A-Z Blogging Challenge: G if for Genre

My theme: Writing and the Business of Writing

Before I started taking my writing seriously, I was almost allergic to the word genre. For one it just seemed so pretentious somehow; it was a word used by Melvyn Bragg on the South Bank Show, not a word an ordinary person who loves books would ever utter. I mean, how often do you go into a bookshop and say, 'The genre I'm particularly interested in is…' OK, as a former bookseller, I know there are people who'd say just that, but I hope you know what I mean?

During my MA in Creative Writing, however, I became aware that genre was something I needed to take seriously. During my first tutorial, I was asked what my genre is. The tutor must have noticed my panic because she said, 'Who's the writer you most love and wish to emulate?'

At the time I was obsessed with Ian McEwan and William Boyd. The tutor gave a lopsided grin. 'Ah, literary fiction.'  I was glad I'd at last found what my aspirational genre was, but was a little puzzled by the tutor's reaction.

It was much, much later when I discovered, that:
a) Literary fiction is the most respected and high-brow of any literary genre
b) It's the most difficult genre
c) It's a genre you have to earn like a badge of honour
d) All authors considered part of this literary fiction genre were at the time (and still largely are) men. (More about women v men in the publishing industry under another letter).

I have since written several books which, if you ignore the literary fiction genre, could be classed as:

1. Romance (The Englishman) 

2. Family saga (Coffee and Vodka)

3. Spy thriller (The Red King of Helsinki)

To have written books in several genres poses many problems for a writer (unless you're of the William Boyd or Ian McEwan ilk, when whatever you write is literary fiction).

First of all, if you do wish to seek representation with an agent, he or she will want to know your writing genre. Same with a publisher.

It's also universally acknowledged that readers prefer authors to keep to one genre only. Readers, according to the publishing industry gurus, want to read the same book (only slightly modified) over and over again. I would strongly refute this, but at the same time, anyone who knows anything about marketing knows that, while building a brand, it's difficult to sell products which fall into totally different categories.

So, with all this in mind, the next big question I should ask myself is not which of the 3 or 4 half-finished manuscripts I should complete, but which of the above three genres I should concentrate on?

And you thought all a writer needs to do is put pen to paper…

William Boyd and a new James Bond book

William Boyd - picture from BBC.co.uk

I heard some brilliant news on the radio this morning. One of my very favourite writers, William Boyd, is going to write a new Bond book. I loved his latest novel, Waiting for Sunrise (my review is here), and although I'm very much looking forward to the new book, it got me thinking about the recent rush of well-known writers who've written sequels to famous novels, or who are writing novels using a well-known character.

The grand dame of crime, PD James, wrote a sequel to Jane Austin's Pride and Prejudice, Death Comes to Pemberley, last year. Just a month before that, in October 2011, the hugely popular children's writer, Anthony Horowitz, came out with a new Sherlock Holmes book, The House of Silk. Both books did very well on the best seller lists, as did the previously produced Bond book by Sebastian Faulks, Devil May Care. So you might say William Boyd is onto a good thing...

But, but.

None of the above writers need publicity, nor (one would hope) are they in the business of writing something just for the money (or I may just be naive).

So why do it? Why take a well-known character and write a story for him/her? Have these prolific writers run out of ideas?

In the case of PD James, who at 91 surely now does exactly what she wants rather than what is asked of her, writing a sequel to Pride and Prejudice had been a life-long ambition. This showed in her excellent book, which in the foreword has a posthumous apology to Austen, who herself had said that if she felt Pride and Prejudice needed a sequel she would have written it. So a task and half, then, to write a sequel against the original creator's wishes.

When interviewed this morning, William Boyd said that he was honoured to be asked by the estate of Ian Fleming to write a new Bond book. He was introduced to the glamorous spy by his father and having read the books, loved them all. Boyd has even included Ian Fleming as a character in one of his own books, Any Human Heart. When asked if it would be 'like wearing a straightjacket' to have to write in a specific genre and style, Boyd said, 'No'. He added that it was rather as if another writer had given him permission to play with his toys.

And there, in once sentence, Boyd explained to me why so many writers have a fascination with famous characters. What I would see as a writing exercise (if you've ever taken a course in creative writing at some stage the tutor will get you to copy another writer's style), Boyd and perhaps the others, view it as an adventure in writing.

Whatever the case, I cannot wait to read the new Bond book, which according to Boyd will be set in 1969, and will be an old-fashioned spy thriller. If that doesn't whet the appetite of any James Bond fan, I don't know what will.

Waiting for Sunrise by William Boyd

The only negative about a new William Boyd book is that it takes no time at all to read and then you have another two years or so to wait for another one.

Waiting for Sunrise, which took me about a week to consume, is vintage Boyd and doesn't disappoint. It's a thrilling spy thriller with a human story, which starts in Vienna before the outbreak of the First World War in late 1913, and ends in London about two years later.

The main protagonist is a handsome actor, Lysander Rief, who decides to go to Vienna to seek a cure for a complaint which is preventing him from marrying his actress fiance, Blanche. But as the weeks turn into months, the young Englishman gets entangled in much more than The River of Sex, which one of his newly found friends at the guest house tells him runs below the surface of the respectable Viennese society; or parallelism, the cure his doctor has prescribed to Lysander.

Having escaped back to London, in 1914 as war breaks out Lysander, in a moment of madness, enlists and briefly becomes a private in the army. He serves at an interment camp near Swansea, where the army makes use of his German language skills. But he's soon transferred to another department for some more interesting duties, a dangerous commission he is unable to refuse.

With his new duties, Lysander Rief's life becomes increasingly unpredictable and dangerous. He feels like a puppet controlled by strings, held by unknown people. He's sent to Geneva on a mission, and barely surviving it, begins to mistrust everyone around him.

As the story weaves between Vienna, Geneva and London, the reader, just as Lysander, is unsure who's speaking the truth and who's lying. Who is sincere and who is acting. 'We all act all the time', Blanche says at one point.

In spite of its impeccable credentials as a fast moving, well plotted spy thriller, Boyd's latest novel is also a study into the human condition. (He just can't help himself) At the very beginning of the book Lysander consults a psychiatrist; as a result throughout the book he reflects on his own emotions through a diary he has titled, 'Autobiographical Investigations'. This is a very fine tool for a writer - as well as telling the story from a third person point of view, Boyd is also able to let his reader into the innermost thoughts of the protagonist, without it seeming forced. The diary also makes the frequent sex scenes more realistic than a third person narrative would have done. Brilliant.

Another of William Boyd's many talents as a writer lies in his ability to immerse the reader into the world he has created so completely, that the world outside - the real world the readers resides in - doesn't seem to matter. He takes you into a turn-of-the-century cesspit of espionage. He places his protagonist in unreal, wonderful situations with - say - a femme fatale, or a passionate madwoman. He eggs the reader on, not letting you rest until the story is finished.

Boyd's characters in Waiting for Sunrise are so skilfully drawn, that you feel as if you've lost a couple of friends, few enemies and several unpleasant acquaintances when the book comes to an end.

Yes, I'm in mourning for the world in Waiting for Sunrise. Let's hope Boyd is working hard on a new story...

Waiting for Sunrise by William Boyd
Published in London by Bloomsbury, £18.99 (Hardback) & £7.69 (Kindle version)

Today's Hangover Square

I've just finished reading Hangover Square by Patrick Hamilton. While I don't want to say too much about the book before we discuss the novel at next Tuesday's WEL Book Group, I think it's a remarkable novel set in a remarkable time. London in 1939, the weeks and days before the declaration of war, sets the tone of the novel in a way no other era could ever do.

Or could it?

Aren't we ourselves going through a quite a remarkable age? From the fast developing digital world, to global warming, international terrorism, last year's MP's expenses debacle, a UK election resulting in a historic coalition government, banking crisis, the recession and today's Euro crisis and the phone hacking scandal, the world and its values are changing in front of our eyes.

So which literary works of today reflect this changing world?

A quick look at the best-seller lists reveals an appetite in the UK for Nordic crime fiction, historical novels, the paranormal and romance. Don't get me wrong, I'm the first one to admit to a passion of all of these genres, but it's strange that so little of today's fiction deals with today's 'real' issues.

Justin Cartwright's Other People's Money recounts the demise of a private banking dynasty. He jutaboxes money versus art in an enjoyable way. It's an enjoyable novel, but I'm not sure it's by far dark enough to match Hangover Square.

Ian McEwan's Saturday and Solar both deal with characters who struggle with today's issues and moral values, while William Boyd too writes in Ordinary Thunderstorms about today's society and its challenges to a man who suddenly finds himself at the  margins of modern life. Again, all three books are fairly tame tales. Where is the punch, the grit?

In The Road Home, Rose Tremain comes somewhere close to describing how some-one at the margins of society might feel. Writing a story from the point of view of a Polish immigrant, who has nothing, while all around him people of London seem to be living the life of utter luxury, comes very close to the Hangover Square territory in its social observation. Still, this novel is so utterly politically correct - which Patrick Hamilton certainly couldn't be accused of being - that it loses its force as a mirror to the underclass of our time.

The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas portrays a society so cocooned that a simple event - a man slapping someone else's child (a toddler) - brings it to near breaking point. There's grit here, as well as violence and sex. Many who've read this book feel it's all gratuitous, however.

Room by Emma Donoghue in its way deals with today's issues; the abduction of a young girl turned mother. There's tension, grit and a gripping literary vehicle: we see the world through the eyes of a child who's been kept captive the whole of his short life.

The London Train by Tessa Hadley fails on the grit front, but it does write about ordinary (albeit middle-class) people dealing with extraordinary events. During her reading at England's Lane Books, Tessa remarked on today's lack of authors willing to write about modern life.

So why are we in the UK so in love with crime set in a another country, or novels set in another time? Is it because writing about the past, or reading about bad things happening somewhere else, is easier? I'm not sure, but like Tessa Hadley I'd love the great authors of today to deal with the modern world - and its obvious shortcomings - in a creative and inspirational way.