I remember reading a lot of Enid Blyton as a child. The Famous Five were my favourite, more so than the Secret Seven. I remember an island and a dank tunnel. I also a remember a tip for keeping milk cool – put it in a stream. And of course lashings of ginger beer. In my teenage years I went through a Stephen King phase and like many I found Catcher in the Rye compelling. I remember also reading a lot of anti-Apartheid literature, like A Dry White Season and Cry, The Beloved Country.
Would you say your childhood and teenage reading has had a distinct influence on how you write fiction now, and why?
My first novel was published when I was 38, which is rather a long time after I was a teenager. As a child I loved books and reading and indeed writing. That passion has stayed with me into adulthood and was behind me starting to write seriously in my late twenties. It was that that is behind why I write now, rather than the particular type of reading that I did, as least as far as my conscious mind is aware. As a university student I started to read the sorts of things that I now consider to have influenced my style and thinking in some way, however peripheral.
What did you do before you became a published novelist, and how did you come to write your first novel and get it published?
For me, and I think most first-time novelists are the same, there is no before and after. I had a full-time job when my first novel got published. I have the same job now and no plans to give it up. For most writers getting a novel published is not a ticket to riches and is often not a ticket to a living wage, at least not initially. No one should be writing for the money, unless of course you are adept at producing hugely popular fiction!
I started writing a novel as a conscious decision. I decided that though I had written a few short stories I needed to do something “serious”. The idea for the novel actually came out of one of those stories – one about a man living in a cave who one day spies a stranger approaching from across the desert floor. I did not write very regularly at first and there was even a gap of about a year when I wrote nothing at all. However, the love of it never went away and I got more serious about it from about the age of 30. When I “finished” the novel I didn’t really expect all the hard work still to come. I got hold of a copy of Writers and Artists yearbook and started sending the manuscript off to agents. I would send them in batches of 4 about a month apart. After contacting about 16 and receiving about 8 rejection letters I got one asking to see the rest of the manuscript. I worked with the agent for what turned out to be around 2 years before I had a manuscript fit to be sent to publishers. It was that process that really brought home the fact that a novel (for me at least) is not going to be finished after the first or second draft. It needs a long period of rewriting and redrafting to hone it into shape. It is hard work. I eventually found a publisher in my native country of South Africa and from there publishers (at the time of writing) in the UK and Germany. The day I found out I would in all likelihood get published was the same day my daughter was born. A special day.
How would you describe your style of fiction or your approach to writing fiction?
Having published just one novel I’m not sure I would say that I have a style yet. The prose style of the first novel though might be described using words such as sparse and spare – I try and make every word count. The story itself is allegorical and (I hope) with a brooding intensity.
Is your first published novel standalone or part of a series, and what advantages or disadvantages does this present for you?
It is standalone. The advantage is I can do something different and not be typecast. I can do different things as a novelist still developing my craft.
Have you found writing your second novel easier or more challenging than writing your first novel and why?
I am hopeful that my second novel will not take as long as my first. I am lucky in that I feel that with even twenty minutes I can get something written and my writing philosophy is very much along the lines of “writing anything is good, not writing is bad.” I’m currently doing a lot of my writing on the train into work. With a second novel there is the pressure to not be a “one-hit-wonder”. I have found that while I was writing the first because of a love of writing, with the second the love is still there but has been joined by a pressure to deliver. But when the latter starts to overwhelm the former I remind myself why I’m doing this in the first place: I write because I enjoy creating worlds and telling stories. That’s all that matters.
Who is another novelist whose fiction writing you admire and why?
JM Coetzee is brilliant and I like to think influential on my own writing. The seeming simplicity of his language belies great evocative power. He has written some of the most beautiful passages in modern literature. The closing pages of Age of Iron, for instance, are superb.
How would you summarise your debut novel in one paragraph?
Bran, the ex-dictator of one of the last two remaining human settlements, lives alone in exile on an island counting the days he has left to live. His routine is broken when he sees a body washed up on shore, a man he comes to recognize as his one-time bitter enemy and leader of the other faction. He recognizes the danger this event may portend for his people and decides to return, risking death. Upon arriving, he reveals another purpose: he has come to seek redemption and forgiveness for the terrible acts for which he was exiled. However his reception at the settlement is baffling. No one claims to recognize or remember him and evidence of his rule has been wiped out. Bran tries to find out the truth of what has happened and in doing so obtain the redemption that he cannot live without, but the sinister town seems to want to hide its secrets. His reception is so unexpected, so mystifying that he casts about unsure of what is real and what imaginary. Only the friendship of a child anchors him as he retraces the terrible deeds for which he is answerable, and as he tries to reach back, over his biggest betrayal, to the one he loved.
How would you describe the appeal of this novel to readers?
Readers who like a mystery and a puzzle will enjoy Wall of Days. The novel deliberately poses more questions than it answers and readers who like being challenged by what they read will enjoy the novel.
How would you summarise a chapter from your debut novel in one paragraph?
The first chapter is probably the one I spent most time on. It needs to capture the attention straight away and deliver the reader straight into the atmosphere and action of the novel. In the first chapter of Wall of Days, the main character’s island home and way of life is described. Straight away it introduces a tension between what the narrator says of his life there and the reality of the situation. In other words, the character’s status as an unreliable narrator is hinted at in the first few pages. After describing the island and his way of life the chapter has the narrator discover a coat washed up on shore. Since nothing has washed up for years this discovery introduces tension and the possibility that he may not be alone.
How would you describe the contribution this chapter makes to the novel?
Is the first chapter not always the most important? If the reader is not hooked within the first few pages they will more than likely never be hooked. The first chapter in Wall of Days is, I hope, successful in introducing a rather complex character as well as a sense of mystery and disquiet.
Author website: www.wallofdays.com
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