You come from Cumbria – to what extent has that influenced your writing? One of the things that struck me from the start in The Electric Michelangelo was the use of these long flowing sentences, where the word orders were sometimes inverted, reminding me of some Irish writers where the influence of Gaelic shines through in the language and constructions. Is that completely off the mark?!
It's so hard to answer this. Is it really possible to know what vernacular or territorial influences lie buried and come into expression for any artist? Is the artist aware of their existence to the degree of conscious employment? Yes, I'd love to think I'd somehow picked up on those old-fashioned ballady yarrny story-teller qualities you find in the north, but in reality who knows… Certainly I think the landscape, with its drama and energy has been an influence. I always imagine the Cumbrian regional spirit, if one exists and can be proven, is very strong (possibly seeming buggersomely strong to the outsider), so the rub off could be in creating strong characters or a narrative with surplus brio. Or maybe it's just soggy Cumbrian fiction…
In a number of reviews and interviews about The Electric Michelangelo I've read about the 'cinematic' quality of it, which is apparent. Is it possible for a modern writer to avoid the influence and vocabulary of film?
Cinema is likely an influence to one degree or another for all younger writers. It's pretty inescapable, even if the intake is modified. Certainly my fictional scenes break down into small sections like cuts in a reel. But writers of all ages and periods have and have had to be able to visualise the world and set scenes and externalise an interior landscape of the mind for the reader's consumption, surely?
A lot has been made about the violence in the novel, but in reality both of the main dramatic actions occupy little space in the book. Why did you give them such little time? I was also struck by how little we learn about Sedak, as if his motives could be taken at face value. How important is he to the story?
I always find mystery villains to be the most frightening. The ones you don't see too much of, or know too much about, they seem the most sinister. In The Electric Michelangelo Sedak operates as some kind of foil to Grace's political feminist stance (we're not supposed to admit to literary devices as writers are we, but we do use them), and he is an advocate for the female form being classically defined. He's supposed to represent a threat to personal and bodily freedom, especially pertaining to women's, and is a C
hristian version of a religious fanatic – the novel's setting at this point in the plot is America, and that's no accident, in fact I think it's relevant. I don't consider the book to be overly violent. And violence when it occurs is also perpetrated by women – for example Grace's revenge. Sedak is important for what he represents, the enemy of Grace's ideology and liberty, and he's also the challenge through which she exits scarred but unbroken.
In the review of the Electric Michelangelo in The Guardian, it was described as “above all, an analysis of pain”. How accurate is that?
It's a very fair point, but I wouldn't agree with the 'above all'. In examining the good and the bad aspects of life, and how these ultimately influence identity, the latter has to be measured and described, but hopefully the book's not just hung up on that darker end of things. There's a lot of love in there too, and light. And it's as much a novel about healing as it is about pain and wounds. The nature of a scar – damage and recovery. This is seen most obviously in Cy – he has quite a few forks in paths along the way. He inherits the benevolent influence of Reeda to the malevolent influence of Riley (though neither character is purely one-dimensional by any means) and he ultimately chooses his restoration and founding, breaking the cycle of drinking and pessimism he could have wound up in, but retaining his difficult occupation. When he becomes master to his own young apprentice at the novel's conclusion he does so with compassion and balance.
Do your own ideas on tattooing coincide with Riley's in the book when he says “It's an unselfish trade is ours. I'll tell you what it is, it's personal socialism, lad. Everyone's included, everyone gets to look in to a person and share them… a tattoo says more of a fellow looking at it that it can do of the man who's got it on his back”?
Yes. Bang on. This speech of Riley's took a while for me to get right. And it worried me that it crossed the line between character's and author's voice.