your
particular method of doing it.
Certainly, I mean the way, youknow, robert Aitman does it.
It's not the way Stephen Kingdoes it.
It's not the way MR James doesit, not the way Lovecraft or
Macon or Blackwood or me, youknow, or all sorts of other
people.
But no, I think, without thatsense of language, however it

(01:02:26):
may work in your particular way,I think you've got to find it,
you've got to develop that.
Without it, I think you're justkind of, you're reporting,
you're not conveying, if you seewhat I mean, until you're not
conveying an imaginativeexperience.
So I think there still is areadership of this kind of thing

(01:02:48):
, luckily.
I know there's something aboutpeople saying that attention
span has dwindled.
Well, maybe for some, but myimpression is well, certainly in
terms of you know, people arelike my stuff still.
You know new people who do.
Then not for all.
There's still.
You know, the generation outthere who want to revel in prose

(01:03:08):
.
You know, as Nabokov would say,you know rose around on your
tongue.
I hope that will always be thecase and I think it will.

Speaker 1 (01:03:17):
And for you did you ever have a chance to meet some
of your heroes?
If that's yes, do you like thatword calling them heroes?
Yes, I think heroes is fine.

Speaker 2 (01:03:31):
Oh Lord, a great many .
Now.
This is one of the greatadvantages of you know, one of
the great things that I mean youcould all kind of say, if you
like, that I'm kind of a linkbetween the weird tales,
generation and the more obvious.
I'll say that all again.

(01:03:52):
No, no, I think you could verywell say that I'm kind of a link
between you know, on the onehand, the pulp generation, the
great pulp writers, some of them, and the modern, the new golden
age of you.
Like you know, I've known a lotof both.
So I mean, as luck would haveit, back in the days of the

(01:04:14):
World Fantasy Convention inAmerica, I was invited over to
Kirby McCauley.
Then my agents had the longgone and much missed, but he had
me over as a guest and so I wasable to meet people like Robert
Block and Frank Belknap Longand Fritz Leiber I still
remember hearing Fritz read theHorses of the Dog at midnight in

(01:04:35):
Providence and you know, gayhanWilson and Manly Wade Wellman.
I went to stay with him andFrancis's wife out in Chapel
Hill where I then metKarl-Edward Wagner and David
Drake, and then, you know, Iwould hang out with all these
people.
I mean one particular instancethe next year 76, the World

(01:04:56):
Fantasy Convention was in NewYork and Jenny and I went over
for that and Fritz, as Iremember I think, was one of the
guests of honor at that one.
He certainly was one of theguests anyway, and we had both
read out the first one.
Now I used to go and stay whenI was in New York with Jack
Sullivan on the Upper West Sideand we invited Fritz over for

(01:05:19):
dinner and I was at Jack's.
I always used to do a readingfor his friends, so people like
Tom Dish and Gayhan Wilson andTed Klein would come over, and
so we invited Fritz, since hewas still in town, and so Fritz
and I did a reading together andthat's got to be one of the
high points of my career.
He did Little Old Miss Backbeth, I remember.

(01:05:39):
And then we saw him off back to, you know, back to the subway,
and that was a great night, Ican tell you that.
And Robert Aitman you knowRobert Aitman, we knew Robert.
He came to stay with me andJenny when we were in our first
house in Liverpool.
I mean, robert was always abidding figure, but once he got
to know him he was a lot of fun.
He was a very amiableconversationist with, we have to

(01:06:03):
say, very decided opinions onand just about everything,
including music and cinema andthe field and more generally of,
you know, literature Gosh whoelse?
And of course you know SteveKing is a hero.
He destroyed and again muchmissed.
Too many great people gone.

(01:06:24):
But you know Peter was a goodfriend and you know used to stay
with him in London when he wasliving in Crouch End Of course,
which, parenthetically I may sayyou know, led Steve King to
write the story Crouch End,because he went to visit Peter
and loved the name so much hefelt there's got to be a story

(01:06:44):
in this somewhere.
But yes, I mean James Herbert,jim Herbert, you know we became
great friends toward the end ofhis life and sadly, you know,
again, so many of them gone.
So the memories remain and ofcourse, you know, more
importantly, so does their work,so they're never really gone.

Speaker 1 (01:07:07):
Do you ever get that feeling when you go back to read
their books?
Now that you can hear it intheir voice?

Speaker 2 (01:07:15):
Oh gosh, yes, I think so.
I mean not least because oftenI would, you know, have heard
them read.
But yes, I think always, youknow, when you get to know the
author, you will get that extrasense of the voice.
You know that it comes up alittle bit more alive.
Well, of course it comes aliveanyway, purely for the reader,

(01:07:37):
that extra level of I don't knowquite what we call it bigger
liveliness, something, you know,that comes out of knowing the
writer as well.

Speaker 1 (01:07:46):
Well, it's for me.
You know.
I know for myself if I get anaudiobook, I prefer it much more
if it's in read by the author.

Speaker 2 (01:07:56):
Yes, yes.

Speaker 1 (01:07:57):
Because then you actually feel how it was to be
read, as opposed to who willmiss.
The cadences and the pauses maynot be right.

Speaker 2 (01:08:06):
That's absolutely right.
Yes, in fact, funny enough.
I mean one of our currentsplendid contemporaries, reggie
Oliver, who writes splendidsupernatural fiction, very much
in the classic English vein inthe main.
Now he made the it's the otherway around in his case.
You see, he didn't engage withmy stuff.

(01:08:27):
He says this himself until heheard me read.
Then all of a sudden it clicked.
So yeah, that's so well.
I'm kind of delighted to hearthat.

Speaker 1 (01:08:39):
Right now we were talking about influences and
things.
We were talking about music andsome of your favorite music and
you said earlier that some ofCronenberg's work do you find,
can we?

Speaker 2 (01:08:50):
talk about David Lynch.
David Lynch.

Speaker 1 (01:08:53):
David Lynch okay.

Speaker 2 (01:08:54):
Yes, yes.

Speaker 1 (01:08:55):
Let's go down the film area, if we could for a
moment.
Yes, so some of the films that,like David Lynch, that do scare
you and what excites you infilm.

Speaker 2 (01:09:08):
Oh well, scares me these days very little.
I mean the many horror films Ilove, I mean Night of the Demon,
the Jacques Tenure is myabsolute, all-time favorite.
It doesn't make me frightened,it's in a wonderful atmosphere
and certainly has a sense ofmenace, but it has a great deal
more than that.
But, frank, no, very few ofthese days.
I mean, yes, yes, the Lynchersabove all, I think, lost highway

(01:09:33):
, which every time I see itagain, that first section just
has me virtually sort ofcarrying back in the chair,
certainly on an intellectuallevel as well.
The other one I suppose thatdoes still, is the Blair Witch
Project.
I still find that deeplyterrifying, precisely because of
its reticence.

(01:09:53):
I mean, what do we see?
One bloody tooth is onlygetting in terms of, you know,
graphic horror.
But the sense of uncanny dreadin that film, I think it's
pretty well incomparable.
And I still argue that in someways it's a curse that the
cinema has ever come tolovecraft's ambitions for horror
.
You know, the documentaryelement, the allusiveness, the

(01:10:17):
gathering of suggestion and thatkind of thing.
But in terms of, you know, oneexcites me in the cinema.
Oh Lord, I mean so much.
I mean I don't know how longwe've got to talk about this.
I mean, ok, maybe I can sort ofrepresent it in a way with my,
my, my, the.
I, sight and Sound recently dida poll of, you know, the, the,

(01:10:39):
the 10 grade, the 100 greatestfilms of all time, and the
approach of a variety of peopleto to list their 10.
So I did one and I think Iprobably call it all to mind in
no particular order.
Hitchcock's where to gocertainly was at the top and I
mean I think it's his mostbeautiful film and also is most

(01:10:59):
disturbing by far.
And in terms of kind of the,the, the, that extraordinary,
which Kim know about, you know,tries to represent herself as
what is wanted and comes to allthe camera.
It clearly appealing to theaudience and also to Hitchcock
himself.
Since he wasn't his originalcasting was to be Vera Miles.

(01:11:20):
I mean that that's a complicateon so many levels and
emotionally so affecting that Ithink that it left the film on
to an even higher level that italready was occupying.
Let's have a moment of MaxOffsdahl's.
I think is the greatest of allromantic tragedies, although
there was certainly a hell of alot of competition.

(01:11:42):
But again, there's so muchgoing on in that film that every
time I see it you know it's anew experience, as there's more,
as I hadn't noticed before, andmore eloquent in it, although I
actually think that Opel'sreckless moment is pretty close
in terms of to equality andconcisioned and richness,

(01:12:04):
staking in the rain.
For me, the greatest musical, agreat comedy, great from the
bout film, not just about, youknow, the, the birth of sound,
but so much more than that interms of what it does visually
and I think, probably bringingup baby, I would, I would have
this as if I oh no, perhaps Ihave.

(01:12:25):
That's a great favorite comedy,you know, which I can watch
over and over again.
But the same could be said ofsons of the desert, the Laura
and Hardy.
So you, you find me with a lotof comedy, certainly.
So, okay, let's switch it in adirection, then last time we
don't have to switch.
I've already spoken up.
You know is is, I think, for me,well, there are several great

(01:12:46):
binaural films, but that youknow, because that was my first
experience, because it was soseminal for me, I think I will
leave that one up there.
Miss a Gucci, I think.
Probably Sancho Dio, which,again, you know, is is is so
rich and so inexhaustible.
But get to Modigatari, where hedoes the uncanny as well that,

(01:13:07):
that that might just edge it outfor me.
I don't know how many filmsthat get.
Well, it's a citizen came,obviously, is is one that that,
that you know, argues its wayinto the apantheon very easily,
but, but I'm equally inclined torate touch of evil, we well, I
think.
What's it doing?
Equally extraordinary things,but with less immediately, a

(01:13:29):
minimal material, but, but, butagain, I think that is a
astonishing masterpiece.
And again, you know, I see itagain and again and, and I will
never tire of it, I wonderwhat's left.
Really, I'm sure there must besomething.
Oh, I think, yes, I think, my,my, my, sort of, you know, my,
my, my, my, my, my comfort movie, if you like.

(01:13:53):
Well, actually that could besinging in the rain, but
alongside that we'll have myname, the Totoro, the, the, the
Miyazaki film, which I think isjust a beautiful, touching
fantasy Like nothing else youever seen, and I'm heartened to
find that was one of Kudasawa'sall time favorite films.
And again, I'm sorry to haveleft Kudasawa, but there's so

(01:14:16):
many people I could lead out andwell, I have left out could put
in.
I want to have a Fritz Lang filmand although you know, in the
times you might say metropolisperhaps, but I'm going to.
I went with hangman also die,which I think is, you know,
unjustly neglected, and it'sbased on a screenplay by Bertolt

(01:14:37):
Brecht, no less, but I thinkit's far more lang than it is.
It's Brecht and again, thatconcision of expression, even
though the film's over two hourslong, you know, it always feels
kind of packed with withmaterial.
And you know, although you knowmore recent films like the
Black Book, the, the Heuphanfilm is, you know, and so do

(01:14:59):
revirons actually, both of whichare pretty powerful films about
you know, that Nazi occupationand me, hangman also die, it's
the one that gets to me most,most, you know, it plays on my
nerves in a way that no otherfilm on the theme does and I
really think it isextraordinarily powerful.
And you know a justification ofLang's method.

(01:15:20):
I think it probably does my 10.
If I forgot they're any, well,you know they're there.
They're there.
I'll put them online and peoplecan find them there.

Speaker 1 (01:15:30):
And now, if you could pick any of your stories to be
made into a film, which storyand who would you like to have
it?
Who would you like to havedirected, if it was up to you?

Speaker 2 (01:15:46):
Well, you know, of course I have been.
Some have been made.
You know three in Spain ofwhich I'm fond, and the general
model, toro, was bought up myshort story down there.
So I believe that will be athing you know in his, in his
Netflix series, and I said, well, now, which would I really like
to be done?
I think probably the grin ofthe dark actually.

(01:16:11):
But the trouble of my sayingthis is I have been talking to a
director.
I don't think it's really fairto to know the director until
you know the deal is done.
But I certainly have theimpression that he could do a
remarkably good job with it.
So I hope this will come topass.
So, you know, if I, if I, if Ileave that out as being my, my

(01:16:31):
top one, then maybe needingghost director by David Lynch,
that would.
That would be something I can'thelp feeling now whether you
know he's got quite enough inhis own head, I think, ever to
need to do me.
I mean, I know he did, he didJoe, joe Landzel.
That would certainly have beensome experience, but so I can

(01:16:52):
only imagine it's not likely tocome to pass.
But maybe that grill, the darkdeal just might, and I for one
wait with great anticipation.

Speaker 1 (01:17:02):
Okay, well, I look forward to seeing what happens
in the future and then we cancome back at some point we can
say that's him.

Speaker 2 (01:17:11):
That's right.
That's right.
That's right.
The man on the mask.

Speaker 1 (01:17:15):
Now with your own work.
How do you keep yourself fromgetting too lost in the
characters?

Speaker 2 (01:17:23):
I don't know if I do, maybe I do get lost in them.
I think it's when they take onthat life of their own and I
don't need to try and figure outwhat they would do, because
they already know that.
I know it's working right.
So, no, no, getting lost intheirs is a good deal.

Speaker 1 (01:17:43):
so I'm concerned for sure Do you ever find after any
of your books.
You have to put it away becauseit disturbs even yourself.

Speaker 2 (01:17:55):
Well, I mean the faceless diet to some extent,
was that?
Yes, I mean in particularHorridge is first killing.
I've always found thatdifficult to reread, you know it
generally disturbs me andexcruciates me really, but I do
think it's legitimate.

(01:18:16):
I think you know I was tryingto do.
That is how it would be and itwouldn't be that easy to kill
somebody, you know, even evenwith that implement.
So I think you know, whereas myI think you would say you know
my thing would tends to bereticence in, on occasion I
think you've got to go for thedetail and in that particular
case I did, I suppose, morerecently a novel called

(01:18:40):
Somebody's Voice, where theautobiographical element of that
novel, that is to say theautobiography of a character
within the novel which forms alot of the first section of the
book, the whole relationshipwith the abusive stepfather, yes
, that I found very difficult towrite, but you know, in a sense

(01:19:04):
not difficult in the sense ofit was fluid enough.
You know, I just wished I wasn'twriting it almost, but it had
to be, it had to be done, andthere it is.
I think you know it's the truthabout that kind of situation
and you know, either you tellyou, try to be as authentic as
you can, or don't do it at all.
And so, yeah that I had to.

(01:19:26):
I would say I had to put itaside for those reasons, because
I had to keep writing it untilthe thing was completed, but but
yes, it did sort of hang aroundIn my mind, for sure, more in
terms of thinking well, this ishow it would be, or, worse still
, this is how it is right now.
You know, everywhere, all overthe world, I'm sure, that's the

(01:19:49):
worst of it.

Speaker 1 (01:19:50):
What are the future projects that you're working on
that we can look forward to?

Speaker 2 (01:19:55):
Oh, quite a number.
Let me see, there is this newnovel where I've just passed the
stage of looking at the horridthing and see how ungainly it is
, and soon I shall get on to the, on to the screen and start
improving it.
That's called the incubation.
So that will be next year'snovel.

(01:20:17):
But then the luck, and in themeantime there's a new
connection coming out from PSPublishing called Fearful
Implications, which is well,basically a lot of my recently
anthologised and well, yes, ormagazine published stuff that
will be in a new book andperhaps most surprising to

(01:20:39):
people who don't know about this, there is a monograph, also
coming from from PS Publishing,something over 70,000 words long
, on the three stooges, which isactually kind of six stooges
and counting, because you knowthat's how many there were, when
you actually look over theiruniquely strange career, the way

(01:21:00):
the personnel of the trio keptchanging and in some cases, you
know, with by somebody with hisback to the camera in the best
fellow Legosi in Plan 9 fromouter space mold, and it's very
much a personal journey, thisbook, you know, because I
started out thinking, well,they're not very funny, but
watching them on the one Britishtelevision in this would have

(01:21:22):
been, I suppose, in the in the,the 80s I guess and then
gradually feeling well, there'ssomething here that's of
interest.
And when Sony brought out on DVDa chronological series of all
the short films, I I boughtthose one by one, watch them
again and began to feel well,you know, there's something here
.
And when PS the girl PeteCrausel at PS Publishing asked

(01:21:46):
me to develop for their seriesof monographs on film, this was
what occurred to me, and oncehe'd recovered his job he's
dropped Joe he agreed to it andso that will be out this
September, I do believe, andpeople can well.
I hope I have.
What it does is makes peoplelook again at the students, as I

(01:22:07):
looked again, and I thinkthat's the purpose of all good
writing really to make you lookagain.

Speaker 1 (01:22:13):
Excellent.
I'm very excited to check thisout.
You know, there's all this talkof all this AI writing and
creating.

Speaker 2 (01:22:21):
R2.

Speaker 1 (01:22:22):
Yes.
What are your thoughts on this?

Speaker 2 (01:22:26):
It's anathema, I won't go anywhere near it.
I mean predictive text on my,on my phone and sometimes on the
computer, is quite enough.
But at least you know.
You know that you're not goingto be guided by that.
You know, sometimes it gets thewords right.
I mean, that's a nerve thingwhen it knows what you're going
to say before you do.

(01:22:47):
And increasingly my phone seemsto be learning my, my style and
, you know, suggestingincreasingly complex language.
But so long as it's only asuggestion, that's okay.
And I'm sort of heartened by thefact that when I use it, as I
occasionally do, whether it'snot convenient to type, you know

(01:23:07):
, to make it, I'll dictate ontoit.
And what's sort of unnerving isto watch it, think about what I
said and then put that on thescreen, then maybe decide no,
that's not what he said afterall, so this must be what he
meant instead.
So that much I can cope withthe emotion because it's I've
got that sort of inspiring,because I'm sure I'm going to

(01:23:28):
write a story about that prettysoon and I've occasionally, you
know, talked about it in thefiction.
But AI, actually stuff thatwe're right for you keep that
away from me.
Now.
I gather you know that, thatsome people are going to use it
and that sometime soon, maybethe wretched thing with even
start writing stories of its own.
But I think we've seen enoughto see that.

(01:23:49):
You know it's like.
I don't know exactly what it'slike.
It's like a player piano.
You know it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, as beta relates to the
player piano.
So real, real prose is relatedto AI and chat, chat, gpt or
whatever the.
The other horrid thing is andno, not for me, and I and the

(01:24:12):
other thing.
I mean I do know that writersare are worried about it, but I
genuinely think there will stillbe a readership out there that
will value real prose and realimagination and that will never
go away, and they will never goaway.
So I think the world isn'tquite ending yet.

Speaker 1 (01:24:30):
Now let's just touch on this.
You've mentioned your wife, asyou're right.
Indeed it is.
Can you tell us how you met?

Speaker 2 (01:24:39):
Yes, I certainly can.
We met at a convention, thescience fiction convention, back
in 1968 in the Buxton inDerbyshire, where I was later
around, where I was later to setmy novel, the Hungry Moon, in
fact.
Now we met briefly at a partyand we, we, we, you know, we
chatted for a bit but then,quite you know, we then went in

(01:25:00):
our separate directions andnothing happened for a year.
And then this was when we usedto attend the British science
fiction Easter con there'salways an Easter but, you know,
went from city to city, venue tovenue.
So the next day was in Oxfordand we met again, having got out
with other people over thecourse of the year, but then,

(01:25:21):
you know, split up with them andwe got together again.
This time we didn't, we didn'tsplit up.
And I think I always, I alwaysremember good old Brian Aldis,
who was a good friend, and I I,since he lived at Oxford I asked
him where's a good place to goto find an Indian meal.
We had a great Indian dinner,jenny and I, and I think that
cemented our relationship.

(01:25:41):
And then we stayed up all nightwatching movies and it became
very apparent to me that we had,you know, fundamentally the
same taste in in science fiction, horror film.
So that was another step, andyou know we read the same kind
of a thing.
And well, you know, we visitedeach other and a year later
Jenny moved to Liverpool.

(01:26:02):
We lived together and thefollowing year we got married.
And so 1971, we've been marriedever since and without Jenny I
wouldn't be half the person I amand I again, I just don't
suspect I wouldn't be here totalk to you now as the person I
am.
So you know, jenny is my, my,as you say, my rock and the

(01:26:23):
jewel of my life.

Speaker 1 (01:26:25):
That's gorgeous.
Do you think we'll see aromantic inspired horror novel?

Speaker 2 (01:26:34):
I think the closest I've ever really got to writing
a romantic story was that.
The only story concussion,which in a sense, it's very much
a love story, you know it's.
It's it's, if you like, atragic love story, but I mean
love story that comes to the topbecause of the, the temporal
divide, the, the, the, the, thetemporal era that it is is at
the core of the story.

(01:26:54):
But yeah, I mean, I still thinkthat that is my romantic story,
so I'll, I'll stand by that.
I think, although it was beforeI met Jenny.
I have to say so she mustforgive me for that.
I think she had you had.

Speaker 1 (01:27:10):
you had the great fortune of having August Dörloth
as your editor.
Yes, Was there any advice fromhim or from other editors that
really stuck with you that ifsomeone was to ask you for
advice now, you find that itkind of resonates with you still
?

Speaker 2 (01:27:33):
Oh, above all, what he tells me very early on, which
is don't depend on writing tomake a living until you know
you're able to do thatcomfortably.
You know, get a, get a dailyjob which isn't too demanding,
and then, you know, use yourspare time to write, which is
why I went to the civil serviceseemed like the most obvious
thing.
You're like nine to fiveapproximately, on five days a

(01:27:56):
week.
The library is then, you know,later on it became more useful
because there were shifts andyou could actually have a
morning to write often enough.
But that was it really.
You know, don't, don't trapyourself into into making it a
living before you're actuallycapable of doing it, or you'll
suddenly, well, the very best isgoing to happen is you'll be

(01:28:20):
cranking stuff out that you knowyou really don't want to write
at all.
You have to do it because youneed to make the money.
So, you know, save it until youyou have, you know, sufficient
backing in terms of your work.
You know, either in terms ofwhat you've written, also in
terms of you know, the day workthat you do, that the you can.

(01:28:40):
You can actually write onlywhat you want to write, what
really engages your imagination.
I know this is, you know,easier to save than to do, but I
do think it's very important totry and do it that way.

Speaker 1 (01:28:52):
Well, excellent.
Why don't we stop there?
And this has been so wonderful.

Speaker 2 (01:28:59):
Thanks for that.
Well, thank you for having me.
Alexander, it's my, my pleasure, good to do.

Speaker 1 (01:29:06):
Thanks for hanging out with us.
If you like this and would liketo hear even more about
exciting and informativeepisodes, then please take a
moment to give us a follow onInstagram at the music is
talking, and don't forget tosubscribe to our channel
wherever cool podcasts can befound.
Thanks again.

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