Brian Lindenmuth - KIll Clock is your latest release. It is a part of the Most Wanted line of books which is a line of crime novels for adult reluctant readers. What is a reluctant reader?
Allan Guthrie: I'll try my best to answer this, although it's not my area of expertise.
My understanding of the term 'reluctant reader' (also known as 'emergent reader') is that it applies, broadly, to someone who may not be entirely enthusiastic about the prospect of picking up a novel. Therefore it covers a wide range: from readers with learning difficulties to those with dyslexia, from those who are out of practice to those who've developed a negative attitude towards novels after reading one or two books that perhaps weren't best suited to them.
Brian Lindenmuth - Plus why should an adult reader, possibly with difficulties, be forced to read children’s books or YA novels.
One of the things that I found out when I was researching the Black Crime Fiction article was that in the US prisons the books of Donald Goines are checked out more so then any other, by a wide margin. Some have said that it's because of a relatable subject matter but that can't be the sole factor in his popularity because other authors don't share the same level of success. An educator speculated that part of his popularity may stem from his simple sentence structure and usage of small (er) words, estimating that the average sentence length in a Donald Goines novel was 7 words. This is probably the case when considering reading/education levels of the inmates.
So then, is Kill Clock your Donald Goines novel?
Allan Guthrie: I suspect that the relatable subject matter has a lot to do with it -- and possibly also the relatable point of view (I can't imagine too many prisoners being overjoyed at the prospect of reading a book written from a cop's viewpoint, for example). But I'm sure ease of reading is a major factor too. I suspect that's true of James Patterson's phenomenal success, too (short words, short sentences, short paragraphs, short chapters), just as it was for Mickey Spillane. As for Kill Clock being my Donald Goines novel(la) -- I'd be delighted if it was.
Brian Lindenmuth - I understand that your wife is an adult literacy tutor; will she be using Kill Clock as a teaching tool?
Allan Guthrie: She'd very much like to, although that particular scenario hasn't materialized quite yet.
Brian Lindenmuth - Neil Gaiman is writing a book called Odd and the Frost Giants for the World Book Day UK program where authors write books for free, publishers publish them for free and they get sold to children for £1 each to kids who have been given £1 Book Tokens. All of which is set to go down on March 6th, 2008. Is the literacy rate and/or book indifference a big problem in the UK?
Allan Guthrie: Adult literacy in the UK is a huge problem. I'm not sure of UK-wide figures, but in Scotland, which has a population of 5 million people, 500,000 adults assessed their own skills as poor or moderate according to the Scottish Executive's Adult Literacy and Numeracy Report, 2001. Once all the data was analyzed, the report concluded that in fact 800,000 adults in Scotland have 'very low' reading or numeracy skills. Which is a pretty sizeable chunk of the adult population.
As for book indifference: I think the rampant bestseller culture has to take the blame for some of that.
Brian Lindenmuth - I think programs like this are fantastic but one hypothetical question does come to mind, if these books have limited print runs, do these programs ever run the risk of NOT reaching their intended audience or NOT successfully completing their intended goals because the attached author's fans wind up buying the books?
Allan Guthrie: The way it works is that you need a WBD token to exchange for the book, and each school kid gets one. There's a one-off printing, sure, but it's a pretty massive print-run. From my own memories of working in a bookstore, there's usually surplus stock, so I don't think there's too much fear of only the fans getting hold of the books.
Brian Lindenmuth - Someone whom you sent an email to recently forwarded it to me so I assume you are referring in part to Clare Alexander’s comments, “We have the stupidest bestseller list in the world at the moment.” Hers is the most recent of a few “Tyranny of Bestsellers” pieces over the last year or so that are trying to rally against the bean counter notion of sticking with formula and more-of-the-same-branding whether its biographies of well known's, tie in fiction and ghost written celebrity tell alls.
Is this an alarmist reaction or is this a legitimate concern for everyone?
Allan Guthrie: I don't think its alarmist. My own experience as a literary agent backs this up. The most common rejection note coming my way these days is 'book x is terrific but it isn't big enough for us'. Which, translated, means something like: it'll be tough to sell 10,000 copies so we'll pass.
Naturally, other agents are receiving the same kind of responses with the result that fewer and fewer new novelists are being taken on by agencies. I should state that this is by no means universal, but it is extremely common.
Incidentally, another very common reason for passing on an otherwise excellent novel is that the author has no 'platform'. In other words, there's no publicity hook for the marketing team to latch onto. With celebrity authors, marketing is so much more straightforward -- widespread media coverage at your fingertips -- and thus very attractive to publishers.
Brian Lindenmuth - Is it a bit of a chicken and egg problem where the publishers want to publish what sells and the consumers buy what’s being published?
Allan Guthrie: Publishers want to publish what sells, of course. They always have -- they're businesses and they need to make money to survive. What's changed is that there used to be an opportunity for a writer to make their mark over a few novels (think of the slow progress towards bestsellerdom of Alexander McCall Smith, Ian Rankin, and James Ellroy). These days bestseller status is expected to come much more quickly. The short term has now taken over from the longer term view. Which strikes me as very odd.
As for consumers buying what's being published, that's very possibly true of the reader who buys their fiction at supermarkets where the choice is less important than the price. But we're leaking hardcore readers all the time. And young male readers are finding it hard to find the kind of books that might interest them. Choice (or 'range' as booksellers like to call it) is hugely important and without it, the entire industry's in trouble.
Brian Lindenmuth - With their limited print runs and limited distributions are small presses the answer? Speaking strictly as a consumer I find the lack of independent/small press stuff on the shelves to be appalling.
Allan Guthrie: Small presses perform a vital role in the industry. They're often the breeding ground for new talent. It's tragic that they're finding shelf space increasingly limited, but the chain stores tend to look to the bottom line: margin. The small presses find it hard to compete since their costs per book are much higher than larger publishers.
A case in point: when my debut novel was first published in the US, a chain store invited it to be included in a national promotion. We were all very excited until the chain store told us what discount they expected. Since the book was at the time published using POD technology (which is more expensive than traditional offset) and the level of discount demanded was staggeringly high (even I was surprised at just how high it was -- and I used to handle invoices for a chain store every working day for several years), the publisher was going to lose money on every copy sold. So the invitation was declined.
Brian Lindenmuth - Which leads me to the next question, which I was going to ask a bit later on but will do so now.
Recently there have been some 'state of the genre' conversations around the web concerning, in part, experimentation within the genre. What is your assessment of the genre today? Is it stagnant?
Allan Guthrie: There are far too many interesting writers out there to call the genre stagnant. Ask me the same question in five years, though, and we'll see how the risk-aversion policy has played out.
Brian Lindenmuth - The main character of Kill Clock is once again Pearce who first appeared in Two-Way Split, then later on in Hard Man. Hell, now that he has found Jesus and has taken care of 2 kids he is practically domesticated, what's next for him?
Allan Guthrie: Good question. I don't have an answer just yet, I'm afraid. He's definitely on (at least) a two-book hiatus. Poor guy needs to take a breather.
Brian Lindenmuth - How challenging was it to write a story where the protagonist was incapacitated (literally tied to a bench) for much of the last third or so of the book?
Allan Guthrie: In many ways, the earlier part of the book was harder to write. I prefer writing action to introspection, and the latter part of the book is much faster paced. Even when Pearce is immobilized there's plenty of action. So, no, it wasn't that much harder than normal. I think it helps that the books written from multiple viewpoints, so there's always the possibility of cutting away to another location to advance the story.
Brian Lindenmuth - All of your novels so far have a shared cast of characters. One character who is in the background in one novel may find themselves as the main character in the next. You're not the only writer to do this, Duane Swierczynski, Laura Lippman, Ken Bruen and others do it also. Is it an attempt to write a non-series series or is there some secret pact at work here?
Allan Guthrie: My intention was to have a few characters who appeared in more than one book to create some sense of a shared universe. I never really intended using Pearce so much. He was a bit of an accident. He just sort of stood there demanding attention and wouldn't move, even when I shouted at him and threatened him with violence.
Brian Lindenmuth - Your next novel is called Savage Night. I know precious little about this book but three questions immediately come to mind. Are there any familiar characters, including Pearce? Is there any relation to the classic Jim Thompson novel? And finally, the more generic, what can you tell us about it?
Allan Guthrie: Pearce isn't in it but there are a couple of cameo appearances by minor characters from previous books. There's no relation to the Jim Thompson novel, other than the fact that this novel is a psycho noir, for which Thompson was famous.
What can I tell you about the novel ... It's a bloody revenge tragedy about a couple of families whose paths cross with disastrous results. The head of one family is a haemophobic psychopathic arsonist whose son is a hit man.
The family has no idea where to draw the line -- mess with them at your peril. So when the other family dares to mess with them (and they do, big-time), the poor bastards need all the help they can get. Most of the action takes place over the course of a single evening. Six hours, I think it is. And I'm using a highly fractured chronology to tell the story. If you invite me back next year I'll tell you some more.
Brian Lindenmuth - After that the next one on deck is Slammer, a prison novel. My pet theory is that this will focus on Cooper’s time in prison, but what do I know. Anything, other then speculated release dates, you can tell us about it?
Allan Guthrie: Sorry, Brian, it's not about Cooper. It's actually about a prison officer, but I better not say too much. I haven't even finished a first draft yet and I find the changes between first and twentieth drafts tend to be extreme enough to suggest that talking about a book in advance is the best way to ensure I end up inadvertently telling a whole pack of lies.
Brian Lindenmuth - You indicated in your interview with Sandra in Spinetingler that you didn't notice the violence in Hard Man until it was pointed out to you because you were already involved in the next one, which is even more violent. Do you expect a resurgence of the "torture porn" debate? Is this debate a little stifling in terms of creativity, playing into rigid definitions of sub-genres?
Allan Guthrie: I have no idea what to expect. Hard Man hit a raw nerve with a couple of reviewers, which surprised the hell out of me, since it's my best book to date by a country mile and I foolishly imagined everybody would see that. I'm not sure if there'll be a resurgence of the torture porn debate with Savage Night. There is torture in SN (almost all novels are about torturing the protagonist in one form or another), but it's predominantly psychological and nobody seems to give a shit about that. Weirdly.
Debate isn't stifling, although it's often pointless when it's about a matter of taste. I don't think that definitions of sub-genres does anyone much good -- they're really just handy labels for marketing purposes.
Brian Lindenmuth - You edited The Best New Noir anthology which was listed on Amazon for awhile now is listed as out of stock or not available. Did it even get released at all? That was a fantastic cover.
Allan Guthrie: It was all ready to go, contracts signed, the works. Unfortunately the publisher pulled it because the advance orders didn't meet their expectations.
Brian Lindenmuth - This next question is from Patrick, who is, as you'll see, smitten with a certain somebody. - "Have you met Donna Moore? And if so, is she as cool in person as she is on her blog and in the random book chat rooms she enters?"
Allan Guthrie: Have I met Donna? Many, many times. And she's EVEN MORE WONDERFUL in real life, Patrick.
Duane Swierczynski - Ask Sunshine about how tough it is to sit down/stand up when you have hair that extends down to your ass crack.
Allan Guthrie: Swierczynski's quite insane, you know. I worry about him. I guess inserting tampons up his nose while playing his flute was some kind of cry for help. I hope it's not too late. You know he has a hamster he believes is Kevin Wignall? Sad, isn't it?
Brian Lindenmuth - So where is the Theakston keg now?
Allan Guthrie: Even though it's only a mini-barrel, it's too big to fit on the mantelpiece. So it has pride of place on the sitting room windowsill.
The following portion of the interview is presented in conjunction with Sandra Ruttan's interview with Ray Banks in the latest issue of Spinetingler. For the latest issue go here; and for the full interview with Banks go here.
Sandra: If your eternal fate was to live as a character in one of Al Guthrie’s novels which character would you want to be and why?
Ray: Hilda. Man, I'd like to be loved as much as Pearce loves that dog. The guy would die for that Dandy Dinmont.
Sandra: Is it going to be a problem if your wife reads this?
Ray: I don't see why it would. There's nothing as pure as the love between a man and his three-legged dog named after his mum. Wait, that didn't come out right . . .
Brian Lindenmuth - Since I'm from Baltimore I have to ask. If you could spend a day as one of the characters from The Wire who would it be and why?
Allan Guthrie: Omar, of course. You have to ask?
Sandra: Since we’ve been talking about Al, if he was a character on THE WIRE, who would he be and why?
Ray: You know I'm going to say Brother Mouzone. And I'm sure Al will appreciate that. He's the only person I know who could do justice to a dicky-bow. Or look that out-of-place in the projects.
Brian Lindenmuth - Omar...hmmmm interesting. So, between Duane and Ray, who would be your Brandon and who would be your Brother Mouzone?
Allan Guthrie: My Brandon would have to be a very fit lad and I don't think either Duane or Ray would be up to the job, to be honest. As for Brother Mouzone... you know, I can see Duane and Ray fighting each other at the prospect of getting to wear a bow-tie. So maybe that's the way to go. A cage fight. To the death. Two men enter, one comes out. With a bow-tie.
Sandra: If you were lube wrestling with Al Guthrie which one of you would win and why?
Ray: That's a tough one. I have the weight advantage, but he's fast. If I managed to pin him early enough, before he got too slippery, I'd win. Otherwise, I'd have to concede to Guthrie - he's got the terrier spirit and he's impossible to put down for long.
Brian Lindenmuth - Speaking of Ray: What do you think Ray's best feature is his eyes or his butt?
Allan Guthrie: His butt, definitely. Very shapely.
Sandra: What do you think Al’s best feature is, his eyes or his butt?
Ray: I'm like you girls – the most important thing to me is his sense of humour. And his massive penis.
Brian Lindenmuth - If Ray was going to perform in drag, what would his stage name be?
Allan Guthrie: As an homage: Ruth Rendell.
Sandra: If Al was going to perform in drag, what would his stage name be?
Ray: Amber Raines. I won't tell you too much about his finale, but he drinks a lot of water during the performance, and the song he sings is "Stormy Weather". In an Ethel Merman voice. Really belts it out. From both ends.
Sandra: When did you start having fantasies about mud wrestling with Ruth Rendell?
Ray: Arm-wrestling. Cage matches. Never mud wrestling. See, this is how things get out of control. And they aren't fantasies, they're legitimate invitations. She wants to come down and go over the top with me, I can arrange it. Bring it on.
Sandra: On Stuart MacBride’s blog you said, “There was nothing nude involved. A simple arm-wrestle, that's all, which Rendell seems unable to come to terms with. If she suggests a full-on jelly wrestle, I will be forthcoming. I have a hankering for the sweet, slimy feel of aspic on my guns.” http://halfhead.blogspot.com/2005/07/three-nights-of-drunken-debauchery.html
So we’ll blame Stuart for starting the nude jell-o wrestling rumour, but let’s be honest: secretly, you’d love to see her in a string bikini in a tub of gelatin, wouldn’t you? Okay, seriously, where did this whole thing start? It had to predate the Bearded Wonderboy’s blog comment. What’s the deal with you and Ruth?
Ray: It started with photos like this, this and this, that's where it started. Turns out you can't put a camera on Rendell without her treating us to a gun show. She's cold and she's violent and there's certain among us – though we voice this in hushed tones around a flickering camp fire – that believe all Rendell did was drop the G.
I also hear she eated peeled babies. Hey, it's a rumour. Don't mean it ain't true. And it don't mean I can't spread it. Just like Roger Moore and the glass coffee table.
Sandra: And if you, Al and Duane were in a boy band what would you be called?
Ray: Actually, funny you should mention that, because we were in a boy band for about a year, before it all went to shit. Called ourselves Afternoon Delight. Had one album – Stand Up For The Key Change – which Randy D-Dog Jackson produced for us when he wasn't fucking around trying to get back into Journey. Had plenty of yo, too. I mean, Randy was feelin' it. He did stuff with his hands. And a few singles – "Beer Makes You Pretty (But Not Beautiful)", "Spicy Beef Taco" and "If There's Grass On The Bitch (Let's Play)" – did well in Latvia.
But then Duane killed that hooker in Kansas City, and we couldn't go on after that. He ruined Christmas, man. I couldn't going to roll with a guy who Grinched like that. And Al . . . Well, Al was just pissed off we had to bury her.
Sandra: Authors sometimes talk about collaborating… and then there’s all the talk about innovation in the genre, and over here the pressure to self promote like crazy. I just wondered if you, Al and Duane have considered doing something more like parties for men, where you sell sex toys or porn products and limit readings to elements from the books or short stories that tie in. Al could handle the hamsters, for example. And he should really go after royalties for wearing the pussy snorkel t-shirt on panels at conventions.
Ray: You're really obsessed with Al, aren't you? What the hell are Duane and I supposed to be doing at these parties?
I'll tell you what we will be doing – standing around looking uncomfortable and silently judging everyone in the room. It's what us Catholic boys are best at.
Al: What you Catholic boys are best at is burying dead hookers. Prema-fucking-turely. I’ll never forget Kansas. It was all right for you. You had your girlfriend to keep you company on those long lonely nights in the van. What was her name again? … Cilla, that’s right. And would you let me and Duane have a shot? Nope, you’d just jeer at us, call us a pair of wankers. And then you’d laugh when you woke us up every night when you let the air out of her.
Sandra: You mean you’d waste time judging when you could get great material for a new book? I mean, I have read your short story, MONEY SHOT…
Ray: Alright – researching. And quietly judging. But not participating. Too lazy.
Brian Lindenmuth - Ok Al final question. Were Duane's children the inspiration for the children in KIll Clock?
Allan Guthrie: The truth is that some of the swearing was inspired by Duane's kids. First time I met them, his daughter -- still a toddler -- said to me, "Fuck you lookin' at, you Scottish cunt?" As she spoke, I noticed her brother's grip tightening on his chainsaw. I knew then that we'd all get on famously. But the similarities end there. Tempting thought it was to make the kids in KIll Clock run a drugs cartel from their back yard too, I didn't want to make the book too close to real life for fear of vicious reprisals.
Duane Swierczynski - It's true. To this day, whenever my daughter sees a photo of Guthrie
online, she mutters something about "that cunt" needing a "Colombian necktie."
Brian Lindenmuth - Al, thanks a lot for taking the time, I really do appreciate it. I also just wanted to say congrats, its been a hell of a year for you with two releases and also on other recent successes with the release of Dave White's When One Man Dies and the recent deal for Anthony Neal Smith, hopefully future deals will be as successful.
Allan Guthrie:My pleasure, Brian. Good questions. And you're a very generous guy.
Brian Lindenmuth - Thanks to Al Guthrie, Duane Swierczynski, Sandra Ruttan and this interviews only unwitting participant Ray Banks.
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