Samhain Publishing Ltd Weblog

I will not justify myself.

I got interviewed by my local paper. I’d written this book, you see, published by those nice people at Samhain. What’s more, the novel’s set in the music scene of my home town – Oxford in the United Kingdom – and the paper loved the local angle. Hell, they’d interviewed Phillip Pulman the week before, so I jumped at the chance.

But it’s a weird thing being interviewed. You have to start justifying yourself, especially when it’s an Oxford newspaper asking the questions. You can’t throw a stone in Oxford without hitting some literary author or another, and the Oxford papers take themselves quite seriously. My novel – The Rocktastic Corduroy Peach – is a bit on the rude side. There’s quite a bit of swearing and a lot of talk about sex (yes, just talk – four dysfunctional blokes who couldn’t pull in brothel, what do you expect?). There’s a lot of rock and roll and drugs and poor personal hygiene and all the sorts of things that make some “literary” editors a little uncomfortable. It’s what you might call “laddish”.

I ended up having to explain why I put all these things in. There’s an assuption that because I’ve written about some awful characters, I must be like them. Although I managed to keep cheerful and positive, I couldn’t help but feel a little defensive by the end of the interview.

But why should I have to justify myself? The book is full of characters that I have met time and again throughout my years of gigging (yes, I play bass guitar). In fact, I toned a lot of the stuff down. Get a group of drunk guys together and it’s almost, but not quite, as obscene as the average pair of women chatting about the latest Samhain novel over coffee. The point is the story needed to be told. Despite all the bad language, the funny bits (“I’m going to steal some of Michael Amos’ punch lines” said Mrs. Giggles), the rock and roll and drugs, this is a sad tale about four, sad, ultimately lonely men. I’m not going to justify the way I’ve told it.

Michael Amos
www.michaelamos.net
The Rocktastic Corduroy Peach – Big schemes, big dreams and some really big drama queens.
4 Hearts, The Romance Studio

Homeland
“A most entertaining tale…of the Shopping Mall of Doom.” Mrs Giggles, 84%