Will Maclean, Solace House

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Hey everybody, it's Brett Benner, and welcome back to Behind the Stack.
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Today's author that I'm sitting down with, Will McLean Has written...
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Well, they've called it a puzzle box, and it certainly is that.
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This thing split my head open.
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As I was saying to Will, I got to the end of it and kind of discovered something in the book right at the very end, which kind of blew me away.
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There are no spoilers in this episode.
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It would be very unfair to do that to anybody,'cause part of the fun of this book is letting it wash over you and discovering it all for yourself, but it is truly the perfect book for spooky season.
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A little bit about Will.
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He's a screenwriter who has worked with people as varied as Peter Serafinowicz, Miranda Hart, Al Murray, and Tracey Ullman.
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His first novel, The Apparition Phase, was shortlisted for the McKitterick Prize.
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Solace House is his American debut.
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He lives in London with his wife and daughter.
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So I hope you enjoy this episode of Behind the Stack I'm so thrilled to be sitting down today with author Will McLean for his Solace House, which is so good and so trippy and truly broke my brain.
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So thank you for being here.
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Not at all.
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Thank you for having me.
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One of the descriptions of the book, they said The Secret History meets The Haunting of Hill House, but I actually thought it was more The Haunting of Hill House meets Ari Aster.
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That, that certainly.
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I think it's the narcotic element of things, but, uh, yes, that originated with me, by the way.
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You know, your publisher goes,"What books do you like that are similar?" And you go,"I don't know.
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The Haunting of Hill House.
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I like that book.
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Uh, the, The House That Leaves" and then that, that's everywhere.
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That's then the thing.
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Yes, and then they run with
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it.
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That's everywhere.
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Yeah.
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But- Which is fine.
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What you don't want to go is,"It's every bit as good as those." They're asking for these comparisons, and then you have to sort of go,"Well, you know, they're in the same area." So yeah.
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Justify it.
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Yes.
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Yes, exactly.
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you grew up, you grew up in Merseyside, which is in Liverpool, or I should say b- near Liverpool.
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Well,
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you know, you say that, but it's just outside Liverpool.
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There's a...
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If you go across the Mersey, we're in where I'm from, which is the Wirral, uh, which is a peninsula.
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I'm from...
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You wouldn't have heard of where I'm from.
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It's where the ferry across the Mersey goes.
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It either goes to Birkenhead or it goes to where I'm from, which is Seacombe, which is like not a remarkable place.
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But I found out about 15 years ago that there's another writer from there.
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It was Olaf Stapledon, the science fiction writer, comes from literally exactly where I'm from, and I, I, I grew up being completely ignorant of him and I only heard of him about 20 years ago and I found out he was from where I'm from, which is a mind-blowing thing to discover and he's an amazing writer that no one knows about.
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Yeah, but so I'm...
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That's where I'm from.
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And people in Merseyside are very concerned with micro-geography.
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So if you're from somewhere, you're from there.
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You're not from two miles down the road.
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You're definitely from there.
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So look, my, my wife came up, um, last year.
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We came up for something and she was chatting to a guy in the hotel and went, uh,"Oh, my husband's from around here." The guy behind the bar went,"Where's he from?" And then she went,"Oh, he's from, uh, Seacombe." He went,"Well, he's not from around here, is he?" And it's like, it's just sort of like So that's very much like, yeah, you are from where you're, where you're from.
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Uh, so that's where I'm from.
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That sounds very much, that sounds very much like how the French approach Canadian French.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, yeah, that's it.
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And, you know, you're not properly from Liverpool, but you're also not You know, it's a, it's a very f- funny place to be from.
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Were you a big reader as a kid?
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I was, yeah.
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There's a public library in Seacombe, and that's, it's still there amazingly, which is enormously influential on me as a, as a kid, because I just read a lot, and I read sort of everything that came my way, uh, sort of indiscriminately, which you, you later learn is the wrong approach.
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And then, you sort of, your habits become a bit more formalized.
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But I did always just read anything that came my way.
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There was a lot of stuff- Wait I really just loved as a kid.
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No, but I'm so curious about this.
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When you say is, is the wrong approach towards in regards to what?
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Well, I went to university and, and, and you're told that it's sort of like you've been doing it wrong.
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If you were reading for pleasure, you've been doing it incorrectly.
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And, and it's the first time because I'm first generation of my family to go to university, so it's like there's a lot of things I was unaware of.
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Like the, I'd not heard the term canon of English literature before.
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so, you know, the, the sort of books you are expected to have read if you study English literature.
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And it was not a thing that I, I'd experienced before.
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So I had this kind of ramshackle knowledge of a lot of things, but not...
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You know, there are massive gaps in my, in my reading, I think, and there still are, which I try to plug every year by reading something I should have read ages ago.
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Yeah,'cause my canon when I was young would've been strictly Stephen King and maybe, um, V.C.
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Andrews' smattered in, so
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Well, exactly, and it's sort of like, you know, like I was one of those kids, if I liked one book by someone, I'd read everything they read, which I think is a very...
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So when I went for an interview at university, like,"What have you been reading?" They went, I said,"Kurt Vonnegut." They said,"Well, which one?" I was like,"Literally all of them," because that's what I read for six months.
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You know, it's one of those things.
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But I, I don't like people using books as a kind of intimidatory thing that like, you know,"You're doing it wrong." Uh, s- I was lucky enough to have really good tutors at university, and they sort of, flew the flag for the value of the things that they taught.
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But I don't like that thing where people are kind of snobbish about what people are reading.
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I think reading is reading.
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And if you're reading something you enjoy, then that's clearly, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.
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So.
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Oh, 100%.
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Yeah.
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I find it even now, even with Instagram or social media, just even right now watching all the discourse about the Booker Prize and, um, everybody talking about it, and seeing some people dig in on, you know,"This is such serious literature, and this is why." And sometimes I'll read some of these things and be like,"I don't even know what the hell I'm reading- Yeah or getting out of this," and I'm like,"Uh, am I just stupid?
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Am I just failing?" I will say even with your book, I went through it and there were moments that I was, like, digging for what am I missing here, or what am I a- anticipating or trying to get ahead of it to try to figure out, you know, this has been called a puzzle box at times.
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Yeah.
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And I, I will say, like, when I was putting my thoughts together for this interview, there was something towards...
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It was the very last paragraph of the book, which we're not gonna give spoilers away, but- I realized because I was coming out with another question for you, what just tied in, and I know you'll know what I'm, you know what I'm talking about.
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Yeah.
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And literally my head exploded and my son had come in to my room and I was like, I made him sit down and I was like,"You don't understand.
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I, I, I just figured something out and I don't even know if people are gonna figure this out and I need to talk about this with people." And, um, so it is one of these moments like I went a little off track of where we were just going, but it made me think of this'cause at first I was like, God, this ending can I...
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And then this ending and I was like, holy shit.
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So anyway, we'll get into all that in a second.
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But it's, it's sort of that's reflective of what I like and value in books or reading as an experience.
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I think you've got a responsibility as a, as a writer to hold a reader's attention and, and not talk down to them.
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I think a lot of literature does sort of talk down to people and it, it makes what I think is, is the cardinal sin which is assuming that the audience is less bright than they are, which I hate.
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I really-
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Yeah
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dislike that enormously when I read that.
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You know, when you're being like...
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Especially with things where you have to put a sort of twist in.
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It's like, often an astute reader will guess a twist really early doors and then you've got, you know, 200 pages of, of a thing that you've already worked out, uh, which is incredibly frustrating to read.
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It's interesting you mentioned the Booker Prize'cause M.
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John Harrison's on it this year, who I absolutely love Um, and I, I really like The End of Everything.
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I think, to be fair,'cause I'm such a massive fan of his, I think he's written better books, but I, I, I did love The End of Everything.
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I thought it was great.
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But it's, it's interesting to me as a sort of writer who's neither one thing nor the other,'cause like I'm from, for want of a better term, I'm from a working class background, but I sound middle class and always have because I didn't go out a lot.
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Didn't leave the house.
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But w- I don't like that, that box that, that writers are often put in.
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If you're from a certain background, you have to write a certain kind of fiction, and I think the Booker Prize carries on over to that where they kind of all, they're...
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I'm glad they're letting science fiction in, I guess is what I'm saying.
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I'm glad they're letting genre in, uh, like when they put Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin, which I just, is a brilliant book.
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But it's sort of like I, I don't like snobbishness towards genre.
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I think, and I don't like this idea that if you're a certain kind of writer, if you're a gay writer, you must write books about the gay experience.
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It's incredibly limiting for, I think, writers to just write about a little box they might be in.
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I mean, it's handy to have that.
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It's interesting, though, you're saying that'cause I find so many parallels between w- writers and actors.
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Well, obviously creatives, but just to what you're saying and how the same way, uh, uh, actors get boxed into, you're able to play this or you're able to be this.
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Think, I think a lot is changing.
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I think people's, you know, public perce- There was the, you know, my mom always used to say,"Poor Anthony Perkins, you know?
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He's, he's only ever gonna be Norman Bates." And I think that from a couple of generations ago was, was true, that you were, if you did one thing, that was who you were, and you could never escape that for good or-
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And to be fair, he was a little, uh, pigeonholed himself anyway.
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Yeah,
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he, he was.
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He, he, he is
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superb as Norman Bates.
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Yes.
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There is no- Yes
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Uh, but it is a thing I think now people are just a bit more forgiving of.
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You know, there's a thing that I think, uh, people are less hung up on genre than they used to be.
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When I grew up, there was a lot of snobbishness, I think, in Britain towards Stephen King.
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I think he was viewed as sort of pulp-y.
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And I think people have just caught up with the idea it's just generally quite hard to write a book, you know?
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So-
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Yeah
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uh, so you know, you write what you can, and that's what you've written.
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And yeah.
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No, I, I agree.
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You've written for some of the best comedians, including Tracey Ullman and Peter Serafinowicz and Miranda Hart.
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How was that experience?
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That's great.
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Uh, I really enjoyed it.
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It's the early part of my career.
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I, um, me and a friend wrote a script ages and ages ago, and it was like 2004, I think we wrote it.
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Um, it got picked up by Asha Taylor, who'd then just done The Office.
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And the script didn't go anywhere, but as a result of that, I got an agent and, and, you know, we, we wrote sketches for a lot of people.
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Um, and then the, the credit crunch happened, and there was less comedy than ever before.
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Don't know why.
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Uh, so I kind of sidestepped into kids TV.
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And both of them, I have to say, I always say this, they were, they were a really good apprenticeship.
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Comedy's terrifying because you have to be funny.
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Um, it's instant success or failure.
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but and also like when you go into co-comedy, like you're, you're overthinking it when you start off and you're...
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And also, like, for me, it was never a reliable gift.
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I, I found it.
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I did two days on Tracey Ullman Show, and the first day I hadn't written for ages.
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I think it was like six months where I hadn't written any gags, and I went in, and I absolutely sucked on the first day.
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Like I, I was so bad, I almost apologized to her at the end.
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She was not only one of the...
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People always go like,"People in show business, they're really nice." Uh, but she was genuinely one of the nicest people I think I've ever met.
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She was just incredible.
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She was genuinely interested in who you were and like, you know, what, where you were coming from.
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And the second day, because I had absolutely nothing to lose, you know, and, and-
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Yeah
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I was relaxed and therefore was a lot better, you know?
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And I just sort of killed it on the second day.
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You know, like it, it both were horrible and nerve-wracking because you're like, I'm literally, flying by the seats of my pants on both of these things, and this is not a reliable way to make a living.
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And it's often, I found that a lot with comedy.
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Certain people are really good at understanding the maths behind it and sort of, you know,'cause there are certain approaches you can make.
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And I worked with a bunch of people on impression shows, and they were just like gag, gag, gag, gag, which is not a, a way that I would normally approach things.
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I'd normally go character, and who's this person and what do they want?
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But often you don't have time for that.
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It's a, it's a very unforgiving apprenticeship.
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Truly.
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Meanwhile, were you still, uh, you were writing, writing, like you started writing books during all this?
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I,
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I've always written books for good or ill, and I found one recently that I wrote when I was 23 And it's obviously awful.
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Uh, but it was nice to see it again.
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It's nice to know that progress has been made.
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Uh, but it was It's, it's not good.
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I thought, and I thought recently, I thought,"Yeah, I'll do a William Burroughs and cut it up and try and make it,"'cause I was unwilling to burn it or get rid of it.
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And I thought,"I'll do some cut up." And it cut up, it's all, it's even worse.
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I've, I've cut the text up and now I've just got this bag of texts where it's just like, you know, awful.
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So it's like, I think I may have to get rid of it, but I've always written, and I've always liked writing prose.
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It took me a long time to get to a point where I mean, I'm 53 now, so I'm, you know, like I'm, I'm Write- writing wise, I'm a sort of dashing young blade, but in terms of TV comedy, like I, I don't think I have anything more to sort of give in that sense.
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The idea of you know, pitching ideas and making them compete with other people's ideas just sort of leaves me cold.
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Whereas prose is infinite.
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It's that sense of possibility you get when you open the page for the first time.
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It, I just love it.
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So yeah, and that never goes, I think.
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Well, your first book, uh, that was published in 2020, The Apparition Phase, I will tell you, on a side note, I saw on Amazon the hardback is on sale for$389.50.
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So-
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Yeah.
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You know what?
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There's, there's literally 10 copies in my loft if you want one.
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Uh, they're lit- they're over there.
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I can pick them up.
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Um, I, I am also a huge fan of books as objects.
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I spend a lot of time in secondhand bookshops looking for treasure and obscure things, and I think there's a lot of writers who do that, I think.
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But I like that as an item it has value It's become a desirable thing, especially in an era where, you know, everything is available.
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Scarcity is gone, and everything is available all the time.
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I quite like that idea.
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The only other thing I wanna talk about before we get into the book is The Broken Veil, which is this podcast, that you created with Joel Morris.
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And y- you talked about, I think, and maybe this was on social media, could've been on Instagram, that, uh, because the podcast explores stories where in certain conditions, the veil of reality breaks, and you said that, uh, I think-
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That's a brilliant description, which we probably should've u- used in promotional materials.
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That's really good.
00:14:22.461 --> 00:14:23.942
We might actually just have to steal that from
00:14:24.692 --> 00:14:24.812
you.
00:14:24.913 --> 00:14:26.288
It's very concise, so.
00:14:26.809 --> 00:14:38.149
But I think you say in the introduction to the podcast, you talk about, Solace House, and you say the people that, that like this podcast would probably find something similar to like in the book.
00:14:38.655 --> 00:14:38.679
Yeah.
00:14:38.679 --> 00:14:43.553
So I'm wondering, with that said, let's launch into the book a little bit,'cause my questions started to stem out of that.
00:14:43.563 --> 00:14:47.822
But for our listeners and for our viewers, do you, do you have a elevator pitch for Solace House?
00:14:48.123 --> 00:15:10.947
Uh, I would say, a student, a lonely student, is left alone during the massive gap between his first and second year of university over summer, and through a piece of good fortune, he joins a bunch of other students clearing out a hospital and then subsequently a large house, which have been both acquired by the university with a view to turning them into halls of residence.
00:15:11.126 --> 00:15:14.075
As it's a fundamentally, it has the bones of a horror story.
00:15:14.355 --> 00:15:15.474
Things do not go well.
00:15:16.015 --> 00:15:18.561
Uh, things do not go according to plan.
00:15:18.842 --> 00:15:22.375
And it's partly an exercise on my part, seeing how wrong that could go.
00:15:22.471 --> 00:15:33.951
So what I started to, to ask you before when I was in relation to the podcast, had this story began to germinate before that, or was your work on the podcast, did that bleed into this as well?
00:15:34.102 --> 00:15:35.306
Or where did it all begin for you?
00:15:35.884 --> 00:15:38.082
They're really kind of two separate things, I think.
00:15:38.091 --> 00:15:41.254
The podcast is its own thing,'cause I write that with Joel.
00:15:41.426 --> 00:15:46.059
But the book, um, I'd always wanted to write something about...
00:15:46.061 --> 00:15:51.554
'Cause I, for various reasons, I couldn't go home At summer term.
00:15:51.629 --> 00:15:54.298
And I was, I was like Alex in the book, just left there.
00:15:54.745 --> 00:15:55.082
And
00:15:55.092 --> 00:15:57.687
in, at university and so- You know, and it is empty.
00:15:57.697 --> 00:15:58.605
It just empties out.
00:15:58.975 --> 00:16:05.236
And I always thought that was a promising precinct in which to set a story because it is an unusual time.
00:16:05.240 --> 00:16:07.211
It's that sort of left behindness of it.
00:16:07.822 --> 00:16:15.115
Uh, the movie The Holdovers came out when I was writing this, which I still haven't seen and probably never will because it came out while I was writing this.
00:16:15.118 --> 00:16:17.678
But it's a similar kind of premise that, you know...
00:16:17.908 --> 00:16:23.625
But I understand The Holdovers is set at Christmas, which from my experience, Christmas is, is a different proposition.
00:16:23.895 --> 00:16:24.572
It's short.
00:16:24.663 --> 00:16:26.735
There's a tradition of taking people into Christmas.
00:16:26.774 --> 00:16:29.530
Whereas summer it's like it's three months, you know, you're on your own.
00:16:29.696 --> 00:16:32.410
Nobody really wants to have you around for three months.
00:16:32.690 --> 00:16:33.087
Yeah.
00:16:33.139 --> 00:16:33.445
Yeah.
00:16:33.495 --> 00:16:42.500
Uh, so it is that thing of just emptiness and it's sort of, you know, it's supposed to be the, the sort of halcyonic time of your life, and yet you're stuck on your own.
00:16:42.751 --> 00:16:46.211
And you know, I felt that that was a, an interesting place to start a story.
00:16:46.331 --> 00:16:55.806
And then obviously I started work on this during the pandemic, so I needed a ready-made arena that I knew well emotionally'cause the research time was compromised.
00:16:56.452 --> 00:17:02.980
So I took that and I took the early'90s when I was a student as, as the setting because I just was...
00:17:03.195 --> 00:17:05.964
I, I was just compromised on the time I had to do research.
00:17:06.171 --> 00:17:11.042
Originally it was gonna be set in 1980, but I decided that was thematically not, not good.
00:17:11.134 --> 00:17:17.606
I find 1980 a really interesting year and I've always wanted to set something in it because it's not the'80s as we understand it.
00:17:17.606 --> 00:17:18.752
It's not the'70s.
00:17:18.772 --> 00:17:21.060
It's very much its own little island of time.
00:17:21.257 --> 00:17:25.116
But I found also that 1993 for me was a similar kind of thing.
00:17:25.116 --> 00:17:30.484
It's like not the'90s as we popularly remember it quite yet, but neither is it the'80s.
00:17:30.486 --> 00:17:33.027
It sort of hasn't decided what it's gonna be yet.
00:17:33.246 --> 00:17:39.282
And I find that if you're gonna set a story in the past, it has to feel really as unresolved as the present moment does.
00:17:39.415 --> 00:17:45.789
And I f- I like, so I like those eras where history hasn't quite jumped one way, waiting to resolve itself.
00:17:45.794 --> 00:17:51.733
It's also, it's a time where it's a, a, a tad bit isolating because we didn't have the connectivity that we have now, right?
00:17:51.736 --> 00:18:03.478
So like I was just thinking when you were talking about it, I was like,"God, when did those first cell phones, when did we start to get those first cell phones?" And, um I, I don't, you know, I don't think it was until the-
00:18:03.813 --> 00:18:06.462
I think it's the late'90s when people are finally, you know-
00:18:06.597 --> 00:18:07.791
Yeah, yeah.
00:18:07.827 --> 00:18:10.715
But there isn't, there is like a, a sense of isolation about the whole thing.
00:18:10.982 --> 00:18:16.048
Um- There's also a question I always like to ask people is, when did you first go on the internet, if they're, if they're of my age.
00:18:16.481 --> 00:18:21.998
And mine was 1994 or late'93 in the student house I was in.
00:18:21.998 --> 00:18:29.135
One of the people in my house managed to go online, you know, through a dial-up modem, and it took forever.
00:18:29.878 --> 00:18:30.260
Yeah.
00:18:30.348 --> 00:18:31.211
And, and it was text.
00:18:31.211 --> 00:18:32.530
It was like all text.
00:18:32.530 --> 00:18:34.115
And you were like,"This is terrible.
00:18:34.157 --> 00:18:40.584
This will never catch on." And it was, it was so primitive back then, and it's almost impossible now to imagine.
00:18:40.643 --> 00:18:41.877
To think about it, and how fast.
00:18:41.894 --> 00:18:42.031
Yeah.
00:18:42.050 --> 00:18:49.878
I still remember sitting in my apartment dialing into AOL and that forever, like that,"You've got mail." Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:18:49.923 --> 00:18:51.720
Oh, that's a really good impression.
00:18:51.740 --> 00:18:52.180
Well done.
00:18:52.182 --> 00:18:52.211
Thank
00:18:52.509 --> 00:18:52.580
you.
00:18:52.580 --> 00:18:56.222
Just waiting and waiting and like,"Ugh," and then, you know, busy right now.
00:18:56.289 --> 00:19:10.371
I also remember I was in the desert with friends and opening the New York Times book section, and there was a picture of the Amazon River, and it said,"Amazon is coming." And I was like,"What does that mean?" And, uh, and it was like the world's biggest bookstore.
00:19:10.372 --> 00:19:12.952
I was like,"I don't even understand that."
00:19:13.217 --> 00:19:13.451
Yeah.
00:19:13.903 --> 00:19:15.826
So who would have known?
00:19:15.826 --> 00:19:15.836
Yeah.
00:19:15.972 --> 00:19:16.541
And here we are.
00:19:16.550 --> 00:19:17.890
Yeah, exactly.
00:19:17.913 --> 00:19:29.759
But I have written two novels now, one of which is set in the early'70s, one set in the early'90s, and I find that the landscape post-internet is, is a thing that I haven't yet grappled with.
00:19:29.882 --> 00:19:35.750
And I should, you know, I should get on that, but it is a different kind of, of horror to write, I think.
00:19:35.761 --> 00:19:36.694
Especially if you're writing horror.
00:19:36.696 --> 00:19:37.960
It's like a lot of horror...
00:19:38.326 --> 00:19:44.526
There's a great super cut someone put on YouTube of, People in horror films saying that their cell phone doesn't work.
00:19:44.819 --> 00:19:45.406
And it's- Yeah.
00:19:45.761 --> 00:19:51.284
you know, like, and it's every conceivable excuse from, like, it's been eaten to, like, there's no coverage or, like, there's, you know.
00:19:51.534 --> 00:19:54.670
And a lot of horror films simply collapse if, uh, if-
00:19:54.884 --> 00:19:55.135
Right
00:19:55.180 --> 00:19:58.906
if, you know, tr- traditional horror narratives collapse if you can just look stuff up.
00:19:59.515 --> 00:19:59.903
Uh- Truly
00:19:59.940 --> 00:20:01.673
including Solace- including Solace House, you know?
00:20:01.673 --> 00:20:05.729
It'd be very, it'd be a very different proposition if you could simply Google everything you found.
00:20:06.220 --> 00:20:07.114
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:20:07.928 --> 00:20:07.961
Mm-hmm.
00:20:07.961 --> 00:20:15.720
Uh, so there's an element of traditional storytelling that falls by the wayside, and I think, um, certain people have really engaged with that technology.
00:20:15.740 --> 00:20:27.058
And, you know, there are stories that are really, really good at doing that., Black Mirror obviously is exactly that, but I think there's an unwillingness to let go of the old tropes, and I kind of like that.
00:20:27.143 --> 00:20:28.671
I kind of like both approaches.
00:20:28.701 --> 00:20:36.259
I don't really think either is correct, you know, but it, it is a, it is a line in the sand where it's like, you know, you either choose to engage with this or you don't.
00:20:36.842 --> 00:20:37.192
Right.
00:20:37.192 --> 00:20:37.473
Right.
00:20:37.499 --> 00:20:49.770
J- even Jane Schoenbrun's book, which I read recently, Public Access Afterworld, which I really liked, a lot of it is VHS tapes, and it sort of revolves around these kids who are into They're retro kids who are watching VHS tapes.
00:20:49.862 --> 00:20:57.482
Because of the physicality of that media, that's what's that's, that's the thing that everyone likes, and it's sort of that's gone.
00:20:58.141 --> 00:21:03.265
But I think this all lends itself to the book too because these kids have to be connected.
00:21:03.265 --> 00:21:09.851
You're forced to interact with each other because you don't have the distraction of something else to pull you out of it, right?
00:21:09.894 --> 00:21:17.768
I mean, yes, they discover as they're doing this job these books that they come across, but generally speaking, it's almost like Survivor, right?
00:21:17.768 --> 00:21:25.755
They're all sitting around so much of the time talking, having dinner, just interacting with each other, and then in relation to the house, and then things start to go very bad.
00:21:25.981 --> 00:21:27.576
Was it always a first-person narrative?
00:21:28.357 --> 00:21:28.688
Yeah.
00:21:28.936 --> 00:21:31.887
I, I Uh, as well, that was a, a matter of convenience.
00:21:31.943 --> 00:21:38.538
I just, just removes, for me, an element of distance between the reader and the narrator.
00:21:38.957 --> 00:21:43.798
It's very efficient to go like this is, you know And I did toy with doing it third person.
00:21:43.799 --> 00:21:44.400
It didn't work.
00:21:44.691 --> 00:21:46.821
So it, it just straight up didn't work.
00:21:46.826 --> 00:21:52.740
It was good to have that experience of going, right, that I know now which approach I should take because these are very fundamental questions if you're writing.
00:21:52.928 --> 00:22:04.538
So I like, with horror, I like that kind of thing where it just kind of straps you in, and it's, um It's interesting'cause Stephen King obviously is, is obviously the best at this and v- very seldom uses first person, I think.
00:22:05.009 --> 00:22:08.276
But he has that thing of it's like someone telling you a story.
00:22:08.277 --> 00:22:10.263
The narrator is almost a character in his books.
00:22:10.305 --> 00:22:16.867
I think if you're going to do horror, it kind of has to be, like, as if it belongs to a very old storytelling tradition.
00:22:16.883 --> 00:22:24.301
So you kind of have to, to enga- an engaging voice as a narrator, or because time was a factor, I, I just did it first person.
00:22:24.471 --> 00:22:32.384
Um, also as well because, like I said, Al- Alex is not me, but he had a lot of similar experiences, um, so it just proved easier to do that.
00:22:33.294 --> 00:22:58.147
I'm so curious, and again, this is all tricky'cause I don't wanna get into any spoiler territory'cause I think part of the joy and the appeal of the book is kind of the discovery, and it's also why I feel like this is a great book for a book club because it evokes a lot of questions, and asking questions, and what people think, and the perception of what do you think is happening versus what is happening, which is kind of what is happening to Alex as it's going through, yes?
00:22:58.578 --> 00:22:58.926
Yeah.
00:22:59.027 --> 00:23:04.663
But i find that such a kind of fundamental thing of, of lived experience that, you know, you...
00:23:05.109 --> 00:23:07.471
It's just, everything's just a best guess, you know?
00:23:07.535 --> 00:23:12.063
Everything that happens to you today is like, you know, you'll never understand one-tenth of it.
00:23:12.448 --> 00:23:21.221
You know, everything that's come your way is like, you see, you, you make your best of the information that comes your way, and you assemble some kind of narrative about it, but it's definitely not really what's happening.
00:23:21.267 --> 00:23:32.886
And I find that a kind of fundamental state of human being, really, like, which is obviously taken to the extreme in this book, but I find it comforting that we don't know as much as we think we do, and so that's in the book, definitely, I think.
00:23:32.965 --> 00:23:39.637
I'm so curious when you begin to put all this together in terms of your outlining and then you creating this cast of characters.
00:23:39.707 --> 00:23:45.749
Talk about that experience for a moment, because you have this, this group of kids who are so varied, and it...
00:23:45.749 --> 00:23:46.696
They never feel like...
00:23:46.699 --> 00:23:49.942
Sometimes you'll feel like people are plotted in as a device, right?
00:23:49.950 --> 00:23:51.392
To, to- Yeah kind of execute something.
00:23:51.396 --> 00:23:51.412
Yeah.
00:23:51.417 --> 00:23:53.321
And it doesn't feel like that in here.
00:23:53.692 --> 00:23:58.898
But I'm so curious about how you started to evolve these different characters or how you approached it.
00:23:59.329 --> 00:24:00.000
I don't know.
00:24:00.059 --> 00:24:03.804
It's a real cliché to go, you know, they're just sort of, you write them and they come alive on the page.
00:24:04.086 --> 00:24:04.125
You
00:24:05.173 --> 00:24:06.013
know, they, they just...
00:24:06.200 --> 00:24:09.515
And then they start talking to each other, and you, you're just an observer who listens.
00:24:09.568 --> 00:24:19.319
But having said that, there is an element of where you kind of set them off, and they do A- another thing is that,'cause it's-- I don't wanna say it's out and out horror because it isn't.
00:24:19.332 --> 00:24:26.294
If you go into this expecting Texas Chain Saw Massacre, you will be disappointed because it's, it's a bit more slow burn than that.
00:24:26.403 --> 00:24:30.315
But one of the rules of horror which is very helpful is you pick a situation.
00:24:30.315 --> 00:24:37.105
Once you have your situation, the people you then throw at it must be the worst possible people to be in that situation.
00:24:38.298 --> 00:24:43.099
So it's like, you know, so Jack Torrance is the worst person to look after the Overlook Hotel.
00:24:43.240 --> 00:24:47.016
He should not be within 100 miles of that hotel, and that's horror.
00:24:47.083 --> 00:24:58.771
The people in that story, they're, they are, they're all, you know, uh, Ty is the older post-grad, he's older than they are, but the rest of them are all teenagers, and they're late teenagers, and they are so kind of...
00:24:59.281 --> 00:25:01.021
They've got no concept of risk.
00:25:01.042 --> 00:25:02.332
They've got no concept of...
00:25:02.369 --> 00:25:07.326
Their drug and alcohol intake is enormous, which is a very kinda early'90s thing as well, I think.
00:25:07.368 --> 00:25:14.515
So they are in, in many ways the wrong people to be in that, you know, which in narrative terms they all have...
00:25:14.545 --> 00:25:17.005
But I also like, you know, you said about assembling the characters.
00:25:17.229 --> 00:25:22.027
One of the things I had in the back of my mind that,'cause it is a book, this is slightly spoiler-ish territory.
00:25:22.471 --> 00:25:27.114
It's a book about madness to some degree, which is kind of the, the sort of core of it really.
00:25:27.439 --> 00:25:30.733
And, you know, people go mad in very, very personal ways.
00:25:31.220 --> 00:25:43.284
You know, the people become unbalanced in very ways unique to them, and I just felt that that was important for the characters, that if they started to fracture, that they would fracture along highly specific lines.
00:25:43.582 --> 00:25:49.959
And that was helpful in building who they were It's funny because, uh, I love Obviously, you, you can't help but look at reviews.
00:25:49.959 --> 00:25:52.540
You tell yourself you're not going to, but you sort of look at Goodreads or whatever.
00:25:52.752 --> 00:25:59.070
But what I love is that people either really like those characters or they absolutely hate them There's no ambivalence towards those characters.
00:25:59.078 --> 00:26:05.545
People are just kind of like,"Well, they're, um, yeah, I, I- they're all jerks, and I hate them." They're I just You know, I like spending time with these characters.
00:26:05.583 --> 00:26:08.621
It's interesting to me that, that they b- should be so polarized.
00:26:08.651 --> 00:26:21.901
Well, it's also the kind of thing if you're going into something that has this element of, you know, as the horror starts to build, you're thinking,"Well, people are gonna probably go down." And there is a kind of a schadenfreude of like, okay, who's getting it first, or how is it going to happen?
00:26:21.901 --> 00:26:22.384
Right.
00:26:22.402 --> 00:26:29.993
But it is also funny when you're putting a character, like there's a character of Helen, who's this very, you know, kind of uptight, very conservative religious student-
00:26:30.317 --> 00:26:30.519
Mm
00:26:30.529 --> 00:26:35.050
poised against someone like Clive or even Ruth, who's this goth girl.
00:26:35.065 --> 00:26:35.817
You already know.
00:26:35.817 --> 00:26:38.660
Again, it's like watching the Big Brother house or something.
00:26:38.660 --> 00:26:38.683
It's, yeah.
00:26:38.683 --> 00:26:40.228
You know, watching these people come together.
00:26:40.635 --> 00:26:41.403
I love Ruth.
00:26:41.470 --> 00:26:43.008
Ruth is my absolute favorite.
00:26:43.047 --> 00:26:43.933
She was a joy to write.
00:26:43.934 --> 00:27:02.970
And again, that thing of like she was just You know, you don't wanna go down to that pretentious road of again saying that characters become their own people, but she would always be surprising in whenever'Cause she had that sort of, you know,'cause it's the'90s, there's a lot of cynicism and a lot of sarcasm, often, like, almost aggressively so.
00:27:03.059 --> 00:27:06.118
But she's just hilarious I think every time she turns up.
00:27:06.118 --> 00:27:07.046
I just really like her.
00:27:07.657 --> 00:27:15.209
Um, Helen is interesting because there are a lot of people you meet at university when you're young, and they're like,"Why are you young?" Mm.
00:27:15.209 --> 00:27:15.646
"What are you...
00:27:15.669 --> 00:27:22.369
Why are you squandering this gift being middle-aged?" There are quite a lot of people like that, and I think that you, you sort of forget that.
00:27:22.385 --> 00:27:28.652
There's a, there's a sort of- TV image of young people sort of being massively hedonistic and sort of these party animals.
00:27:28.654 --> 00:27:39.738
And yet there are people you meet at university who are very serious and very buttoned down, and in many ways kind of like, you know, they're, they're in their 40s already, and it's like I did want to want a character like that.
00:27:39.778 --> 00:27:43.107
So w- they weren't all, uh, sort of hedonistic cliches really.
00:27:43.722 --> 00:27:44.575
No, it's hilarious.
00:27:44.576 --> 00:27:47.282
I mean, she very much is like, you know, which one of these is not like the other.
00:27:47.757 --> 00:27:48.779
Um, but- Yeah.
00:27:48.784 --> 00:27:48.891
I, I
00:27:48.900 --> 00:27:49.898
like Helen as well.
00:27:49.901 --> 00:27:54.671
I just sort of, you know, she's, she's not wrong 100% of the time'cause that would be insufferable.
00:27:54.857 --> 00:27:56.628
A lot of the time she is the voice of sense.
00:27:56.630 --> 00:27:57.255
It's just that she's quite-
00:27:57.268 --> 00:27:57.755
That's it
00:27:57.835 --> 00:27:59.011
so yeah.
00:27:59.067 --> 00:28:04.789
She's the one who says,"Let's not do any of this," and they all kind of laugh it off, and it's sort of like,"I just should listen to her."
00:28:05.213 --> 00:28:09.464
Yeah, also the whole idea of youth anyway, that you feel invincible.
00:28:09.488 --> 00:28:10.464
There's no fear of death.
00:28:10.473 --> 00:28:11.248
There's no fear of anything.
00:28:11.248 --> 00:28:16.689
Like, when you're that young, life is your oyster, especially at university'cause I think, you know...
00:28:16.726 --> 00:28:17.856
I look at it with my own kids.
00:28:17.856 --> 00:28:20.683
You're in a space where everything is being paid for and covered.
00:28:20.683 --> 00:28:21.368
You have a house.
00:28:21.663 --> 00:28:22.553
You have living arrangements.
00:28:22.554 --> 00:28:23.174
You have food.
00:28:23.186 --> 00:28:24.356
You have everything you need.
00:28:24.356 --> 00:28:30.164
So it is that kind of period where you're on top of the world, and it's c- it's, it's like pseudo-adulting.
00:28:30.181 --> 00:28:38.873
Like, you're not quite- Yeah there yet, but you can pretend that like,"Oh, we can make these decisions, and we're, you know, we're in control of everything," when you're really not.
00:28:38.916 --> 00:28:47.278
And so for all of them to be in this situation, especially when things begin to get crazy, and how they all start to interact with each other, it's great.
00:28:47.633 --> 00:28:49.230
They're much more sort of honest though.
00:28:49.257 --> 00:28:57.743
There, there, there's the bit at the beginning where Alex is watching all his friends leave for summer, and he re- he, he says they sort of shed their university personas.
00:28:57.806 --> 00:29:01.483
And the people you meet who are the core cast of the book don't do that.
00:29:01.483 --> 00:29:07.398
They're very much who they are, which I kind of wanted to build in because I felt that they were more I don't know.
00:29:07.398 --> 00:29:09.092
There has to be a sort of Again, it's horror.
00:29:09.097 --> 00:29:12.239
It's like, all right, if something bad is gonna happen to those characters, you have to feel it.
00:29:12.267 --> 00:29:17.111
And in order for that to happen, you have to feel some kind of sympathy with those characters.
00:29:17.145 --> 00:29:24.464
In the first book I wrote, there's a, there's a very I, I can't really spoiler that, but a key character, something terrible happens to them.
00:29:24.851 --> 00:29:29.721
Uh, and a lot of people said,"Oh, that was my favorite character." It's like, you have to miss them.
00:29:29.730 --> 00:29:33.729
If other characters in this book are gonna miss them too, you as a reader have to miss them.
00:29:34.060 --> 00:29:44.888
And so you have to feel that there's something at stake here because otherwise it's just a bunch of, you know, to use the Star Trek term, it's just red shirts who are sort of people you, you've never met, you know, where terrible things are happening to them.
00:29:44.891 --> 00:29:48.888
It's It makes more sense to have much more rounded characters who, who you miss.
00:29:49.198 --> 00:29:52.497
Okay, so I want to talk about The Fairy Feller's Masterstroke.
00:29:52.861 --> 00:29:52.957
Yes.
00:29:52.968 --> 00:30:01.474
The painting, um, by Richard Dadd because- Yeah it gets referenced early on by Ella, who's one of the students and who kind of piques Alex's interest.
00:30:01.519 --> 00:30:14.712
But talk about this painting for a second and, um Because first of all, I have to tell you, like, one of the things I love about books or love about a book, and this is one of them, is when something's referenced, when should I immediately look up and say,"Is he making this up or is this a real thing?" Yeah.
00:30:14.712 --> 00:30:17.692
And so to see it as a real thing was kind of incredible.
00:30:17.694 --> 00:30:22.392
And then also, I know you've talked about it on, on social media before and what the painting means to you.
00:30:22.730 --> 00:30:22.755
Yeah.
00:30:22.755 --> 00:30:24.684
It's always been in my life, that painting.
00:30:24.686 --> 00:30:28.363
I saw it first when I was a kid, I think, and it's not an image you forget.
00:30:28.553 --> 00:30:40.214
It's, um For those who don't know, it's a, it's an insanely detailed depiction of a thing that's alluded to in Romeo and Juliet where, um, a hazelnut is being split.
00:30:40.556 --> 00:30:44.518
Richard Dadd as an artist was in an asylum when he painted this painting.
00:30:44.528 --> 00:30:46.943
He was in Bethlem Asylum because he killed his father.
00:30:46.944 --> 00:30:57.826
He had a, what we would now know as a schizophrenic breakdown during a tour of the Middle East, and he killed his father and then attempted to kill someone else and then ended up in the Bethlem Asylum.
00:30:57.939 --> 00:30:59.634
So when you see it, I mean, you often see it.
00:30:59.636 --> 00:31:04.073
I think I must have seen it in a children's book or a book that the, the children were expected to read.
00:31:04.119 --> 00:31:07.258
I think it may have been one of the Reader's Digest books of folklore or something like that.
00:31:07.423 --> 00:31:13.175
Um, but you see it, and it, it doesn't have an eeriness to it because it's, it's not an eerie painting.
00:31:13.175 --> 00:31:14.749
It's weirdly kind of a happy painting.
00:31:14.963 --> 00:31:15.093
Mm-hmm.
00:31:15.109 --> 00:31:18.570
There is such an intensity to it, um, which is...
00:31:18.594 --> 00:31:23.395
It's on display at the moment in the, the Royal Academy in London, so I went to s- I went to see it literally last week.
00:31:23.920 --> 00:31:27.384
Um, I've seen it, you know, various exhibitions, but it is...
00:31:27.556 --> 00:31:32.288
I went with a friend, and she went,"It's tiny," the minute we saw it'cause she is familiar through it in a book.
00:31:32.288 --> 00:31:33.798
She went,"It's absolutely tiny."
00:31:33.843 --> 00:31:34.609
I thought the same thing.
00:31:34.611 --> 00:31:36.565
I s-'cause I saw the picture of you on Instagram with it.
00:31:36.578 --> 00:31:36.588
Yeah.
00:31:36.588 --> 00:31:37.319
And I was like,"Wow."
00:31:37.715 --> 00:31:39.565
Yeah, you expect it to cover one wall.
00:31:39.570 --> 00:31:50.509
It's like- Yes and he worked on this painting for about eight, nine, 10 years, and it, it is, it looks like it's been worked on for about 10 years, um, because it, it absolutely swarms with detail.
00:31:50.509 --> 00:31:53.576
It's almost like something under a, a, a slide under a microscope.
00:31:53.585 --> 00:31:59.768
There's just so much going on in it, and it's just full of stuff.
00:31:59.796 --> 00:32:00.032
You know?
00:32:00.317 --> 00:32:07.436
It's like there are little stories in there and allusions and, and you know, and it's a, it has been an inspiration to quite a lot of artists.
00:32:07.438 --> 00:32:09.503
You know, the Queen song about it is in the book.
00:32:09.537 --> 00:32:13.275
Alan Moore talks about it in one of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen volumes.
00:32:13.318 --> 00:32:14.346
And you know, it, it's...
00:32:15.284 --> 00:32:22.852
Dadd's tragedy is sort of separate to that picture even though it's inextricably bound up with it, and I find it...
00:32:23.279 --> 00:32:23.797
I don't know.
00:32:23.798 --> 00:32:25.701
I just, I just really like it.
00:32:25.701 --> 00:32:27.964
I d- I really like art.
00:32:28.164 --> 00:32:29.664
I'm a, a fan of art.
00:32:29.728 --> 00:32:35.673
I wanted to be an artist as a teenager and then, thank God, had a realization that I was never gonna be good enough.
00:32:35.780 --> 00:32:37.460
You know, I mean, that saved me a lot of time.
00:32:37.698 --> 00:32:43.911
But I have always had an appreciation of art, and I really like it.
00:32:43.932 --> 00:32:47.230
Again, there's a thing where I think it, a lot of people feel excluded from it.
00:32:47.372 --> 00:32:55.949
There's a lot of snobbishness about it, but I think what I really like is when something, you have a visceral reaction to, and that painting is something I think everyone has a visceral reaction to.
00:32:56.005 --> 00:33:01.255
You know, it, it's, it's charming and almost overbearingly so, and it's full of hints.
00:33:01.470 --> 00:33:05.696
It, it seems to hint at a story that's not quite finished, and I just, I just love it.
00:33:06.344 --> 00:33:34.824
I find it fascinating with this particular painting the way it's used but also his story and kind of this schizophrenic break In relation again to the book, the stuff that's mined here, that again, like as I finished the book and I was like,"Holy shit, I..." It's one of those things where I had to go back,'cause again, I, I'm not gonna give anything away, but I found it was almost by happenstance because I marked that earlier, uh, early passage in the book that led me to the end, and I was all of a sudden like,"Oh my God.
00:33:35.396 --> 00:33:37.430
Oh my God." Um-
00:33:37.959 --> 00:33:41.019
See, see I love stuff like this in stories myself.
00:33:41.019 --> 00:33:44.071
I lo- I really like it when you have those rabbit holes that you can go down.
00:33:44.520 --> 00:33:44.803
Oh.
00:33:44.817 --> 00:33:46.839
Obviously I've, this is clearly what I've done here.
00:33:47.124 --> 00:33:50.576
But, um, the long poem that's in Solace House that runs all the way through-
00:33:50.576 --> 00:33:51.926
Yes, I was gonna ask you about that.
00:33:51.949 --> 00:33:52.211
Yeah
00:33:52.221 --> 00:33:59.465
the section, that is based on the very long doggerel poem that Dad wrote about...
00:33:59.615 --> 00:34:00.836
It's called Elimination of a Picture.
00:34:00.838 --> 00:34:03.404
It's actually got a longer title than that, but I can't remember off the top of my head.
00:34:03.759 --> 00:34:11.237
But Dad obviously like, you know, like there wasn't enough detail in The Fairy Feller's Masterstroke, and so he decided to write a poem alongside it.
00:34:11.577 --> 00:34:26.353
And in that, that poem, which is couplets, he names all of the characters in the canvas and what they're doing and all their relationships to, as if to sort of like reinforce their meaning, as if like rendering them in this almost, you know, th- th- this maddening detail was somehow not enough.
00:34:26.900 --> 00:34:30.449
Um, and I find that, that as a piece of Victoriana is fascinating.
00:34:30.588 --> 00:34:34.949
And it was, it's also based on that and In Memoriam by Tennyson, which I think is in quatrains.
00:34:34.949 --> 00:34:35.945
I haven't looked at it for a while.
00:34:36.083 --> 00:34:40.201
But yeah, so I had this idea of writing this very long poem that you could take or leave, by the way.
00:34:40.313 --> 00:34:41.521
That's the main thing.
00:34:41.849 --> 00:34:47.338
It's like if there's a literary device in a book You should be able to, like, take or leave it.
00:34:47.420 --> 00:34:49.059
Get the general idea and move on.
00:34:49.061 --> 00:34:52.811
If it's, if it's bumming you out reading the poetry, you should just be able to move on.
00:34:53.192 --> 00:34:55.893
Um, hopefully that won't happen, but it is in there.
00:34:56.148 --> 00:34:56.431
I...
00:34:56.559 --> 00:34:57.088
As a...
00:34:57.135 --> 00:35:04.659
When I decided that that's what I was gonna be doing, I went away and reread Pale Fire by Nabokov, which is a book I really like.
00:35:05.360 --> 00:35:09.003
'Cause I, I just thought how much poetry will people tolerate in a book?
00:35:09.052 --> 00:35:11.253
And, uh, that's got way more poetry than mine.
00:35:11.259 --> 00:35:20.942
It begins with a thousand-line poem or a 999-line poem, which you are expected to go through before you've read the manuscript.
00:35:20.985 --> 00:35:25.543
So, you know, I felt kind of justified in doing what I'd done in there.
00:35:25.644 --> 00:35:30.496
That feels like that should be one of the books on the literary canon that you had to have when you went into university.
00:35:30.994 --> 00:35:31.204
Yeah.
00:35:31.204 --> 00:35:31.213
Yes.
00:35:31.545 --> 00:35:32.902
I discovered that years afterwards.
00:35:32.903 --> 00:35:35.809
It's always the way that, like, a lot of the books that I absolutely love, I didn't...
00:35:35.851 --> 00:35:37.753
Like, I mentioned Olaf Stapledon earlier.
00:35:38.210 --> 00:35:42.672
Uh, things like The Third Policeman, which is a book I absolutely adore by Flann O'Brien.
00:35:43.074 --> 00:35:43.626
Have you read that?
00:35:44.030 --> 00:35:44.530
No.
00:35:44.670 --> 00:35:44.943
No.
00:35:44.967 --> 00:35:45.422
Oh, you should do.
00:35:46.304 --> 00:35:46.708
Okay.
00:35:46.760 --> 00:35:54.063
And it's, it's probably the darkest subject matter available written in a kind of humorous, whimsical Irish way.
00:35:54.166 --> 00:36:11.436
And I love that, and I think that's the, the, the bit that came out of Solace House was if you're gonna have all this highfalutin, pretentious architecture in there, um, about the last living Victorian and his battle with sanity, the people against that have to be kind of not interested in it to a degree.
00:36:11.911 --> 00:36:14.545
So they're just, you know, they, they, they swear a lot.
00:36:14.594 --> 00:36:15.641
They drink a lot.
00:36:16.182 --> 00:36:17.362
They make jokes about it.
00:36:17.362 --> 00:36:18.273
They're inappropriate.
00:36:18.291 --> 00:36:18.882
And they are the...
00:36:18.927 --> 00:36:21.257
Again, they're the wrong people to be investigating this.
00:36:21.286 --> 00:36:23.653
They do not take it seriously until it's far too late.
00:36:23.744 --> 00:36:28.987
Did you know when you went in where this was gonna end up, or did some of it just reveal itself as you went through?
00:36:29.025 --> 00:36:31.264
I always knew where it's going because I always do.
00:36:31.268 --> 00:36:32.820
I think you have a responsibility.
00:36:33.014 --> 00:36:41.788
If you're doing a complicated story, you must know where it ends, and you must be able to answer every single question put to you about the architecture of that book because I...
00:36:41.818 --> 00:36:42.233
It is...
00:36:42.280 --> 00:36:47.822
I don't like things where it, it feels like people are wasting your time, where they haven't worked it out themselves.
00:36:47.884 --> 00:36:50.416
I find it very insulting to the reader to do that.
00:36:50.523 --> 00:36:54.856
So yes, I did know where it was going, but I do like to have the material surprise me.
00:36:54.951 --> 00:37:01.902
So the idea of the characters being portrayed to some extent within The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke, which is not a spoiler, but it's there.
00:37:02.168 --> 00:37:08.447
Um, but that came from just scrutinizing the painting again, looking at it, thinking the, the cast of this book is actually in this painting.
00:37:09.038 --> 00:37:12.197
Um, and so stuff like that, you want it to surprise you, you know.
00:37:12.197 --> 00:37:20.175
And I find that those connections come if you, if you have your obsessions within your, your field of what you're focusing on, that those connections will start to become apparent.
00:37:20.931 --> 00:37:23.257
It's like almost like the reverse peel of an onion, right?
00:37:23.257 --> 00:37:26.800
You have the center that you know what holds, and then you can layer it, right?
00:37:26.800 --> 00:37:28.960
You can put, like, the, the poetry on top of it.
00:37:28.960 --> 00:37:30.728
You can add this layer to it and this layer to it.
00:37:30.746 --> 00:37:31.815
That's what I imagine-
00:37:32.815 --> 00:37:37.985
It's interesting working with Joel because he's a, you know, like he's way more successful as a comedy writer than I ever was.
00:37:37.985 --> 00:37:41.001
I mean, he, he's written a book about comedy where he refers to this thing called the bucket.
00:37:41.061 --> 00:37:44.255
You know, whereas if you have like in Spinal Tap, it's a mock documentary, you know?
00:37:44.275 --> 00:37:44.481
And that-
00:37:44.501 --> 00:37:44.746
Yeah
00:37:45.199 --> 00:37:49.817
Three, Three Idiots, and that's a really solid bucket for putting all the comedy inside.
00:37:49.936 --> 00:37:51.914
And I find it's the same with writing.
00:37:51.914 --> 00:38:09.753
If you've got a character like Leo who's an archeologist on his own terms, then you can talk about deep time, you can talk about civilization, you can talk about stone circles, you can talk about all of these things which are germane to the book because that character is interested in them, and that is the lens through which he'll see those things.
00:38:09.762 --> 00:38:11.996
He's a very good bucket to put those concerns in.
00:38:12.076 --> 00:38:14.610
You, again, you have to like your characters.
00:38:14.612 --> 00:38:16.327
I, I really like Leo.
00:38:16.327 --> 00:38:21.344
I like all of them, but um, it's, it's hard in horror because you have to make them suffer.
00:38:23.255 --> 00:38:23.492
Yeah.
00:38:23.539 --> 00:38:41.224
I was just thinking, and maybe this is also because of your background, but it's, it's very cinematic, and I think that's the other reason I thought about the Ari Aster thing because I was thinking of just his, the visuals of some of his things that he does, and there's a sequence, and this is not, I'm not giving anything away, but there's a kind of a tableau of three characters at a table.
00:38:41.563 --> 00:38:46.541
It just ha- felt very much like something that would be in that world to me.
00:38:46.882 --> 00:38:49.925
And um, so it was so evocative and haunting and-
00:38:49.936 --> 00:38:53.387
That's, that's really lovely to hear because it, it is a lot of work.
00:38:53.445 --> 00:38:55.206
It's a lot of hard work putting those things in.
00:38:55.206 --> 00:38:59.463
And I really, I like- Visual writing.
00:38:59.465 --> 00:39:06.940
I like to have a, you know, I, again, Stephen King, it's like he's really good at having a shorthand visual by which that story will be known.
00:39:07.356 --> 00:39:12.675
You know, if I go, there's a, there's a, a red classic car, you know which book I'm talking about.
00:39:12.922 --> 00:39:13.346
Right.
00:39:13.574 --> 00:39:16.114
A, a, a young girl at a prom covered in pig's blood.
00:39:16.206 --> 00:39:16.445
There you go.
00:39:16.445 --> 00:39:17.916
It's a massively There's a hotel.
00:39:17.987 --> 00:39:19.318
A rabid dog, right?
00:39:19.380 --> 00:39:20.273
Yeah, exactly.
00:39:20.273 --> 00:39:31.132
You know, even if the book itself may not be the best, you know which book I'm talking about because he has a very strong sense of, you know, visual imagery, and it's really, it's shorthand for that story.
00:39:31.463 --> 00:39:33.998
So you should have like that and, and the detail of things.
00:39:33.998 --> 00:39:34.985
I, I really do-
00:39:35.114 --> 00:39:42.737
I think I'm gonna write in the notes of this episode, um, answer what those four Stephen King books were for all the, uh
00:39:43.918 --> 00:39:44.976
There are loads of them.
00:39:45.048 --> 00:39:47.293
I mean, yeah, but you can now think of all of the Yeah.
00:39:47.318 --> 00:39:54.771
It's, I But I like to have a strong With The Apparition House, I also like to boil down the stories in one word, which I think you should try and do.
00:39:55.436 --> 00:39:57.376
Uh, so for The Apparition House, it was haunted.
00:39:57.918 --> 00:39:58.217
I just think-
00:39:58.246 --> 00:39:58.710
For this?
00:39:58.735 --> 00:39:59.244
What's it like?
00:39:59.860 --> 00:40:01.128
No, no, for the first one.
00:40:01.275 --> 00:40:01.688
Um-
00:40:01.963 --> 00:40:05.043
Okay, so what would your, what would your word be for Solace House?
00:40:05.094 --> 00:40:05.989
It was madness.
00:40:06.172 --> 00:40:08.411
I just- Yes what's it like to be mad?
00:40:09.228 --> 00:40:20.672
But, um, I, I wanted to write something that was not flippant about those concerns,'cause if, I think if you are writing about those concerns, again, like with the story of Richard Dadd, I just feel terribly bad for him.
00:40:20.672 --> 00:40:21.463
I just feel really bad.
00:40:21.463 --> 00:40:25.208
You know, that he was in the grip of something that was far stronger than he was.
00:40:25.215 --> 00:40:27.891
The delusions that beset him were just awful for him.
00:40:27.891 --> 00:40:29.760
I mean, I, you know, I know that he killed his father.
00:40:29.795 --> 00:40:42.429
It's a horrible story all round, and from that he managed to wrest this beautiful image, and I think that's, you know So you want to sort of, you don't want to disrespect those people and your own knowledge of these things.
00:40:42.516 --> 00:40:44.523
Well, Will, the book, it's so good.
00:40:44.793 --> 00:40:45.943
Please go out and get the book.
00:40:45.965 --> 00:40:47.715
Buy independent if you can.
00:40:47.838 --> 00:40:49.096
Um, but it's really fantastic.
00:40:49.099 --> 00:40:53.527
Also, I have to say they did such an incredible job in the inside boards.
00:40:53.527 --> 00:40:54.679
They're just beautiful.
00:40:55.213 --> 00:40:55.856
Um-
00:40:56.197 --> 00:41:00.748
This is the people at Atlantic, and this is Holly Battle who designed the cover, which is I love the cover so much.
00:41:01.206 --> 00:41:05.853
I'm just gonna tell you that the seed of-- I always keep a notebook for visual images.
00:41:05.858 --> 00:41:06.159
There we go.
00:41:06.161 --> 00:41:12.873
The, if you go back to the endpapers, the, uh, the, the, that image there- Yes um, that's from- Ah,
00:41:12.943 --> 00:41:13.623
that's yours.
00:41:14.036 --> 00:41:28.402
That is my daughter and I in the first few months of lockdown We painted over that just, you know, she was three and a half, almost four at that point, and we painted over that and then it was just like a stupid thing to do because it was in a magazine.
00:41:28.882 --> 00:41:31.835
And then I remember thinking,"Who, who is that?
00:41:32.385 --> 00:41:41.483
And why, why would they pa-" And then it just, it just exploded from there, that end of things, because I needed, I knew that there would be somebody who'd been an inhabitant of this house, and I just...
00:41:41.697 --> 00:41:43.690
That was the key that unlocked it really was having this.
00:41:43.690 --> 00:41:48.193
So it's like the sort of serendipity of, of that chaotic time of that first lockdown.
00:41:48.699 --> 00:41:49.559
Wow.
00:41:49.820 --> 00:41:50.297
Yeah.
00:41:50.300 --> 00:41:56.873
And it was just literally looking and going,"Who would paint over every, not just one picture, but every picture of themselves?
00:41:57.389 --> 00:42:02.307
What would cause someone to do that?" And that was, that was obviously, like, very helpful to-
00:42:02.422 --> 00:42:03.574
And Richard Fayne was born.
00:42:04.277 --> 00:42:04.565
Yeah.
00:42:04.795 --> 00:42:05.358
Exactly.
00:42:05.492 --> 00:42:05.809
Yeah, yeah.
00:42:05.952 --> 00:42:06.487
There he is.
00:42:07.070 --> 00:42:07.831
Yes, there he is.
00:42:08.447 --> 00:42:10.016
Um- Well, it's fantastic.
00:42:10.054 --> 00:42:11.067
Congratulations.
00:42:11.068 --> 00:42:13.148
And I'm going back to your first book now because I, I...
00:42:13.210 --> 00:42:16.297
like I said, I love this so much that, uh, I can't wait to read the first.
00:42:16.320 --> 00:42:16.827
Please do.
00:42:16.827 --> 00:42:17.277
Yeah, yeah.
00:42:17.295 --> 00:42:19.240
So honestly, I'd love, love to hear what you think about that.
00:42:19.240 --> 00:42:19.251
Yeah.
00:42:19.286 --> 00:42:19.693
So yeah.
00:42:19.697 --> 00:42:20.027
No.
00:42:20.362 --> 00:42:20.679
All right.
00:42:20.679 --> 00:42:21.657
Well, thank you so much.
00:42:21.661 --> 00:42:22.001
Thank you so much
00:42:22.322 --> 00:42:22.342
for...
00:42:22.342 --> 00:42:22.911
No, I...
00:42:22.942 --> 00:42:24.032
the pleasure was all mine.
00:42:24.371 --> 00:42:26.626
And, uh, uh, thank you.
00:42:26.688 --> 00:42:27.755
Thank you again, Will.
00:42:27.829 --> 00:42:34.565
If you liked today's episode or other episodes of Behind the Stack, please consider liking and subscribing so that you never miss an episode.
00:42:34.860 --> 00:42:45.579
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00:42:45.744 --> 00:42:53.753
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00:42:53.869 --> 00:43:02.141
I'll be back next week with another episode, and until then, you can always find me on Instagram, YouTube, and Substack at Brett's Book Stack.
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And as always, thanks for listening