Books / Fiction
Interview: Patrick Gale
Ahead of his appearance at the Tobacco Factory, bestselling writer Patrick Gale talks about his latest novel, Take Nothing with You, his approach to writing and his love of music.
Your forthcoming Bristol event is part of Independent Bookshop Week activities. How important are independent bookshops to you?
Indie bookshops are the lifeblood of British bookselling, as those of us who live near small towns know. The big chains will always have their place, but a talented bookseller who knows how to hand-sell books and pass on their literary enthusiasm to a community is irreplaceable. Smaller, independent bookshops are often community hubs, passers-on of information, hosts for meetings and, in these days where local libraries are increasingly at risk, play a key role in nourishing literacy and a love of reading in the young.
is needed now More than ever
Your latest novel has been praised for its depiction of the power of music. How much influence has music had in your life?
Until I was in my mid-teens, I was convinced I would be a professional musician when I grew up. I went to a specialist music school from 7 to 13 and music has been central to my life ever since, as a pianist, a singer and a cellist. I was lured into moving to Cornwall by the experience of taking part in an amazing classical music festival there when I was a boy, a festival I then went on to chair for a few years, and I’m now lucky to live in West Cornwall which has a really lively music scene, so I’m playing in orchestras and small ensembles all year around. My very first novel, The Aerodynamics of Pork, was about a young violin prodigy and a later novel, The Facts of Life, was about a composer. Music is in my head all the time, playing whenever I write indoors; it’s surprising, in fact, that I’ve not written more novels about it!
At your Bristol event you will be accompanied by a cellist. How did that collaboration come about?
When Take Nothing With You was launched, I collaborated on a sort of accompanied reading recital from it with an amazing cellist friend, Joely Koos. We had such fun and audiences in Cheltenham and London responded so warmly that my publishers thought it would make sense to repeat the idea, but with different cellists in the towns and festivals I visit with the book. In Bristol I’ll be reading alongside Emma Butterworth for the first time. But we’ll have some fun in our rehearsal before it. Half the fun is that each cellist brings their own style and ideas to the collaboration.
Take Nothing with You is your 19th work of fiction. To what extent, if at all, has your approach to writing changed since your first book?
Oh hugely. I started writing novels when I was in my early 20s, with all the arrogant confidence of youth, and my early books were very short and fairly underwritten as a result. I think with age I have become far, far more self-critical, which slows up the writing process no end. I’ve also become far braver about sinking into the dark places in my stories, writing honestly about pain and suffering which my earlier writing would have bypassed with a nervous joke or two. But I spent a lot of last year recording audio versions of some fourteen of my books, which brought home to me that there are shared themes which run through them all. I seem to have an enduring obsession with families, and with the damage we do in the name of love.
As a writer with a large and dedicated following, how conscious of your readers are you when you are writing?
My first drafts are written with no audience in mind. I’m simply telling myself a story or even just mining into the material to see if there’s a story there. Once I’ve completed a first draft and (with luck) discovered that I’ve told myself a story that kept my interest I then relish several rewrites and it’s during these that I’m thinking constantly of my imagined reader, what I want them to feel or believe at any given point, how I can hold their attention, how I can extend their sympathies…
Patrick Gale will be appearing at the Tobacco Factory on June 17. For more information and to book tickets, visit www.storysmithbooks.com/events/patrick-gale-tobacco-factory/
Main photo by Dan Hall
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