This interview was conducted by Kevin Patrick Mahoney in the Summer of 2000.
KPM:
In your latest novel, Kay has the opportunity to leave the boredom of
his childhood home and to visit the magical city of Calabash. What was the town that you grew up in
like? Did you also feel the need
to escape and how did you do so?
Christopher Fowler:
I grew
up in Greenwich, a great part of London that was destroyed by town planners and
tourism. I lived in the local library (East Greenwich), which now stands under
a motorway and is barely used.
KPM:
Kay has a champion of sorts in Ruth Hill, who he never really listens
to. Did you come across such a
teacher or mentor when you reached a similar crossroads in life?
Christopher Fowler:
Unfortunately,
no. Academically, I explored my own territories without a map, so to speak.
Later I met a producer who taught me to have confidence in myself. It’s why I
started writing short stories; they only require small steps of confidence.
KPM:
When I worked in a bookshop, I always thought that the covers of your
novels were very distinctive. They
seemed to draw other readers to them also. I believe that you design the covers yourself. How did this come about?
Christopher Fowler:
I have an art studio, and the art directors were appalled
by the general state of book jackets in the UK. The publishers allowed me to
experiment but their own art directors were highly territorial and obstructive,
and did not help me to understand the requirements of the market, so we made
quite a few mistakes at first.
KPM:
Which writers originally inspired you and why?
Christopher Fowler:
A full list would take forever. JG Ballard dominates,
Dickens, Woolf, Forster, Waugh, Wodehouse, Priest, Levin, short stories from
John Collier, Tennessee Williams, HH Munroe and MR James as well as many
others. Also, underrated playwrights, like Bennett, Barnes, Hare etc.
KPM:
Kay watches horror films with a quite unappreciative companion in
Calabash. If you have the choice
of reading a modern novel or seeing a newly released film, which one do you
usually go for and why?
Christopher Fowler:
I have
to say I’d usually go for the book, because films are better shared, and it
takes time to organise the right person to see it with. A book is a private
transaction between reader and author.
KPM:
Say you’ve been given 60 million dollars by a Hollywood producer to
direct your first film. Which
project would you choose and why?
Christopher Fowler:
As
someone who has been stranded on a good many film sets, nothing on earth would
make me want to direct a film. Good directors are supremely organised. They do
not improvise. They plan so carefully that there are few out-takes, few
‘alternative’ scenes. They command and control everything from crews to their
own bladders. It’s a nightmare that only a very driven person would attempt.
KPM:
I suppose it must be very difficult to work in the British film industry
as you do and not feel a little cynical.
There’s certainly quite a lot of delicious ‘stuff’ on the Creative
Partnership webpage. Did you write
this? In what ways has the
Creative Partnership specifically set out to be innovative, to excite British
audiences with new films?
Christopher Fowler:
Yes, I did the ‘stuff’. The Creative Partnership does not
take prisoners. We are scrupulously honest because honesty is our touchstone;
if you lose that, you have nothing by which others measure us in the business.
We were the first people to use modern marketing techniques to sell films, are
remain the largest company in Europe to do so.
KPM:
You’ve written Soho Black, and the Creative Partnership webpage
explicitly compares film marketing with prostitution. There’s a lot of obvious sleaze in Soho with the
sex trade, but practically every English novel I’ve read this has presented a
more glamorous picture, with lots of chic media types dining in chic
restaurants. How did these two
worlds collide?
Christopher Fowler:
The two worlds exist side by side in Soho, and the
friction between them makes for new ideas. The sheer volume of creative people
squeezed into a square mile makes it glamorous. The number of rip-off artists
it draws in mitigates that factor. Outside diners pay forty pounds a head to
eat in the exhaust fumes of garbage trucks - the gutter and the glitter!
KPM:
In your view, how does the Soho film world compare with that of
Hollywood?
Christopher Fowler:
It doesn’t. Hollywood is a box of tricks for children.
America makes adolescent wish-fulfillment films. Europe is generally too
intense. We make low-budget stuff that’s obsessed with toilet humour and
laddism. This wasn’t always the case; look at British films of the late
sixties.
KPM:
Mostly your novels seem to be placed in the moribund horror section in
bookshops. With Calabash, you’ve
made a determined effort to rebuke this categorisation. How would you define yourself as a
writer? Does this vary from book
to book?
Christopher Fowler:
I was defined by my publishers, because as far as they
were concerned, I fell between genre stools, not literary enough for the ‘Snow
Falling On Cedars’ crowd, not thrillerish enough just to stick in airports. I
am wearied by the fact that I remain in provincial (and some city) horror
shelves, but all I can do about it is keep on writing (or maybe write under a
pseudonym!)
KPM: I think the most enduring image I’ve had of
your work so far is walking down Charing Cross Road and seeing the cover for
Soho Black feature prominently in bookshop windows at the time of its
release. What’s been your
favourite moment in either your fiction or film work?
Christopher Fowler: I
loved making the cinema commercial for ‘Roofworld’ because it felt like a
visual version of the book, a missing scene brought to life. I also got to see
how my ideas would work in practical terms.
KPM: I’ve also come across your work in the small
press, where you seem to play both a leadership and nurturing role for new
writers. Who are the most exciting
authors that you have discovered in this way?
Christopher Fowler:
I’m glad to have played a part in bringing Joanne Harris
to an audience (although she had already written a wonderful genre novel,
‘Sleep Pale Sister’) and I love the virtually unread Ian R MacLeod, whose only
novel (but what a novel!) is US published and out-of-print. Stephen Jones
publishes his wonderful short fiction here.
KPM:
What you think of the current horror market? Why does it seem to be so much more successful in America?
Christopher Fowler:
America has realised that horror can function as a kind
of teenage halfway house (think ‘Buffy, the Vampire Slayer’) I think many of
the old ideas are as outmoded as cowboy films and musicals. They need to be
reinvented, but in doing so that means taking in other aspects of modern life,
escaping ‘pure’ horror, which can no longer exist today.
KPM: What does the immediate future hold for
Christopher Fowler?
Christopher Fowler:
Next up, a collection of new short stories called ‘The
Devil In Me’, another novel entitled ‘Homeland’ - and a surprise.
Calabash – read
Kevin Patrick Mahoney’s review
