Byker Books

There’s a body been found on Hampstead Heath, quick someone check George Michael’s whereabouts…oh hold on it’s a dead body, better send for Elizabeth Wilson, top selling author of ‘War Damage’ she’ll know what’s going on.

It’s a partly ‘queer’ crime story about a femme fatale (at least she’s trying to be one), a school boy who’s gay and a policeman, plus various assorted characters from a rather shabby post-World War II bohemia in London.   An obstreperous poodle also features.   It’s very ‘feel bad’ – I don’t do feel good novels, unfortunately, since I think people prefer that.   I wanted to get at the terrible feelings of disappointment, exhaustion after Britain won the war but woke up to find it was a nation in decline – it’s a kind of seedy, sinister mood apt for sordid crimes.   I also feel that the austerity element is very relevant to now, when we’re again facing a dire economic situation.

• Who would you say inspired you to take up the pen initially?

No idea – Enid Blyton probably, because I started trying to write school stories at the age of 7.

• It’s extremely difficult getting anywhere near either an agent or a publisher these days  – how did you manage it? 

I benefited from the women’s movement – the period when publishers were suddenly interested in women’s writing, especially non fiction;   being in the right place the right time I guess.

 

• You’ve been writing for years but moved into fiction in the early nineties with ‘The Lost Time Café’ – what brought that about?

I originally tried to write novels in my 20s, without success.   In the 1970s I realised the potential of non-fiction, however since then the gap between ‘academic’ and ‘general non fiction’ has widened and so-called ‘cross over books’ such as I used to write seem to have disappeared down the gap.   I’ve always tried, without much success, to ‘reach a wider audience’ and hoped fiction might do that, but so far it hasn’t!  

 

 

• What are you reading at the minute then (apart from Radgepacket obviously)?

Books about Japan, where I’m going next week.   Plus Theodor Adorno the great Marxist philosopher, who was an absolutely unrelenting elitist.

 

• Your books, particularly this latest one, tend to hark back to a bygone era when austerity and opulence were uneasy bedfellows – do you feel particularly drawn to that point in time for any reason?

See above – but maybe partly because I was born in the period.  But I’m moving on to German anarchists now.

 

• Champagne, Mineral Water or Bottles of Stout?

I’m so in period at the moment that I think it’d have to be G&T or even gin and lime, a truly 1940s drink.  At times they were reduced to making their own spirits from potato peelings, or distilling mead, so perhaps I’ll have a go at do it yourself alcohol.

 

• We have a number of literary heroes here at BB towers – who would you say yours were and why? 

I’m more interested to know what yours are!   Marcel Proust is my greatest literary love.   His novel is a) so richly and sensually aesthetic – really, really beautiful; b) psychologically so subtle;  c) witty and ironic.

Simone de Beauvoir was an influential writer for me – which is not quite the same thing. I’m also a crime fiction addict – that’s also different

Walter Benjamin is a non-fiction favourite;  a rather tragic figure between the two world wars who was interested in popular culture and wrote a wonderful book about Baudelaire

Having said all that, I don’t go in for heroes much, I’m too cynical. But having said that, Roger Federer is actually my hero, so I’m depressed just now as he’s doing really badly (hate Andy Murray)

 

• Any advice you could give the unpublished masses out there?

Try, try and try again I suppose.   Think how you could be topical.

 

• Do you fancy a bit of ‘Reality Television’ to raise your profile?

No!!!

• Do you follow the old ‘write what you know’ adage or do you reckon that’s a load of nonsense?

I draw on my historical research, e.g. now to write about German anarchists before the first World War – with historical fiction you can use your own experience, of relationships, for example, but in a more exotic setting.  

 

• Who would play you in the film of your life?

Glynis Johns – 50s film star I used to be said to look like.

 

• And what sort of soundtrack would you like playing?

Would depend on the decade – Janis Joplin for the 70s?   Though I like the Beatles track about the car crash ‘I heard the news today’ (?)   Though I’m really an opera and classical music fan.   But I’ve lived a comfortable life in a century of unprecedented violence – what sound track could really reflect the shameful irony of that?

 

• What about the future – will you continue with Novels at the expense of the non-fiction stuff, do both or go off in a completely different direction altogether?

Both  + my life as a Federer fan.

 

 

• Finally, if any of your novels make it to the big screen do you think there’d be a part in there for a fifteen stone, shaven headed Geordie (I quite fancy playing a ‘Raffles’ type character myself!)

There were no people who weighed 15 stone in the austerity 40s.   Only possibility is a transsexual fortune teller in The Lost Time Café,  but that was such a terrible book I’m expunging it from my CV. I’d like to write about the 1990s, though, so maybe I’ll tailor something just for you.

The Radgepacket team and all at Byker Books would like to take this opportunity to thank Elizabeth for her time and wish her further success with her writing career (I’m thinking she’ll probably be alright with or without our help like) and hope she sets a historical and opulent novel in Byker sometime soon!

I sure will!   And thank you!