I recently bumped into
a debut novelist Gareth Rubin, at a party hosted by the PenguinRandomHouse
Group, during the Theakston’s Crime-Writing Festival last month.
I had read
espionage writer Adrian
Magson’s review earlier, and it intrigued me. So last week, as Rubin’s
Liberation Square came to paperback, from Penguin I grabbed a copy for the
bank-holiday reading. After penning
my review, I had a few questions which the author kindly answered and I’ll
share with Shots Readers -
Ali Karim: So firstly,
are you a reader of alternate history novels such as PKD’s The Man in the High
Castle, Robert Harris’ Fatherland or Len Deighton’s SS-GB?
Gareth Rubin: It would
be a bit weird if I weren’t, wouldn’t it? The thing is, the alt-history setting
adds something, but it’s not the whole deal. You have to have a decent storyline
in there too, or the reader loses interest. I’m not entirely convinced The Man
In The High Castle passes that test. But Dick’s dead, so he can’t complain
about me now. Screw you, Philip K Dick.
AK: So, tell us a
little about your reading, the books that made you consider writing yourself?
GR: I like to kick back
with a bit of modern gothic. Rebecca, The Name of the Rose (sure, it’s a
medieval setting, but written fairly recently and the main character is ahead
of his time), The Secret History. Maybe I’m weird, but I like the idea of
people going mad just around the corner from where we sit eating pub lunches in
the afternoon. I don’t like horror, but I like the quietly horrifying.
AK: And a little about
your foray behind the camera screen, and your journalism?
GR: Ha. I was an actor
for a few years, but my mum tells people I wasn’t great at it. She’s probably
right. I started as a journalist at the tail end of the good times, in the late
1990s, before the bottom fell out of the market and people starting getting
their information about the world from utterly untrue blogs (God, I don’t want
to give them any publicity, but some of your friends probably share their
content on social media). It’s frightening that there are people out there who
believe some of the dross on the internet and base their voting decisions on
it. I still work as a journalist from time to time, when I find something that
interests me – social affairs – and a newspaper not run on a shoestring or
ultimately owned by an odd couple of a dodgy Russian oligarch and a
psychopathic Saudi prince (that’s the Independent, in case I wasn’t being
clear).
AK: Prior to Liberation
Square, had you written fiction prior and tell us a little about those words?
GR: Like most authors,
I’ve got a couple of dreadful failed novels stored in the recesses of my
laptop. They will never see the light of day so long as I live. On the other
hand, before Liberation Square I wrote a mystery set during the French
revolution that I might now rewrite and publish. I like it. A priest is
crucified.
AK: And back to your
day job; is journalism (especially freelance) as precarious as it appears?
GR: I will write for
food. No, seriously. I will.
AK: How fully-formed
did the concept of Liberation Square’s alternate history come to you, did you
have to plot much before writing or did you find the story during the process
of writing it?
GR: I’m awful at
planning. Some authors plot it out intricately and know exactly what will
happen before they type a word. I wish I could do that. I usually have an
opening image – not a scene, but an image – and perhaps a mid-point and ending.
I just have to sit down and see where the writing takes me because I only get
ideas as I’m writing. I’ve tried planning it out, but I immediately go off at
tangents and throw away the planning notes. It means I take a lot longer for a
book than I should.
AK: Tell us about
character. How well did you get to ‘know’ Jane, Nick, Frank and Hazel, among
others?
GR: Hmmm, interesting
question. I remember at university – I read English literature - one of my
tutors warning about being taken in by the romantic myth that the characters
exist off the page, in their own world. They don’t. The author creates them in
entirety and they only exist in the words you write. I’m a bit suspicious of
authors who say: ‘My hero wants to do X, I can’t control him!’ Bollocks. You
want him to do that. So write it or don’t write it, but don’t pretend he lives
separately from your novel.
That said, I’ve spoken
to a couple of reading groups and one group said: ‘We feel really sorry for
Hazel, she’s lost her mum and all she does is get sent to her room to keep
quiet.’ Sorry Hazel.
AK: I take it you have
read Eric Arthur Blair [George Orwell] as I felt his shadow at times during the
reading?
GR: Aye. Sad to say, I
don’t think I’ll ever create anything as good as Animal Farm. Orwell is the man to go to when it comes to
the critical reality of far-left politics and its apologists. Don’t read Das
Kapital, kids, read 1984.
Orwell was also an old
Observer hack (I work at the Observer). In fact, so was Kim Philby, who also
appears in Liberation Square. He was our Middle East correspondent when he was
outed as a spy. We have a strong line in dead socialists.
AK: As a debut
novelist, what advice would you give those doing the ‘clickety clack’?
GR: It still feels
weird calling myself a novelist. It sounds like a fantasy
profession. I suppose
it is, in a way. What advice? Well, I say you do it by doing it. Sit down at your
computer and write a word. Then write another one. And keep going. It’s much
easier than it sounds.
AK: So, what’s next?
GR: My next novel is
The Winter Agent, out in May next year. It’s about British agents in Paris just
before D-Day. It’s inspired by a true – and, in some ways, tragic – story,
critical to the success of the invasion in a way no one could possibly have
guessed. Britain’s Special Operations Executive agents during the War were
among the bravest men and women who ever lived.
I’ve dedicated the book
to my grandfathers, who both landed in Normandy on D-Day. This year I went with
my dad to the beach where his father came ashore 75 years ago; he was in the
Pioneers. We saw the stretch of sand. It was incongruously quiet and peaceful.
My grandfathers both survived the War, so many didn’t.
AK: Thank you for your
time, and we look forward to seeing what’s coming from your imagination and
your pen.
GR: Any time.
More information
available from the links below
Shots Magazine Review Hard
Cover HERE
and Paperback HERE
Gareth Rubin’s website HERE
Gareth Rubin on Twitter
HERE
