BLACK STATIC #42

by Andy Cox

  And, of course, suicide is principally about control. It’s the choice that you always have when you’re out of all others. It’s a big fuck you to fate, or karma, or God, or plain bad luck, or whatever you do or don’t believe in. I’m a huge control freak, and a long-time advocate of cutting off my nose to spite my face, and I guess, perhaps inevitably, some of that bleeds into the decisions and fates of my characters.

  But…I enjoy life, I enjoy people; I’m not actually a miserable sod. I want stories to have a happy ending, or at least the possibility of one somewhere down the road, because a reader should always be able to take something positive away from whatever they read. That doesn’t have to mean unicorns and rainbows and walking off into the sunset holding hands; I actually think that (‘Bury the Truth’ most definitely aside), my stories concerning suicide – its motivation, execution, or aftermath – are among the warmest and most honest that I’ve ever written.

  When I write about suicide I’m writing about fear and sacrifice and suffering and how much a person can take, but I’m also writing about grabbing hold of all that is equally wonderful; about love and goodness and kindness and regret; about the people that save you and the people you’ll save; about never being ashamed or aloof or afraid to love, afraid to speak, afraid to take chances or make choices. Both inside and outside of fiction, that, I think, is the biggest fuck you that you can give to either life or death and all that striving to be unself-conscious of what we really are – just as long as you never lose sight of your options.

  Another recurring concern is the idea that your characters are being observed (e.g. in ‘Stamping Ground’ the tramps who are always there, always watching, and in ‘Gettin’ High’ where the protagonist’s fear manifests as an irruption of eyes). Why do you return to this theme?

  Ah now, I’m going to make everyone’s day – this is mostly about physics too. Quantum mechanics again: following on from the theory that whole consciousness underlies all reality is the even more intriguing notion that the existence of a non-physical observer is fundamental to the existence of the Universe. This is by no means universally accepted (ha – a bad physics joke!), but the implication that the Universe is a product of external consciousness does arise from a proven concept known as “The Observer Effect”: the idea that nothing can be said to have truly “happened” without the interaction of an observer.

  The ideas and implications of being thus observed are both unnerving and comforting. If we are being watched, then perhaps we are being judged. Depending on your beliefs (and your morals) that could be either a very good or, more probably, a very bad thing.

  When I was pretty young and a grandparent died, a relative tried to comfort me by saying that dead people often came back to hang around and make sure that their loved ones were alright. This didn’t frighten me exactly, but it sure cramped my style for a very long time. The premise of being spied upon or, perhaps worse, being openly watched and evaluated has been a staple of fiction since forever, but for very good reason. Its realisation can be terrifying or heart-warming, and just about every other emotion in between. Ghosts observe; stalkers observe; serial killers observe; aliens observe; gods observe. To be watched is discomfiting, unsettling, and again is ultimately about control, whether benign or malign.

  The tramps in ‘Stamping Ground’ are a manifestation of Jim’s own private fears for his future, whereas the eyes in ‘Gettin’ High’ are Bob’s only respite from a past that he can’t face – though inevitably, they too have to turn against him. But my short story ‘Signs of the Times’ is probably the most genuine attempt I’ve ever made to write about “The Observer Effect”. In describing a “dog-headed race” that returns to Earth only to be vilified and persecuted, with dire consequences for the human race, there are inevitable religious parallels, but that is the most obvious – and contentious – posit of the Effect: that there is some non-physical, singular consciousness observing and ultimately controlling the lot of us. Which is a pretty terrifying concept. Perhaps only eclipsed by the all too often monstrous actions of those who believe it. On their own terms, of course. Never let it be said that us humans can’t turn just about any potential obstacle into a singular advantage.

  ‘The Monster of Venice’ is the only story in the collection to have a historical backdrop, the Venetian Republic. Why did you feel it was appropriate to set this particular story in a different time and space to the others in the collection? What did this “distancing” enable you to do that a contemporary setting would not?

  Crikey again. Are you sure that you’re not a psychotherapist on the sly, Pete? ‘The Monster of Venice’ is probably the most personal story that I have ever written, though I doubt that anyone would ever realise it. Certainly, you are the only person to have noticed that aside from commissioned writing for an editor or publisher’s preconceived theme, I have never written anything that isn’t contemporary.

  Despite becoming better and better at opening my mouth and letting everything out that wants to come out (perhaps sometimes a little too much everything), this is still the one story that I struggle to talk about. At the time of writing it, I had been very sick for a very long time. I’d had dozens of specialist consultations and hospital “procedures” (an innocuous word for horribly invasive stabs in the dark), which had spawned just as many horrible and hypothesised diagnoses. I was on so many pills that I’d forgotten what most of them were for. I was in nearly constant and unpredictable pain. Just about the only thing that anyone could agree upon was that there would be no cure. And they were right.

  ‘The Monster of Venice’ is about pain stealing into a charmed and nearly perfect life and systematically destroying it. But it’s mainly about fear. I hated the person that I became: like the Venetian merchant, I shrunk smaller and smaller until I no longer recognised myself. People treated me differently because I gave them no other option, but I resented that too.

  And so I wrote ‘Monster of Venice’. At the time, it felt like the only weapon I had left. I know how over-dramatic that sounds, but I’ve always, always been far better at writing than talking, and it helped hugely. The “distancing” that you mentioned in your question was exactly what I was seeking: I wanted to view the pain and fear that I was feeling as something entirely separate from me – a 15th century vampire seeking little more than easy prey.

  In the story, the merchant finally comes to love his pain and forgets his fear, and in many ways the story helped me to do the same. Perhaps even more bizarrely, when – many months after publication – a diagnosis was finally made (towards the less horrible end of the spectrum, but with the inevitably ominous “things may change” clause that those kind of doctors so love), and I was put on even more serious drugs, I felt just as bizarrely bereft as the merchant when the pain – and most of the fear – disappeared.

  It took a long time for me to accept that both were gone. It took even longer to remember the person that I was in the years before I got sick. I know that my reprieve will, most likely, not be forever, but that too is a gift. I take risks and grab hold of opportunity in a way that I never would have before, when I imagined that I might live my charmed life forever. Now, when I read ‘Monster of Venice’, I don’t see the merchant’s fear of pain, or relapse, or death, I see his regret for all the things that I am no longer denied: friendship, love, life, freedom. ‘The Monster of Venice’ is by no means the best story that I have ever written, but it’s absolutely the most honest and self-serving by a country mile.

  One of the things that impressed me with stories like ‘Dead Loss’ and ‘Gettin’ High’ was the wealth of incidental detail. What sort of research did you undertake into things like deep sea trawlers and tower cranes? Did the research ever lead your stories into new and unexpected avenues?

  I do think that if you’re going to do a job, then you should do it properly. Because, as I’ve mentioned, I’m a horrible perfectionist and control freak. I like a challenge, but I loathe, loathe research, and unfortunat
ely the two almost always go hand in hand.

  I recently read the incredible We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, and not for one minute did I believe that Karen Joy Fowler wasn’t an expert in the biomedical and behavioural study of chimpanzees – not because I’m in any position to know or argue otherwise, but because her voice was so confident, and her execution so detailed, so complete that the question never even occurred to me. That’s good research and good writing. One without the other is pretty redundant if you’ve chosen to write about a subject so specific and so complex.

  As to what research I did into deep sea trawling and tower crane driving? I googled a lot and I read a lot. In terms of writing these kinds of short stories, the pain – and time – is rarely financially worth it, but those are the stories that I’m most proud of because I know they ring true (I’ve sweated blood to make sure of it), and because they weren’t lazy or easy; they were bloody hard to write. They are about as far removed from my comfort zone as I ever get.

  You asked if the research ever leads stories into new and unexpected avenues. Almost certainly, because when you go into something nearly entirely ignorant, the story idea that you have is just that, an idea. Often I realise pretty early on that it’s completely unworkable (although I love it when the universe hands you a break and seamlessly marries fact and fiction with very little effort at all). I remember once sending an extensively researched story off to an editor, and they rejected it on the grounds that they thought my subject and plot execution didn’t ring true. I was more pissed off about that rejection than any other I’ve ever received, because while rejecting a story based upon whether you think it’s any good or not is absolutely subjective, criticising the authenticity of established fact is not. Of course, I might have been a little oversensitive due to those endless hours of bloody research…

  Weirdly, the main reason that I think these stories are worth it is because, however much I might loathe the act of researching subjects that I’m ignorant or uncertain of, they almost always spawn dozens of different ideas for new stories. I think that it’s very, very easy to get stuck in a comfortable, write about what you know and know you are good at rut (and publishers love those ruts too, of course; they like to know where they can find you), but it’s also pretty stifling. Writing stories that require extensive research reminds you that there are so many things that you’re entirely clueless about; that there are nearly infinite possibilities; that it is all but impossible to run out of ideas. Which is actually incredibly easy to forget.

  Reading the story notes to The Bright Day Is Done, it seems that a lot of the stories deal with very personal fears. Do you approach writing as a cathartic activity? If so, does it work? How much of themselves do you think writers should reveal in their work? Is doing so simply unavoidable?

  Well, Doctor, (by the way, I’ve run out of camomile tea)…

  Other than the obvious exception of ‘The Monster of Venice’, I have never knowingly used writing as a direct form of catharsis, though I have undoubtedly chosen to write about the things that most interest/frighten/fascinate me many times over. When I first started writing, I was still imitating the writers that I admired and aspired to be like: I used their voices, their fears, their backdrops, even their plots. The stories were functional, but they weren’t mine. I took no risks at all in writing them.

  As I’ve become more confident, I’ve also become more willing to expose more of myself in what I write. Because personal stories make better stories. Look at The Shining, Empire of the Sun, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Black Swan Green, Dandelion Wine, On the Road, Jane Eyre, David Copperfield. All of these novels are my favourites by each author, and they are all at least semi-autobiographical. More specifically, the protagonist is them – not them exactly, but them enough. And no matter how brilliant a writer you are, those are the stories that shine. They are authentic and believable and, above all, they feel real. Because there are some things that you can’t fake or imagine or project. There is a lot that you can, but ideas and characters inevitably ring hollow if the writer has no empathy for them. And empathy requires some degree of shared experience.

  It’s a fine line, I suppose. A good writer shouldn’t allow their own personality or prejudices to become an indulgence that dominates everything they write; equally, a good writer should be able to understand motivations that would never be their own, and see both the best and worst in even the most challenging or obtuse of characters. But some judgement is inevitable. Some “leakage” is inevitable.

  Frenzy was about my fear of the sea and the unknown. Cold Turkey was about my need for control, and how that might manifest in a life that is safe, a life hardly lived. My latest short, ‘Equilibrium’ (Black Static #41), was about needing to let go of the past in order to have any kind of future. I recently finished a novel that was scarily semi-autobiographical: about a girl coming to terms with fear and illness and unwelcome change.

  You do worry that you are exposing too much of yourself (a bit like this interview, while we’re being honest), and you worry more that you might upset someone that you genuinely care about (although they rarely recognise any aspect of themselves unless I point it out, which I rarely do). But, like the stories that require extensive research, they almost always end up being your best.

  For me, the most cathartic thing about writing is that I am the story’s creator; I am its external Observer. I make and control its characters. No one does anything without my say so, and all outcomes – good and bad – are dictated by me. It has always been, I’m somewhat ashamed to admit, one of my biggest draws for writing fiction (did I mention that I’m a control freak?).

  What are you currently working on? What can we expect to see next from the word processor of Carole Johnstone?

  I’m working on a couple of commissioned short stories for anthologies, but as they haven’t been announced yet, I’m probably not allowed to name them. Also, if either or both stories end up never seeing the light of day, I’d have significant egg on my face.

  I recently completed extensive edits of that novel I mentioned, which, believe it or not, is a psychological thriller set in Glasgow. Hopefully, my agent will begin pitching it to publishers very soon.

  Other than that, I’m in the good/bad place of having few other outstanding obligations. Good, because it means that I can please myself for a bit; bad, because deadlines and commissions keep procrastination at bay. But I do have a couple of new novel ideas that won’t leave me alone. And, of course, there’s the one that requires a very long holiday in the south of France…

  MORE FRIENDS & FAMILY

  Stephen Volk has been writing his column for Black Static since the very first issue, so in terms of word count of the writers getting reviewed here he is almost certainly the one whose work we’ve published the most of, though his only appearance with a work of fiction was back in #9 with ‘Fear’. That story along with fourteen others, two of them previously unpublished, appears in Volk’s second collection, MONSTERS IN THE HEART (Gray Friar Press paperback, 248pp, £8.99).

  The collection opens with what I personally regard as Volk’s finest story and one of the best to appear in print in recent years, King Kong inspired ‘After the Ape’, in which a bereft Ann Darrow sojourns in a New York hotel while her lover lies rotting on the streets below. Beautifully told and keenly felt, this story captures a moment in time with pinpoint accuracy, touching on the loss of nobility and, by association, in the character of the bell boy foretelling the rise of fascism. In ‘Who Dies Best’ the latest development in the motion picture industry sees people with terminal illnesses taking part in films and dying onscreen, the idea examined through the eyes of a young man who is endlessly fascinated by the death of his mother. Poignant and heartfelt, this is a story that almost makes the unacceptable seem like a positive thing, raising questions about practicality, but then giving it all a very human dimension.

  ‘Monster Boy’ is the story of a young boy who, when bullied, rece
ives help from the movie monsters that so enthral him, using their strength to pass his ordeal by fire, the narrative hinting at how some of us can find inspiration and solace in the things that might repulse many people. ‘Notre Dame’ has a polemical element to it, set in a future Britain ruled by religious fundamentalists and in which help conceiving a baby is strictly regulated so that God’s “mistakes” are wired into the system. It’s a story that packs a powerful punch, dramatising the moral dilemma at the narrative’s heart, though I felt Volk perhaps weighted it a little too much in favour of the conclusion he appears to want the reader to reach, not just in the person of the hateful spokesperson for religious views with his dogmatism but also in the extremity of the unborn child’s handicaps.

  In ‘A Paper Tissue’ an unhappily married couple find that their relationship is revitalised by a chance encounter with somebody from the past while on a foreign holiday, the story hinting that sometimes it is good to be unambitious, to find a job you enjoy rather than push to go as high as you can, and that those who do follow the latter course are not necessarily nice people, all of this conveyed by a certain and assured subtlety so the tissue itself, despite its portentous message, is simply a McGuffin for the real thrust of the narrative.