As an already
established author, what made you change both your name and genre of writing (Alex has previously written under her real name of Serena Mackesy)?
Publishing’s a
funny old game. I guess I’m a bit of a cross-genre writer, in that I’ve always
been interested in women and the things that affect them, but I’ve always –
even in my first novel – been a bit crimey, because women are, in fact,
affected by crime in many ways beyond being shallow objects tortured by
fictional serial killers for the reader’s gratification.
Anyway, back in
1999, when The Temp, my first novel
came out, was the height of Bridget Jones
fever, and everyone was scrabbling about to find ‘the next BJ’. Sadly, a lot of
people had mistaken BJ for fluff, rather than the sharp, intelligent satire it
is, so they’d decided that all woman writers had to be packaged like fluff to
ride the wave, Now there are many, many what one would loosely call chick-lit
authors whose skill and emotional incisiveness I really admire – Lisa Jewell,
Chris Manby, Jenny Colgan, Jojo Moyes, Rowan Coleman for starters – but my
books really didn’t thrive, packaged like that. So rather than change what I
do, I basically decided to change my name. So I’m in the interesting position
of having been a debut bestselling author twice, now. I wouldn’t even bat an
eye about doing it again. I want to make a living, not be recognised at
parties.
Do you use your
experience of journalism in your crime writing?
Of course. It’s
inevitable. I spent 15 years of my life in and around newspapers, and I can’t
help thinking like a journalist. I’m always looking for the angle, wondering if
there are links between seemingly unrelated things, trying to hunt down the
‘real’ story. Journalists get a lot of things wrong, but they also get a huge
amount right. But of course, the nature of news is that it’s always the bad
things that make the headlines!
The Wicked
Girls is one of my favourite crime reads.
It reminded me of the James Bulger trial. Is there a connection to that story and yours?
Of course. You
couldn’t write a British book about child murderers without thinking about that
case. Certainly, a factor in how The
Wicked Girls came out was the fact
that, as I was thinking about how to write the book, I received one of those
round-robin emails that often come from people one would have thought knew
better, demanding Thompson and Venables’s permanent incarceration/ lynching.
I’m not saying that there is a redeeming feature about this case, or
denigrating the Bulger family’s appalling distress, but they were 10 years old,
for God’s sake. Ten-year-olds may well have a strong sense of right and wrong,
but their understanding of possible consequences of their actions is a lot more
iffy. I did want to get that across, raise the subject for discussion.
Any advice to
anyone dreaming of becoming an author?
Strap your armour
on: this is one of the toughest ways to make a living, in terms of parlous
income and blows to the self-esteem, and you might as well get used to that as
quickly as you can. Read, read, read, read, read. Re-read things that have affected
you, so you can see how it was done. Go through your manuscript and delete
90% of your adverbs. Don’t sabotage
yourself by thinking that people will overlook your spelling and grammar
because your story’s so brilliant.
Where do you
get your writing inspiration from?
Oh, everywhere.
Things I read, things I see, people I talk to, memory, nightmares. Writers
never truly switch off. As a journalist, the most common phrase out of my mouth
was ‘ooh, there’s a piece/column in that’. As a novelist, I guess it’s ‘ooh, I
wonder what happened next?’.
What are you
working on next?
I can’t talk about
it much, as it’s in early stages and I don’t really know where it’s going to
go. But it’s about family secrets, family lies and a long-past death that still
colours the narrator’s life every day. The working title is Hide and Seek, but I’m sure my editor
will come up with something better!
If, heaven
forbid, there was a fire, what possession would you grab first to save?
Oh, gosh now
there’s the Cloud, I don’t have to grab my laptop any more! Probably the cat, though he has a catflap and can
probably look after himself. Oh, I know – my asthma inhaler.
What five
people, living or dead, would you choose to invite to a dinner party?
Stephen King –
partly because I totally owe him one after he championed both The Wicked Girls and The Killer Next Door, but mostly because
he is, and always has been, my writing hero.
Dr John Stonehouse
– one of the dearest friends of my life, who died suddenly of cerebral malaria
about five years ago, He was the most intelligent, and the most interesting,
person I have ever met. He was an entomologist, and we made friends at a dinner
party when he produced a handful of red kidney beans from his pocket and spent
half an hour talking me through the differences between each one. I’ve never
met anyone before or since who can make red kidney beans interesting. I still
miss him, every day.
Rebecca Chance –
bonkbuster novelist, feminist and glamorous loudmouth. Because there’s never a
dull moment when she’s in the room.
Dorothy Parker –
she may have been a tragic old drunk, but by god she could make a party go with a swing.
George Eliot –
because I love her novels, because she was one of the great advancers of
women’s rights by walking the walk, because she lived a life that completely
disregarded the straitlaced mores of the time, and because, if you tried to
patronise her, she would go completely Casaubon on your arse.
Alex's new novel, The Killer Next Door, comes out as a paperback
in the UK in June and the US in late October. Stephen King called it ‘scary as
hell’. No, he really did! Alex was dizzy for days!
Happy Reading
Miss Chapter x
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