Sam Smith and Erik Ryman Have A Quick Chat

We thought for our second AttA interview, that we'd get a couple of grumpy old men, to counteract the fragrant sweetness of the first installment, the man of letters Sam Smith talking to the man of sorts Erik Ryman...


Sam Smith: When, Erik, did you decide that being a serial killer wasn't for you?

Erik Ryman: I think it was probably the same time that I realised that I was quite squeamish and that even the mention of 'blood' or 'needles' or 'ligatures' makes me feel faint. Obviously, it was quite a disappointment - you build these ambitions in your mind for years, after all - but I threw myself into women's clothes instead and haven't really looked back

How about you, any homicidal tendencies?

SS: Homicidal urges rather than tendencies. Naturally I wanted to cause Blair and Brown substantial amounts of pain - just so they'd come some way to experiencing the reality of what they have caused by their slavish following of Bush, Cheyney, Wolfovitz et al in their aggressive foreign policies. But then, having renditioned them into a bloody mass, I realised that I would, of course, be as them. Bit like the infantile Israel/Palestine reprisal for reprisal state of affairs. So I talked myself into nullity once again.
What I would really liked to have done - violently - would have been to get in the ring with that poser Norman Mailer. But he done and went and got old and feeble and then inconsiderately died before I carried enough literary weight to have been a contender for the title of pugilistic bullshitter. Oh how I would have liked to take a pop at him....
Sorry the old fantasy reasserted itself.
You fantasised about removing any literary scalps?

ER: I must admit I've always had a desire to give Salman Rushdie a bit of a kicking, mainly due to the days of my life I've wasted on reading his books. Though I'm hardly alone in that. Then there is Enid Blyton, of course, for the Mr Pinkwhistle books which I spent many years believing to be true. And if I'm totally honest, all of the writers who are better than me, which is far too big a number to comprehend.

And includes you for 'End of Science Fiction' and 'Rooms & Dialogues' to name just two, so OUTSIDE SMITH. LET'S BE 'AVING YOU.

SS: Sorry, Erik, wouldn't do my street cred any good to be seen tussling with a man who wears frocks. You'll just have to bite back your anger.
Must admit I never had a credibility problem with Enid Blyton: Noddy just wouldn't have found a place, even as victim, in any scabby-kneed gang of mine. But I agree with you about the Salman waste of time. One of those writers I define as too-clever-by-half. By which I mean that - if we say that all literature is a collaboration twixt writer and reader - then, rather than collaborate with their readers, academics like Salman simply write to impress. And yet very little that they write seems to stick. Quote me one memorable sentence by Salman. In fact we could update the Simon Said game,,,, Salman said... oh, I forget.
But it wasn't that I despised Mailer for his writing, nor for his political activism, but for that peculiarly American macho-posturing. Like Hemingway being chased by some bullocks through Pamplona. Plain silly. Gore Vidal's Myra Breckenridge[sic] is more my kind of American hero. And I just loved James Baldwin. The imagination of the man, given his sexuality, nationality and colour, to have written Giovanni's Room.... Now there was a writer who collaborated with his reader.
You have said who didn't inspire you. Who would you say was the writer you would have liked to have been? Or The Book that you would have liked to have written?

ER: No, I understand what you mean about Mailer and Hemingway, and I love Vidal's American series books - think I learned more about America from them than anything. Especially as I read them at the same time as 'On The Road' and all those Steinbeck books.

Writers who inspire? Obvious ones are Kafka and oddly Camus, Orwell I love because it is about ideas rather than art - simple clear writing, but so much to think about. More recently, I kind of 'found' Murakami and Andrey Kurkov, both of whom make me laugh for different reasons. And ifI had to pick one book I wish I'd written, it would have to be 'House of Leaves' by Mark Z. Danielewski. He isn't exactly a writer than collaborates, but sometimes it is nice to be led or puzzled. A lot of times it is poets or film makers or music as much as other books and writers that set me off on something. God's Game was all about chaos theory and Jean Renoir's films, Doctor Mooze came from listening to Linkin Park on MTV. How about you though. Your work is so varied it is hard to pigeon-hole you. How can you go from Apostrophe Combe to Rooms & Dialogues, or End of... to Friar Otto? Are you a writer or a poet at heart?

SS: Content dictates both form & genre. As in your tsetsefly chronicles and Dr Mooze. In tstsefly you employed a psychotic's scrawl, while Doctor Mooze purported to be a blog. And like your bad self - I assume - I no longer see myself as The Writer but as a conduit for my writing. In other words the writing is more important than myself as author. But unlike you I stick to my own name for all my writing - being a Smith it's as good anyway as being anonymous.
Even with poetry I always, even if it doesn't work out, look to making a book of the poems. Canoe ended up as a chapbook, but the one I'm working on now - Scenes from a Country Life - has almost reached the - unedited - 200 page mark. And where Friar Otto could only be written in epistolary fashion, my next historical - the as yet unpublished Friendship of Dagda and Tinker Howth - could only be written with myself as author very much present within the Elizabethan tale. My next Skrev collection, An Atheist's Alphabetical Approach to Death, has a different format again. While the novel I'm working on at the moment, Something's Wrong, purports to be transcripts of recordings made by someone diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic.

Given our attraction to the odd and the outsider, and given your reading and viewing material, I'll make another assumption - that the intent of both our writing is to cause disquiet, to discomfit, to have the reader look again, to reconsider... Am I right?

ER: Content dictating the form is probably true, though I hadn't thought about that too much. Certainly with tsetsefly & Mooze I made a big effort to write them very quickly and in the first. Without sounding a total twat, I guess they were both about getting into a persona and living it almost in real time. Method writing. Most of tsetsefly is true in a way though, and the fact it was published printed in hand-written capitals was due to me writing it by hand in capitals in crayon in the first place. I wanted the book to catch that violence and madness... Scariest thing about it was how easily it came of course. I haven't brought myself to read it since.

Yes, I think making people think at least twice is important to me. I tend to write in riddles and layer it up to the hilt and if it can make people worry a little bit here and there or feel uncomfortable, all the better. The same with using different pen-names - people keep talking about authors being brands, but I've always liked the whole idea of the author being a character in their own right. So Panton di Villa and Erik Ryman appear in their own books, but equally are the author and have their own space, outside of the covers. Author and book are really all part of the same story, so how the books are promoted is as much a part of the real story as Panton's diary or Ryman's letters to God. I like that side of things, messing with the natural order, just hope nobody mistakes it for Martin Amis ego...

You certainly make me feel lazy - I have only just finished something - Doggone - for the first time in about five years, and then it is a novella. Though I added some side-notes to the Nenko Joretsu 'TM' book, which I hate to admit were somewhat inspired by the reading notes in Rooms & Dialogues. Nothing to match the hummingbird line though.

Somethings Wrong and The Atheists Alphabet sound interesting, I'll look forward to reading them, and I am going to get a copy of Canoe - I saw that last week on the Erbacce site..

Is Corkish as barking as he seems? Maybe I should chase him up, see if he wants to publish a novella...

SS: With an ego that size no-one else could be mistaken for Martin son-of-Kingsley Amis, a man risen to such giddy heights on his talent alone. At the polar opposite end of the political spectrum, you have a man of true principle, Alan Corkish. A writer who also knows how to write a readable review. I'll send you a copy of the latest Journal, just for his review. As to whether erbacce would entertain your novella.... one never knows until one tries.

I think that's about it. You're not a serial killer manque, sublimating your homicidal urges into literature; and I'm.... well.... My English teacher at Totnes Grammar called me a Stoke Gabriel yob. I've moved around a bit, but otherwise I don't think I've changed that much.

ER: Yes Mr Corkish is a fine reviewer and writer - his scouse future novel is quite excellent, and I liked the ambition of his poetry collection a few years back, even if the typography gave me a headache. Top bloke from the right (correct) side of the fence..

Its been fun Mr Smith, and those 3 books I look forward to reading

Caroline Smailes and Deborah Rey

We asked Deborah Rey and Caroline Smailes the following series of boring and inane questions, in the hope that they might start talking to each other and come-up with a few of their own that would be more entertaining.

The questions and their subsequent conversations/answers to each are included below.


1. So, how does it feel to be a published author?

CS: - In honesty I still can’t believe it. I mean I can see and touch a book with my name on it, but I still feel sick when people read anything that I’ve written. It’s such a compliment, that they’d spend their money and of course their free time looking at words that I pulled into a story. But when you actually think about it, it’s kind of freaky. I mean there are people who don’t know me, at all, reading my book! (I think I need to lie down!)

DR: Being published also means going into the Ratatatah of PR and Blogs and such and – something many aspiring writers forget – being frightfully exposed. Reviews can tear you to pieces, a hoax scandal can put you on the scale of doubt, and anonymous attacks can hurt you to the quick. Review-wise I have been lucky, so far, very lucky even, but the Misha Defonseca hoax scandal + the anonymous attacks haven’t done me (personally) much good. Maybe I am mentally too bloody fragile, especially where Rachel Sarai’s Vineyard/my past is concerned. For my next book, I’ll eat them alive!

CS: Do we have to talk about PR?

DR: Nah, let’s not. (I think I need to lie down now!) To answer the question: it feels … uh …
published. No, joking aside, being published is a sort of fulfilment, a recognition. You write because you have something to say or think you have, and when a publisher accepts your work for publication, it means that your words are being heard and possibly will be heard by (many, you both hope) other people …

CS: It’s kind of magical, really.

2. You have both had debut books published recently, how did it feel the first time you saw your name on the cover? What did you do?

CS: When I was initially offered my publishing contract, it came through on an email. I’d only submitted the full manuscript three days before and my reaction was to vomit. When my copy of the hardback came through, I didn’t squeal or cry or vomit. I stood shaking. I was completely overwhelmed by the experience.

DR: I didn’t do a thing. I did the same thing when I got the publishing contract (yes, I signed it and sent it back). When the review copy came in I just sat and stared at it. And I remembered the moment the photos on the cover and on the back of the book were taken. No, I did not go up to Cloud Nine, I never did. I suppose I rather anticipated the dirt that was to come. After all, the book is about the war, about my role in the war, and I am a Jew … three reasons to get the Deniers and anti-Semites come galloping my way. They had before RSV came out and were the reason why I left two writers sites, and even had to call in the police. Same thing happening now, by the way.
All those things went through my mind, but I also remember the feeling of awe, unbelief, when I held the book. Reading the book was a ‘straight between the eyes’ for me and extremely emotional.

CS: Yes, disbelief, fear, anxiety, pride, more fear. I think that moment when you actually hold the book, the first copy, then it becomes real. It all goes back to the traditional links with ‘having a baby’ and ‘having a book published.’ In pregnancy you count down to the birth, never really considering what happens after that baby arrives. It’s the same with the process of production, you count down to launch, but nothing can prepare you for the range of emotions experienced with that first holding of your own book. It’s then that the hard work really begins. But we’re not going to talk about that, are we?

DR: G-d forbid! I think I found having a baby easier and that, in itself, was extremely difficult and a miracle nobody expected to happen.

3. What is your approach to writing - is it an everyday habit, or is it more that you write when the muse attacks you?

CS: I always carry two notebooks and several pens, so I guess I’m always prepared …

DR: For me it is an everyday must and if I am away from my PC, I always carry a tiny recorder with me. Super handy. The muse nearly always seems to attack me, even when I am editing other people’s work, and I had only recently my first few days of writer’s block. Oy vay! Writing has also become just about the only thing I am capable of doing since becoming ’wheelchaired’ and attached via my nose to a weird plastic umbilical cord that brings me the O² I lack. All other creative outbursts (painting, sculpting, ballet, acting, even knitting and quilting) are out and I am very grateful I still have my hands and my head … and my PC, of course. Write (or edit) most of the day and part of the night.
Wonder how you manage, Caro, with your three kiddies?

CS: It’s not so bad now that all three are at school. I wrote In Search of Adam when my youngest was small and very dependent. I’d write until late at night and then go to bed restless and anxious about the characters. Now I have to write around work and family life, so it varies week to week. I also think that, for me, it’s good to step back and let the creative urges strike. I seem to get my best ideas when I’m driving or editing other people’s work.

DR: Driving is out for me, but I do find it fascinating that our creative bubbles grow, while we are deeply concentrated on someone else’s work. I always feel slightly schizo when it happens.

4. A lot of writers seem to need to go to 'retreats' to work alongside other writers or to empty bothy's in the middle of nowhere so that they don't get distracted by Facebook and email. Where did you write your books and where would you like to go to write the next one?

DR: Oh, I could never go to one of those retreats! I am too much of an ‘Einzelgänger’, a loner. Our house is in the middle of nowhere and I have a separate workroom for my writing. Facebook, or emails only come into my life, when I look for them. I started off full of enthusiasm on Facebook, but by now have gone bonkers over all those (mostly) bimbo applications and the force feeding there. I am finally beginning to learn how to NOT send a simple comment to 180 people! Daz another: oy vay!

CS: Oh, I love to be distracted by Facebook and blogs. They provide my coffee break. I tend to write at my desk, staring at some strange objects that seem to inspire.

DR: Like my video, you mean?

CS: Your video will inspire me for many years to come! For In Search of Adam it was a silver jubilee tin, for Black Boxes a postcard of a painting and for The Honeypot I have a snow globe and a flag. I’d quite like to go back to Malta and write some more of my current novel, but the thought of an empty bothy or a retreat scares me. I’m with Deborah, I’m too much of a loner.

DR: That’s why I adopted her … so we can be alone together. (Should I lie down, you think?)

CS: I wonder if that desire to be alone is what connects other bloggers to? That being in contact from a distance? Sorry … what were we talking about?

5. Neither of your books is an 'easy read' and clearly there is a lot of yourself in the work. Not that I'm saying you are both difficult. Or easy. Was writing your book something you felt you 'had' to do, and has it helped in any way? Did you think that it would?

CS: What do you mean? In Search of Adam isn’t an easy read? Sexual abuse, suicide, eating disorder, self harm …

DR: If that isn’t easy reading! Put in some war and dead mothers and such… Easy as apple pie … uh …

CS: Clearly!

DR: For both of us life has not been easy and we project that in our books, or at least in these two books. As far as my book is concerned, there is nothing but myself in it and I rather bare myself in it. In the other two books I have written so far, I put part of me, but don’t really ‘show’ my tender spots.

CS: I think that I tend to mix my past with fiction, which separates our two books, I guess?

DR: Yes, definitely. I wish I could have, mixed my past with some nice fiction, I mean. I felt I had to write Rachel Sarai’s Vineyard. It’s a story that had to be told, people had to know that WWII is not ‘only’ the Holocaust, and what the War of Roots can do to a child. My roots, I mean.

CS: And yes, I had to write In Search of Adam. I sometimes think that it wrote itself. And it healed me, or started the process. What about you Deborah?

DR: No, it has not helped me in any way, shape, or form. Maybe even the opposite, because it brought up many memories I had still been subconsciously blocking, and also because of the damn negative efforts to undermine it by anonymous idiots. That said, I never expected it would help me, never even thought of that. I’m doing fine with my PTS (and the D), we co-exist.

CS: It seems that we both live in the shadows of bullying, power battles and PTS. I am lost for words surrounding the anonymous cyber bullying that you are experiencing…

DR: By the way, how kind of you not to say we are both difficult, but you could have left that, ‘Or easy’ off, I think. Just multiply Caroline’s and my degree of ‘being difficult’ by 200 and you know what you are like, sweetie.

CS: I’m not published by bluechrome, so feel free to expand here, lovely Deborah. Is he saying that I’m easy?

DR: No, he isn’t, dear one. Shall we sue him? (Must lie down now and try to stop howling of laughter)

6. In different ways, both of you seem to have attracted some extreme and quite nasty reactions from people. Again, was this something you expected, and how do you deal with the ill will of people who clearly don't know you?

DR: Yes, it was something I took into account, but I never expected it to go this far. Good thing we had a Certificate of Authenticity for me and thus also for the book to begin with! The Monique de Wael (Misha Defonseca) and her Surviving with Wolves hoax did not help matters and I suppose has stopped many journalists from getting in touch with you/me/us.
How do I deal with the ill will of those people? I hurt like hell and have asthma attacks. They’ll probably be happy to hear this, so … I made them happy, that’s more than they do for me.

CS: I haven’t had such extreme reactions, I haven’t had to prove anything or answer to people. I guess I’ve written a book that people either love or hate. I’ve had people throw the book across the room, I’ve had people read the words several times over. I guess I am learning to outwardly ignore negative reviews and comments. Inwardly they eat away and destroy my confidence … but I’m not supposed to say that, am I?

DR: No, we’re supposed to be of stout heart and say that frankly, my dears, we don’t give a damn? But, let it be known that we do hurt. Much. A hell of a lot.

7. You have both gained a lot of attention, including some you might not have wanted, via your blogs. Is this a route you would recommend others follow, or do you think that perhaps by making the author more accessible to the general public, they lose a little of their mystique?

DR: I stick to the importance of a Blog and would recommend it to others.

CS: I agree, totally.

DR: I personally am rather ‘private’ about my private life, though. I give myself professionally for 100% and put a lot of myself into that part of me, but the rest … that’s none of anybody’s business. I find it unfair to subject my family to my ‘fame’, positively and negatively. My hubs and I live a life that’s ours, my daughter lives hers, Deborah Rey is an author with her life as such.
Shit slingers are everywhere and Blog or no Blog, if they want to get to you with their negative crap, they will anyhow.

CS: But the problem of course is that by blogging we make the path to us easier for them. I try to keep personal matters from my blog. I have my own boundaries and there are a lot of things that I wouldn’t be comfortable discussing. But I do sometimes need to step back, I feel too exposed, to on show.
It’s so difficult for a debut writer to be noticed in an industry that is already saturated. I was told that ‘writers should be heard and not seen’ but that confused me too much.

DR: Bull!

CS: Utter bull! And it was from a publisher!! Perhaps I expose too many of my insecurities and too much of myself online, but I also hope that this comes with some form of integrity. I know that my blog style and posts have evoked negative reactions in people, leading to their devoting blog space to me. But you can’t please everyone.

DR: You at least get people commenting, Caro! AND you get the UK public, that’s more than I can say.

CS: But I also know that some people don’t comment on my blog because I get so many comments, sometimes. And some people don’t like to comment, but they’re still there, lurking.
Through blogging, I have connected with a number of people, I have developed friendships and I have been understood. If people don’t like me or my blog, then they will (hopefully) stay away. At the moment, I enjoy blogging and the blogs that I read, when the pleasure goes, then I’ll reconsider. And you, do you find any pleasure in blogging?
DR: I know that as far as Rachel Sarai’s Vineyard is concerned, I am coming to the end of my blogging-line. Hardly any comments, while there are a few hundred people per day reading the posts) and the shit slingers are bad for my already fragile health. There, I reconsider. For my next book I hope it will be different.

CS: I really don’t want you to stop blogging …


8. What are the best and worst reactions you have had to your work?

DR: Worst? That I am a liar and that Rachel Sarai’s Vineyard is a hoax. People who read the book and tell me it is ‘nice’. Calling it ‘another Holocaust survivor story’.

CS: Worst? I’m not really sure. I’ve seen some vindictive words and have felt that I’ve been pulled into a larger agenda.

DR: Best? We’d love to publish it … words written by a certain bluechrome.
Look at the quotes on my site from people who have really read the book. You’re a Lark Born of a Dead Branch (Karen Corcoran Dabkowski). Caroline’s review. Patricia Debney’s words. So far, they are all The Best.

CS: Best? “I'd like to publish it - is that OK?!” And I have been overwhelmed by reviews, emails and secrets. I think that the reactions have evoked a sense of ‘belonging’ within me - something that I’d never really felt before. Does that make sense?

9. Describe the others book and say what it is that makes it important/special.

DR: Describe In Search of Adam… Two totally different books and yet, they have so much in common. Don’t they, Caro?

CS: Too much, almost.

DR: I quote:
We're a pair of children that survived mental and physical abuse, two children that are scarred for life and yet, somehow, managed to reach adulthood. We can live with the past. We can live with it but we cannot forget. You cannot forget such things. You get used to them as being a part of your past, that's all. (Rachel Sarai’s Vineyard)
That’s what they are both about. And about Loss, learning to live (or die) with Loss.

CS: Can I use that quote from RSV too?

DR: You most certainly can and may (and have already on your site). It’s perfect for us and our books, I think.

CS: Perfect, I couldn’t put it better. I know that what attracted me to Deborah and to Rachel, was the openness, gentleness and consistency of voice. I’ve spent a lifetime with secrets in the boxes shelved inside memory. Rachel Sarai’s Vineyard is special, unique, beautiful, because Deborah is a writer, a survivor, an out of the ordinary narrator. She tells her secrets to those with open hearts and minds. And that openness, that lifting of boxes is what makes Rachel Sarai’s Vineyard remarkable.

DR: In Search of Adam is a painting in words and layout. It also came to me as music, very gentle and also very harsh, painful music … but even that kind of music can be beautiful.

10. Each of you ask the other a question…

DR: Do you think you will ever find ‘home’, Caroline?

CS: Do you know how I can get a signed photograph of Simon Cowell, Deborah? (sorry!)

11. What question would you have liked to be asked?

DR: How come you never hated the person you refer to as Mum, or Mother?

CS: Do you believe in God?

12. What question would you have hated to be asked?

DR: Did you ever try to get in touch with Marie’s family?

CS: Have you ever been raped?

13. What happens next?

DR: I am going full steam ahead talking about my next book to be published (in May 2009), will finish editing/revising a third novel, hope to write some poems and short stories, and will keep editing other people’s work. Have my hubs redecorate my workroom. Go to the US on the Queen Mary II to accept my two Oscars (one for the script, one for playing myself in the film). Keep pestering my publisher until he takes back that, Or easy., and finally learns ‘How to Handle a Writer’. Will you join me, Caro?

CS: I will join you. I’m working on a third novel, my second (Black Boxes) is due for release this summer. I’m writing another novella, a couple of children’s stories and planning how to achieve a list of 23 things within the next 6 years. I am hoping to write a book titled, ‘How to Handle a Writer’ … I have heard that there may be a market for it … Deborah?

DR: PLEASE DO! I’ll buy the first 100 copies! I’ll publish it for you! I’ll do all the PR for you! I’ll sell the film rights for you! I’ll make sure you get an Oscar for it!

CS: I’m starting it now. I’ll go without sleep until I finish it …

14. Do you have any questions for the two of us? (I am superstitious) (me too)

If you would like to ask Caroline or Deborah a question, please add it as a comment to this post.

Welcome To Author Talking To Author

Author Talking To Author is something a little new. Many authors get interviewed, especially when their book is due for release, and many of them like to talk (and talk and talk) about their work with other authors. So simplistic though it may be, we felt that it might be good to have somewhere for them to do it.

ATTA then, will ask two authors to meet on-line, consider a few simple questions and then generally have a chat about anything they feel like talking about. We will then make this all, unedited, available to anybody who is interested.

It should be fun and perhaps interesting, time will only tell.

Our first victims then, are two ladies who both have written quite exceptional books, and we will be proud to let you see what they have to say on the 7th April.

Caroline Smailes is the author of 'In Search of Adam' and recently caused a sensation with her decision to release a free ebook of her novella 'Disraeli Avenue' which has raised funds for a charity.

Deborah Rey will see her autobiographical novel 'Rachel Sarai's Vineyard' published on her 70th birthday, a book that tells the harrowing details of her childhood, focusing on her role as a 'Baby Courier' working as a member of the Dutch Resistance during World War 2.

If you are a published author and would like to take part, please drop us an email and we will see what we can arrange.