The Word Cloud

Here is an interview I did with one of my favourite authors: R J Ellory.

An interview with Roger Jon Ellory

Visitors to the Harrogate Crime Writing Festival will be familiar with Roger’s work and in 2010 he won the Theakstons Crime Novel of the Year Award for ‘A Simple Act of Violence’; a sprawling, enigmatic thriller of epic proportions. This was well deserved as Roger has been nominated for crime writers awards on numerous occasions although he was left speechless when he discovered he had won: he beat luminaries such as Ian Rankin, Val McDermid and Martina Cole amongst others.

I love R J Ellory. Ever since I read ‘A Quiet Belief in Angels’ - A Richard and Judy Book Club choice - he has inspired me to read more crime fiction novels which, to be honest, never appealed to me before. Through this book, he has made me hunger for his other works and has introduced me to Harlan Coben, James Lee Burke, Linwood Barclay and a host of other wonderfully creative writers. I am sure countless others have taken the same journey as me; just a few minutes perusing his Facebook page illustrates the tremendous respect he inspires. His unique style of writing has gained him an ever-increasing army of devoted, loyal fans.

He has generously taken time to answer some questions that have I have been dying to ask. And no, the first question is not: ‘Do you like sycophants..?’

Questions

· You come across as a very spiritual person. Do you put this down to your early life, which was plagued with tragedy?

I really don’t know if there is any specific reason for my never-ending interest in all things mental and spiritual. Perhaps it relates to just wanting to understand the human condition. In my teens I read avidly – Krishnamurti, Fraser, Siddartha, Kant, Adler, Castaneda, Freud, Hubbard etc. – and the more I read, the more I wanted to know. In my fiction, as they say in France, I write ‘human dramas’ or ‘slow-motion thrillers’ which seem to explore the human condition, the psychology of the criminal mind, the subject of reason, rationale, motive and justification. These things fascinate me, have always fascinated me, and more than likely always will. I think, instinctively and inherently, we appreciate that the more we understand about life, the more we will understand about ourselves, and the more we understand about ourselves, the better we will survive. I think I just want to know everything!

· When you were first nominated for a literary award, what was going through your mind? Were you nervous about meeting those legendary authors, now your peers, at the ceremony?

Well, funnily enough, the first award for which I was nominated was the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger for Best Thriller for ‘Candlemoth’. In the briefing sheet issued by the Crime Writers’ Association, the book was listed as ‘Candlemouth’ and they called me ‘Ellroy’, not ‘Ellory’. I was pleased, of course, but I figured that if they couldn’t get the book title or my name correctly, then perhaps the award wasn’t all that important! Awards are always great – both nominations and winning. Better to win, of course, but just to be shortlisted is a great acknowledgement. However, neither good reviews nor awards assist very much in making people aware of your books. In this current climate, more than ever, it is harder and harder to write and survive as a writer. Many factors have contributed to this, but the single most important factor has to be that we are not teaching our kids to read. We are raising generations of non-readers, and now we are suffering for it. In excess of fifty percent of the adult population of the UK is functionally semi-literate. A very significant percentage of adults are incapable of reading a story to their own kids. I wrote a four-page letter to the Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove. In it I laid out some ideas and thoughts on the subject, but he has chosen not to reply. Perhaps he had difficulty reading it! Anyway, be that as it may, the fact remains that I am fighting on, persevering, working as hard as I can to visit as many libraries, schools, colleges and universities as possible. I feel a tremendous sense of duty to do all I can to promote literacy and reading. The fruits of observation and education, the lessons of history, the value of culture is lost to those who cannot read. Anyway, I have gone off the point, as usual! Awards! Yes, awards are good, but readers are far more important!

· You were raised by your grandmother and, until her death in 1971, your mother. You must have a special affinity with women. Do you think that this bond is reflected in your female characterisations? Annie (Ghostheart) is a gentle, yet strong character. There appears to be a lot of love invested in your depiction of her...

I don’t really know what to say about that! I love women. I love the company of women. I find women more patient, compassionate, philanthropic, empathetic, more questioning, more curious about human nature, and - in the main - more widely-read than men. The vast majority of people who attend reading groups and book events are women. I think there was a significant absence of female presence and company in the first twenty years of my life, and as far as characters are concerned – specifically Annie O’Neill in ‘Ghostheart’ - she was most definitely created out of this deep and abiding interest in the female perspective. That is the book I get most letters about, and always from women. That – for me – is the greatest compliment that could ever arise from having created a character, that people write to me about that character as if they were someone they’d come to know.

· ...And I have always suspected there are elements of Holly Golightly in her. Please, please tell me I am right...

Yes, you are right! Not only Holly Golightly, but that personification of feisty, independent women that came from the classics of the Golden Age of Hollywood such as ‘Gilda’, portrayed by Rita Hayworth, and Lana Turner’s character, Cora Smith, in ‘The Postman Always Rings Twice’. After my mother’s death in ’71, and during the school holidays, I would stay with my maternal grandmother, and she was an avid fan of those Hollywood classics, so my childhood was populated by Edward G. Robinson James Cagney, James Stewart, Cary Grant, Bogart and Bacall and Barbara Stanwyck. I still have a passion for those films, and now I am introducing my son to them. I think those films were also my grounding in storytelling.

· You are obviously grateful to the Richard and Judy book club for your visibility to a wider audience. How big an influence do you think that their book club made to literature in general? For example, I believe they reinvigorated people’s passion for reading.

Absolutely. I have often said that the reinvigoration in our general interest in reading was carried forward during those years by Richard & Judy and JK Rowling. It is a great shame that R&J no longer exists in the format that worked so well. Now they still promote books through a WH Smiths’ campaign, but it is nowhere near as significant or effective as it was when televised. Unfortunately, as with Harry Potter, there are phenomena that occur with and in the publishing industry that suddenly contribute to greater reading, but they tend to be temporary and very unpredictable. I owe a huge debt to Amanda Ross, the Cactus TV crew and R&J. The book that was featured – ‘A Quiet Belief In Angels’ – was really a very significant breakthrough for me, and made all the difference to my career.

· I believe AQBIA has been translated into twenty-five languages and has sold over one million copies; 300,000 in the UK alone. You must be – and your publishers, Orion – delighted with that? Do you think the haunting subject matter of the book, and its massive appeal to readers of all genres, makes it the one with the most potential to be made into a movie? I read somewhere that the story has been optioned for film and you have completed the screenplay for Oscar-winning French director Olivier Dahan. Is this true?

I think one thing that contributes to its popularity is that it is a story told from the viewpoint of a child, and that is something every single one of us has in common. There seems to be an inherent power contained with the premise of telling an adult story from a child’s viewpoint, and that really is the backbone of ‘A Quiet Belief in Angels’. Yes, the book is in many, many languages, and yes, I was commissioned to write the screenplay by Olivier Dahan, but I believe that he has chosen not to pursue the project. Ironic that you mention it, but the option for the film reverts back to us this month, and we will be approaching other film-makers.

· Do you think, as an Englishman writing American based novels, that you have an edge over your American peers? Do you think, perhaps, that your English humour adds that ‘je ne sais quoi’ to your work?

I think being English adds a certain element of distance, a certain element of the ‘spectator perspective’ to the process, and hence increases the degree of objectivity, an objectivity that is lost as a native. There is an old saying: ‘Spend a day in a city and you could write a book, spend a month and you will write a chapter, spend a year and you will write a page’. The longer you spend somewhere, the less objective you become, the less you notice the idiosyncrasies and oddities. Cities are like people – the more you know them, the more time you spend with them, the less you appreciate how crazy they are! I think that helps a great deal. I am also writing about a location simply with a view to conveying how it makes me feel, and that seems to work I am not writing a guidebook, just an atmosphere, and that is something I enjoy doing very much.

· James Lee Burke famously had his novel ‘The Lost Get-Back Boogie’ rejected 111 times until it was published and then it was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize! I suppose you and he are made of the same stuff. When you first submitted your work to publishers, you were constantly rejected: they told you people would not want to read books based in the USA written by an Englishman. When submitted to American publishers, they came back with the same excuse. It’s a wonder you had any hair left!

Yes, you are right. I accumulated over five hundred rejection letters from more than a hundred publishers over six years. I then stopped writing for eight years, and didn’t go back to it until the latter part of 2001. In fact, it was 9/11 that indirectly prompted my return to writing. After that terrible, terrible event, aside from the certainty that we were never going to find out the truth of the American government’s involvement in that atrocity, I could not help but think of all the people who had lost their lives. It made me think of unrealised goals, unfulfilled aspirations and dreams, and then I came across a quote from Disraeli that said, ‘Success is entirely dependent upon constancy of purpose’. I read that and it sort of hit me that if I want to get published I just had to carry on. So I went back to writing, and I wrote three novels, the middle one of which was ‘Candlemoth’. That was picked up in 2002 by Orion, fifteen years after I had first put pen to paper, and we have stayed together - myself, my editor, my agent and that very same publisher - for the last eight books, and I am contracted right the way through to number thirteen. Number nine – ‘Bad Signs’ – is out in October 2011, and currently I am writing number eleven for 2013.

And now the quick-fire round...

· Who makes you laugh? (Apart from those early publishers...)

The Marx Brothers

· Which person(s) do you most respect?

Those who devote their lives to the well-being of others. Great humanitarians and philanthropists. Those who push the boundaries of humanity’s understanding of itself. Those who defy ridicule, criticism, slander, libel, personal attack and defamation for something they believe in.

· Desert island...one book, one CD (you have a solar powered CD player). What are they?

Impossible, horrible, terrible question! I love books and I love music and I have thousands of novels and hundreds of CDs and tapes and LPs, but in order to answer your horrible, horrible question, I would have to say that the book would be Capote’s ‘In Cold Blood’, and the CD would be ‘Gris-Gris’ by Dr. John, but if you asked me that question tomorrow I would probably choose an entirely different record.

Thank you for your time, Roger. It has been a pleasure.

You are most welcome!

Roger’s latest book, Bad Signs, is out now.