Max, welcome to Waterstones. Thank you.
I am a big fan of Lanny. I'm intrigued by its genesis.
It began actually with a poem before it became a novel and you
were slightly reticent about writing another novel so could you tell us a bit
about how the book came to be?
Before I wrote Grief is the Thing with Feathers, I
was someone that wrote a lot but with no publication intention and
really I didn't think particularly that writing was separate from my
drawing or from music or art or generally just the thinking
and keeping of notebooks and fiddling around with stuff. And part of that was
that I was never really comfortable writing prose and I didn't really think
I was a poet I was always looking for a form and 'Grief' arrived when it's
structural conceit arrived in my head. Lanny was something I fiddled with
about 15 years ago which was a sort of long poem about a relationship between an
old man and a young boy and and it was much more to do actually with the death
of that child and it was to do, unsurprisingly, with grief. So I was
interested in some of the things that I'd done in that poem, particularly
with refrain. I'm very interested in the kind of, in the repetition of similes
and things like that. And that probably comes from my interest in the oral
tradition. So then I sort of put this away thinking argh, it's not a poem, because I can't
write poems and it's certainly never going to be a... you know maybe it's
something for theatre, maybe it's something to be
spoken aloud. And I was thinking about it as a sort of song cycle. And then Grief
is the Thing with Feathers happened. I'm a bit reluctant to abbreviate the titles of
my own books in the way that writers do because it's always a bit affected...
'Grief' occurred... and that was very unexpected and obviously quite a
life-changing event for me. And then these yearnings appeared, like really a desperate
impulse to write. And not only to write, to get back to the problem-solving
aspect of things, particularly formal things. And so I started to think about
this poem I'd done, Lanny, and if I were to turn that into a novel, what would...
where would the energy be in it and stuff like that. So I started to
feel around and then there was the second hurdle
which is I didn't want to write a book about England at a time when my feelings
about England were so, like all of ours, are quite conflicted and changing day to
day. Various frustrations and angers and heartbreak actually. I thought oh well
this is going to be a terrible novel full of contemporary political feeling
and I don't think those novels are often very good. So I left it, because the last
thing anyone wants to read is a Brexit novel. And then I had various
solutions occur to me as I thought more about it and I think I changed a
little bit in the last couple of years, particularly my relationship to the
landscape but also my children growing up a bit, the experience of going around
the world talking about grief but also talking about poetry and prose and form.
So then I felt very ready to do it. And then I felt in terms of there being a
sort of second book syndrome what will it be like to sit down and do this
deliberately. Because the first time was an accident and so when I sat down with
a blank sheet of paper, it was magical.
It was magical? It wasn't terrifying?
I loved it. And I loved it in a way, you know, I used to shout to my wife, this is it,
this is what I want to do, it was wonderful.
That blank page very quickly
fills up with a lot of words. There's an incredible piece of
typesetting in this book where we hear the disparate voices of this English
village community. That must have been quite complicated for you to to create
presumably. I mean does that mean - there are main characters that we follow
throughout the book but there are also these voices and does that mean that you
have fully fleshed out these characters?
Oh yeah. Some of them alarmingly so, given
that they don't have a life. That's the job I think, is you do all the work
and then you take it all out. It's stripping away. So I mean
particularly the key characters, the Mrs Lartons or Robert, you know, I know
everything about those people in a very voyeuristic and Dead Papa Toothwort-ish
way. I've really looked at them and thought about them and can consider very
intimate physical details about them because that's fun. And I like that. And I
like people-watching, especially if the people are made up.
Setting someone up in your mind and watching them go about their day.
Watching them confront a political crisis or a personal crisis or an illness
or whatever. It's gorgeous work to be doing. So I like that, I like that a lot
The village voice, the chorus you're referring to, the text - that was tricky because there were
certain rules I set myself like it can't rhyme, like it can't be poetic, like it
can't be punctuated, so each one is distinct within the poem. So those sorts
of things made it more fun but also trickier. And also I didn't want it to be
a chorus voice and I didn't want it to be... I wanted it to be 'sound' not text, so I
wanted it to spill over the printed page which meant I didn't want it to be
borrowing any of the energy of the printed pages it as it relates to
prose or poetry or paragraphs. So that was tricky but good tricky.
Like fiddling tricky for a long time... months. And then also I didn't
want it to be overtly political but obviously life is political and texts are political.
I didn't want it to be specific geographically but I realised
actually it was going to have to be - it's obviously not a northern village, it's
obviously a Home Counties village because of the proximity to London. So
then I went and spent time in some of these villages and realised that actually
only very recently were they defined, they were rural places and they had rural
industry and they were defined by agriculture and things. And only recently
have they been defined by their proximity to London. So you know then
looking in parish magazines and on notice boards and that kind of thing and
getting a bit nosy about people's lives.
And it's also a book, partly because
of that chorus of voices you're talking about and the typesetting that happens
there but I think also there is something about this book needing to be
a physical object and that the reading of it is improved by having it in your
hand. Was that something you were conscious of whilst you were writing it
or is it only when you get the finished product in your hand that you appreciate it?
It is yeah and they've done a very beautiful job on it, on making the
outside of the book speak to and speak of its insides. A very special piece of
publishing I think, very loving. I think about that anyway because I think the
book is still quite radical technology and you can do things with books
to remind people of the physical state of themselves and turn it around and you
know I love books still and I think there's a lot to be done. And I'm
generally a bit surprised that we don't do more with the book or that there
isn't a more celebratory attitude towards books and book-making by the
people that buy them i.e. the people that are fetishists for printed matter, for the
smell of a thing. And so if the book encourages, partly because of the
relationship between the characters to the physical world, to made things and
grown things and natural things; if that encourages a certain interactiveness
with the physical book, then that's wonderful. But I sort of had that anyway.
I mean I've just been downstairs just just sniffing and licking and prodding
things, well that's how I am with books. Because I want it
to be a physical experience. And also, if you're reading a novel you are going to
be spending, whatever it is, 16 to 20 hours with this book and I think that
it's time the novelist considered that. As opposed to watching a box set or
listening to something in their earphones or watching something at a
distance of 35 yards or whatever; that privacy is pretty radical these days and
so is the longevity of it, quite amazing, to have someone sit and watch
your one-man show with you; so what are you going to give them and what
are you going to make them think about? Especially because I'm really interested
in the fact that the novel is an artificial thing, it's a made-up world.
And you know that and I know that and there are things in this book which I
hope stimulate your readerly sense of what's real and not real. Like the
breath marks and things like that. They're like Dickinson's dash for me,
they're like a reminder to go remember this is all a simile, you
know, this isn't real life. This is me using language to prod you and
tease you into being empathetic with these characters that you know aren't
real. But they are very real and very true you know so it's part of a kind of
loving game I have with text anyway.
There is something about the care that
you've taken, not just with the sort of construction of the text but with your
characters. And you said there about how we have empathy for them even though we
know that they're not real but I had a very, very emotional response to reading
this book. Partly I think because I did read it in one go, without leaving the
characters. But I was incredibly invested in
Lanny and I was worried about him and without wanting to get into too much
sort of spoilery detail about what happens in the book, I think that other
readers will have the same, it will have the same affect on them, they will care
about what happens to him. But I know that you as the author of the book have
your own relationship with that character and in fact that what happens
to Lanny was not set, that you've tried various different endings to that book
and I wonder why there were different endings, how they changed and
how you settled on what you settled with.
I like how you appear to be asking quite a simple question but you're actually asking a huge question!
There's so many different answers. One is that endings are problematic things in novels.
I very rarely land on the ending of a novel and think ah, they've done
that well. Whereas that isn't the case with poetry and short stories and
actually kids books tend to end better than novels. I thought about having
multiple endings, like those choose-your-own-adventure
books but as I got deeper and deeper into it and as the work of actually
creating Lanny while never really looking at him - like all the others, as I said to
you, I can tell you what they eat for breakfast, I can tell you
with which hand Robert picks his nose and how he does it etc. None of
that's in the book but it's in my head. With Lanny, none of that is there.
I never looked at him, which is why he's this sort of, he's the hole
in the middle of the book because he's only created by everyone else's feelings
about him. And that happened and was very surprising and intense and
satisfying work. Novelistic work. And I thought well this is what this is, what
this book is going to be about. And then I did love him and I think that one has
to accept that there are transferences from one's life: the way I feel about my
children and possibly even my friends and parents and inevitably this
country and landscape and all those things became this sort of throbbing
centre of the book which I couldn't look at but I realised
it was alive and kicking and somehow out of my control. And then I thought, well
in a way Peggy the character thought for me, to
say actually you need to have the confidence and the self-belief to go
where you want to go with this. And that be quite surprising. We don't
want to do spoilers but certainly not a scene I imagined writing. But a
scene that gave me great pleasure to write. Because it ticked all these sort of
boxes I'm talking about. To do with I don't believe there should be a line
between realism and so-called magic realism. I think one of the
problems with the realist tradition and with the kind of anti-intellectualism
and a sort of closed mindedness about performative experience and drama
and art and music is a sort of shutting down of the possibilities. And I
wanted a kind of whoompf. And I realised I'd got into this position
where the characters were saying well go on then and I was like I don't
think I can. And then I tried it a few times and it's a difficult
thing and at times I thought...it's a bit like the characters at
the end of my first book. The book finishing with these people
standing on the beach screaming 'I love you, I love you, I love you.' I read an
interview with someone saying that's a preposterous way. to finish a book but
it's okay because of how you've got us there. So I thought this is gonna be
more preposterous but I think I have done the work. And because
the book is about, it's like a play with everyone playing the same, you know, the
central four or five actors play all the parts and then I've taken
all the names away in part two so you don't know who's who and you've had to
work really hard as a reader. I think well if you've done that then surely you
don't mind floating through the forest at dusk with me seeing something that
might be. So it's about what the readers earned what I think that characters have
earned and all that. And also I just, this time you know in all of our lives in our
relationship to this island and the kind of this island story and the stories
we're all being told - I wanted something magical. And I feel we need something
magical. And especially us grown-ups, we really need to just have some time to
tell our children these stories and let our children tell us these stories and I
thought actually (I don't wanna swear) but I thought 'flip it'!
I didn't expect to write another book but now I have I may as well really pour it
all in and it's a bit like, you know, it's a lovely that you asked a
question framed and phrased in terms of care. It's about how
much care I have for them and for literature. So it was a sort of
opening out, a pouring in. And it might very well enrage or appal some readers. When
a reader such as yourself, I haven't had many readers yet, but when a reader such
as yourself says it worked for them and that it sort of held them, that's just
absolutely magical. But again it makes me think isn't the novel
clever? You know in the same way as theatre's a very strange experience. When I
worked in a theatre on this adaptation last June, you know this,
what an extraordinary thing, that you can have one person and an audience
of 500, a 1000 people, all completely silent, all absolutely invested and held
captive. What a thing! That's power we
just... we're not seeing it in our politics certainly, we're not seeing it in our...
we're not even probably dreaming big like that now. But that was very
inspiring what you can do if you have that tension and maybe it is my
love of fairytales and folk tales. I thought well if we're in this situation
let's go for it.