Critical Mick

Reviews Free of Rules.

Reviews by the Clown that All Other Critics Want to Strangle with a Black Turtleneck

Interesting Times Ahead

Stuart Neville, author of The Twelve / The Ghosts of Belfast tells Mick what skills are vital, what he does to think, the importance of new online media outlets, about his famous hands and the recent Invasion of Northern Ireland. An unruly email interview, January 2010.

Critical Mick: Any death threats yet?

Stuart Neville: I’ve received a few emails from Irish Americans who didn't like the idea of their green-tinted spectacles being removed - though none of them had actually read the book.

CM: The Twelve / The Ghosts of Belfast really portrays the Republican characters as brutal and corrupt, the dissident splinter groups as inept, the Loyalists as drug-pushing pedo pimps, the cops as crooked and the British government as disinterested bloody-minded toffs....

SN: I hope the characters aren't as two-dimensional as that! But the story focuses on specific individuals, and they do have the traits you describe, but they aren't intended to represent the entirety of the groups from which they come.

Critical Mick's review of Stuart Neville's The Ghosts of Belfast

CM: Fellow NI crime fic scribe Sam Millar spent time in prisons. Worse, Paul Charles actually spent years working among the most twisted, evil men on earth (record company executives.) The Twelve / The Ghosts of Belfast speaks convincingly, so what in there is based on fact and personal experience? Are there any spectres following you for deeds in your misspent youth? SN: I have to confess to a fairly uneventful youth, I'm afraid. I was brought up on a working class housing estate, so I saw my share of the Troubles, but never anything too close up. CM: Does it piss you off when outsiders talk or write about the Troubles? I'm a billion miles removed from all that but even I was a bit miffed by that one Jeffrey Archer book where his London politician makes a heroic stance in Northern Ireland that pleases all sides. SN: It bothers me when people romanticise the conflict, those awful portrayals of downtrodden freedom fighters fighting the British oppressor, or the converse, the noble British agent battling the wily terrorist. There has been a lack of good quality fiction that portrays the Troubles in a realistic way, but still manages to be entertaining. I firmly believe, for instance, that The Devil's Own is the worst movie ever made.

Ed Note: Chuck that condescending snob back into solitary, is what I say. (Archer, not Brad Pitt.)

CM: What direction is Northern Irish fiction taking? Is Ulster ready for novels about exploitation of illegal immigrants (Bleed a River Deep), Irish lawyers from Tyrone who crack jokes in London (Utterly Monkey), and sea monsters who can take the form of Dolly Parton (Mind's Eye by Philip Henry)? Or are there still ghosts which need to be exorcized?

SN: I think we have an interesting time ahead of us as writers begin to look back on recent history from a more objective angle. The best fiction about any conflict doesn't come along until it's over. We saw that with World War II, and Vietnam. Similarly, I don't think we'll see really good movies or books about Iraq and Afghanistan for some years yet. Yep, I saw The Hurt Locker.

CM: One alarming, current theme in Northern Irish society (which, as yet, is covered in no novel) is The Invasion. I'm talking about the tens of thousands of carloads from down south who migrate to Newry, Belfast and other points to do their shopping. It's huge news down here the past year, loud screams from the retailers who have been gouging us for years and politicians gnashing their teeth over lost taxes. Any thoughts from the flipside-?

SN: Two stories: One lady I know from this side of the border was berated in Sainsbury's on a Saturday afternoon by a southerner, asking why couldn't northerners stay out of the supermarkets at the weekend to allow room for the visitors. Another friend's mother was shouted at in a supermarket car park by a southerner, demanding that she should get the bus and leave parking spaces for those who travel across the border. Perhaps there's a novel in there…

CM: Besides getting grocery for about half price, those trips over the border to Sainsbury's bring exposure to products unavailable in Dublin. For instance: have you tried the beers from Whitewater Brewery in Newry? It's now my second favourite microbrew. There's good stuff up north.

SN: I haven't tried that, but I just got back from a weekend in Belgium. If you like beer, Ghent is the place to be. Mmm, Tongerlo…

CM: Gerry Fagan drinks Guinness and Jameson. Isn't Bushmills a Belfast whiskey-?

SN: Nah, Gerry's a Jameson's man. Not that I'd be a good judge on this, seeing as I don't touch whiskey at all.

CM: I gather from your excellent website that the title of this debut novel has changed over its course. What about the content? For the benefit of other aspiring writers, please give details on what it's like to work with a professional editor. Any half-bricks through windows?

SN: I revised the novel quite a bit with my agent before it went to publishers. I'd gotten used to taking critique, so aside from the usual initial "What, my baby's not perfect?!" reaction, I took all the notes on board and acted on most of them. I'm not precious about my writing at all, and I'm always willing to hear someone else's opinion. And given that my agent has edited the likes of James Ellroy and Joseph Wambaugh, I think he knows what he's talking about.

SN: There's a site at http://crapometer.blogspot.com/ that I used a lot when I was getting started, receiving and giving critique. Through that, I found a couple of readers in particular whose opinion I really value.

CM: What are the benefits of such groups? Anything you'd care to recommend?

SN: Good critique is invaluable. If you can find one or two people who you can trust with your work, then that's a great gift. Being able to look at your own work objectively and revise and rewrite it is a vital skill. Getting used to receiving critique helps prepare you for working with an agent or an editor, who will not sugar-coat their comments on your writing.

CM: Are you still active in these online groups, now that you've "made it"?

SN: Not so much in the groups, but I still have that couple of beta readers who see almost everything I write before anyone else.

CM: I noticed Adrian McKinty's name in that list of acknowledgements, too. His The Bloomsday Dead spent a chunk of 2009 sitting atop the pile of best books that I read last year. Can't wait to read Fifty Grand in 2010.

SN: I keep picking it up and reading a few sentences. It's beautiful prose. He's a nice guy, too.

CM: Do you read webzines, small press mags, and the other short fiction venues like ThugLit?

SN: I read them, and I've been published in them. In fact, it was through a story of mine appearing in ThugLit that my agent first got in touch asking to read my novel. I think the whole webzine scene is really healthy, and it's provided a new home for the short story now that the print markets are dying off.

CM: The blogosphere, podcasts, twitter contests, social networking, your video interview…. Are these new media outlets worth pursuing for today's authors? Or only for hip young professionals whose daytime jobs are in multimedia development?

SN: Every author should be online. There's no excuse not to be. Even a simple blog while get you out there meeting other writers, as well as all the agents and editors who are online. Really, it's vital.

CM: Did you play the guitar riff in your book's promo trailer? Compose the music?

SN: Yep, that was me! The title of the piece is actually Fegan's Theme. I think that might be the last complete piece of music I wrote and recorded, actually. I always have a guitar to hand when I write, just to noodle on. I find it helps me think.

CM: Do you actually repair guitars, like Gerry Fagan?

SN: Yes, but I don't have his carpentry skills. I've built a few electric guitars, and usually do all my own repairs and customisations.

CM: Strange that for a novel which talks about guitar repair, there wasn’t any actual playing....

SN: I liked the idea of Fegan having the aspiration of learning to play once he had completed the restoration. In other words, once he'd put it right, he could get on with his life.

CM: What's next for the series? I gather it will follow Fagan in a series of adventures in America and elsewhere? (Please don't go all Jack Higgins on us.)

SN: The next novel, called Collusion (August 5th, Harvill Secker) actually focuses on a different protagonist, the cop who's mentioned in passing in the first book, the little girl's estranged father. When he realises she and her mother have gone missing, he starts digging into the supposed feud that has left so many dead. Meanwhile, Fegan is in New York, trying to outrun his past, but a man of his talents can't go unnoticed for long.

CM: Go on, you were the hand model for who, exactly-?

SN: Ardal O'Hanlon, in a short film called Flying Saucer Rock'n'Roll in which he had to pretend to play guitar. I was his hands for the close-ups.

CM: Made any progress with that cute checkout girl who recognized you as "that author from the papers"?

SN: I have since met and been ensnared by a young lady who will only be known in public as the Main Squeeze. She'll have no talk of checkout girls.

CM: What’s on your nightstand at the moment? (books, I mean, but other items if you wanna….)

SN: I'm reading a couple of things as research for my third and fourth novels, and I'm really enjoying The Resurrectionist by Jack O'Connell. We share the same agent, and David Torrans at No Alibis in Belfast is a big fan of his as well. He mixes gritty noir realism with a fantastical streak, which isn't a million miles away from what I do.

CM: What you do is amazing. Stuart Neville, you are hearby awarded the coveted award for Best Book Read in 2009. All good Irish crime fic fans shall be visiting stuartneville.com often to learn what you will be doing in 2010 and beyond!

Yo! This interview transcript and all content on the DFA Guide site are copyright 2010 Mick Halpin. All links to other sites and documents are copyright to whatever source wrote something cool enough for Mick to give it a referral. Try to claim them as your own work and bad karma will catch up with you, baby. Believe it.

Irate, huh? Managed to piss off another one? Direct your hatemail to mick @ mickhalpin dot com.

This Page Was Last Updated On 31 January 2010