 The author of Show Me the Sky talks about his novel, his characters, on being a full time writer, his travels, his earlier work, his next work, and lots more.
Interview by Paul Kane
Paul Kane: At the centre of Show Me the Sky is Billy K., a guitarist and singer who vanishes. Did you base him in part on Richey Edwards from the Manic Street Preachers?
Nicholas Hogg: I guess more the method of disappearance than actual character, as Richey Edwards and Billy K. do have the abandoned car in common, the evidence of their last known whereabouts. But I have to confess there's little else I know about Richey. Although not a massive fan of the Manics, I was blown away by them at the 1992 Reading Festival. The guitar riffs from Motorcycle Emptiness and Suicide is Painless were electrifying, highlights from a concert where Nirvana and The Charlatans also played – lead singer Tim Burgess doing an impression of Jim Morrison that was close to a resurrection, and Kurt Cobain lifting us from the quagmire of those last two rainy days. I don't choose to like artists who self-destruct, but half my CD collection is of stars who died before their time: Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Buckley, Ian Curtis and Nick Drake. So it almost seemed natural to write about a vanished singer.
PK: Can you remember what you started with when you sat down to write Show Me the Sky? Did you have the plot worked out beforehand, or were you later surprised by what happened to your characters?
NH: I knew I wanted to write about Fiji, as my job teaching there was inspiring, and possibly the simplest 'happy' time of my life. I wanted to imagine that period before colonization, and then the ensuing culture clash with the arrival of the British, and the missionaries. I'd also been working on the missing rock star chapters, and realised that they, Billy K., and the Fijian, Nelson Babbage, shared an identity crisis. The indoctrination of an impressionable Pacific islander by the church and 1830's English society, and the self of a singer constructed from crazed fans and crooked record executives, mirrored each other across the centuries. And as the characters developed, so did the plot.
PK: How many drafts of Show Me the Sky did you write? How long did it take to complete?
NH: Perhaps a novel with multiple narratives needs more tweaking than a standard construction. Or am I just looking for excuses for lots of editing and taking two years to write it?
PK: Has the prospect of the publication of Show Me the Sky altered how you see yourself as a writer? (And do you fear the jealousy that fame will inevitably inspire?)
NH: I hadn't thought about the second half of that question until a couple of weeks ago when I met Booker-Prize winning author, James Kelman. Asked about how he receives good and bad reviews, he contended that success was 'fuel' for his critics, and perhaps something to be cautious of. He has been around a while, so seems a man worth listening to. However, I can promise you I'm not sitting around thinking of OK Magazine spreads.
PK: Have you always wanted to be a writer?
NH: Not until I damaged my neck playing rugby. I was twenty four and suddenly needed something else to do. This coincided with getting into poetry, John Burnside and Ted Hughes particularly, and being given a copy of Cormac McCarthy's All the Pretty Horses. I started off with poetry, perhaps as a way of gathering myself for a novel, testing out words and sentence rhythms, developing a style, or at least an understanding of one. Then, with money saved from teaching in Japan, I set about writing the novel of the new millennium. Of course, it was full of holes and unpublishable. But it was vital and necessary training before sitting down to work on Show Me the Sky.
PK: Do you now write full-time? How easy or difficult is it to write full time for a living?
NH: For almost a year I've officially been a 'full-time' writer. And yes, it is an adjustment. I was teaching part-time during Show Me the Sky, and had three hours a day of very lively classrooms full of refugees. A daily lesson full of debate and argument, and sometimes learning, was a great antidote to sitting and writing alone. So once I became 'professional' it was important to continue engaging with the world outside the study. I recently spent six months living in New Zealand, and whilst there volunteered with the Refugee and Migrant Service, as well as playing rugby again.
PK: What are some of the jobs you did before? How have they influenced your writing?
NH: I definitely qualify as a Bukowski 'factotum' – a Jack of all trades. Graveyard keeper, cleaner in a bakery, Stop-Go board operator, heavy roller driver, TV extra, English teacher, travel writer, roofer, motorbike courier and even a temp position on 'streaker patrol' at Lord's have all paid my way. And apart from the obvious experiences from these jobs that have gone on to inspire my fiction, the hard work ethos of waking before dawn to dig up a road, or ride a parcel across London in the pouring rain, have – I hope – helped develop the necessary discipline to sit and write.
PK: What is the first piece of fiction that you had published? How much did you get paid for it?
NH: Route Publishing paid me twenty blessed pounds for a short story called, 'Womble.'
PK: Did your upbringing happen to spark your interest in travel? Would you say that your experience of other cultures has changed you as a person, or perhaps effected your writing in some way?
NH: ou're a product of your experience, whether you never leave the town you were born in, or whether you move to the other side of the world and learn a different language, live by the rules of another culture. Apart from travel widening knowledge, self and a sense of your place in the world, it introduces you to different rhythms of language, syntax and expression, nuances of vocabulary. From Japanese haiku to Fijian folk tales, Hindu super-stories of Gods giving birth to Gods, all must influence what the writer puts on the page.
PK: You previously studied psychology: was this valuable to you, or a wrong turning? And a biggie for you: Science or art, which yields the greater understanding of human nature? (Assuming that you regard psychology as a science, of course…)
NH: You're right, that's a massive question, one you could spend a lifetime failing to answer. Firstly, although I didn't go on to a career in psychology – though some may argue that a novelist is delving into what makes who we are, why we do the things we do – it's a subject that provides not just a background into our psyche, but also a focus into looking at people more closely, their stories. And on art versus science, I love the Picasso line that, 'Art is a lie that makes us realise the truth.'
PK: What are your current writing projects?
NH: I don't want to divulge too much, as characters and plots are still evolving. But research for novel two took me to Bosnia, the US-Mexico border, and Israel and Palestine – regions of the world with stories to tell.
About the interviewer:Paul Kane lives and works in Manchester, England. He welcomes responses to his reviews and you can reach him at ludic@europe.com
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