An interview with Kevin Brooks

Following on the last two posts about Kevin Brooks, young adult author, I’m now delighted to be able to post a brief review of his latest book, Killing God, (released last week) and an interview which Kevin kindly agreed to do for this blog.




The back cover blurb of Killing God reads as follows:

Dawn Bundy is fifteen. She doesn’t fit in and she couldn’t care less. Dawn has other things on her mind. Her dad disappeared two years ago and it’s all God’s fault.

When Dawn’s dad found God, it was the worst time ever. He thought he’d found the answer to everything.

But that wasn’t the end of it.

Killing God is gripping and as gritty as it is powerful. The writing is tight yet fluid and is woven through with punk rock lyrics. The voice is so compelling that you find yourself living in Dawn Bundy’s head – and her heart.
This thought-provoking story raises multiple questions and explores multiple emotions. It is dark and it is sad, but it is also about love and forgiveness. I don’t think there are many young adult writers who are as able to inhabit a teen landscape as fully as Kevin Brooks does, he is totally in touch with his readership, their feelings and their world. He doesn’t talk down to to his readers and he doesn’t offer them false hope – he just tells it like it is. As the book's title suggests, he is also not afraid to tackle any subject.
Killing God is an intelligent read and one hell of a story, and Kevin Brooks is at the top of his game as both a writer and an artist.

Dad was smiling too.
And he had a Bible in his hand.
And his eyes...
God, his eyes.
It was terrifying.

An interview with Kevin Brooks:

Kevin Brooks
(Image courtesy of Kevin Brooks)

You don’t shy away from dealing with gritty themes in all your novels but in Killing God you deal with what is probably a particularly controversial theme for many, namely, religion. What prompted or inspired you to write this story? And were there specific questions you wanted to explore and why?

There were three main inspirations behind Killing God. Firstly, I wanted to write a story about the main character, Dawn Bundy, who I'd had in mind for a long time. Secondly, I wanted to explore what happens when a fundamentally good person does something unforgiveable – ie, how does that affect the rest of their lives and the lives of their loved ones. And thirdly, I wanted to examine some of the very basic questions about religion - ie what is it for, what does it do, how does it change people.


In Dawn Bundy (the main character of Killing God) you’ve created a particularly compelling and powerful voice. What intrigues me is how you are able to get inside the head of a 15 year old girl so effectively and completely. How do you do it? And where does the inspiration for the character come from?

I think it's simply a matter of getting to know the essence of the character in your head – what they think about, how they feel, what they are. Once you've done that, it doesn't really matter whether they're a boy or a girl, man or woman, old or young ... they're just a person.
As to the inspiration? Well, to be honest, I've no idea where any of my characters come from or what inspires them – they just seem to evolve in my mind.


You’ve drawn heavily on music in Killing God – to what extent does music influence how your write?

I spent a lot of my life writing and recording songs, and although songs are very different to novels, the fundamental processes involved in creating them are actually very similar. In my writing, for example, I'm always very aware of aspects that are probably more associated with music than fiction – ie, rhythm, melody, progressive themes, etc – and I owe my awareness of these aspects to my previous experience with music.


It’s been said that some of your “bad” characters are particularly dark yet I’ve found that you frequently balance this with love and caring in your books – for example, Dawn’s relationship with her mother and her dogs – and even bad-ass Mel. Do you set out to do this deliberately or do you find you’re simply portraying life as you see it? Or do you perhaps see a need to create a balance between the “bad” guys and others.

Bad people aren't necessarily all bad, and good people aren't always 100% good, and I simply like to reflect this in my books.


I found Killing God to be novel that I read not only as a story but also one which I viewed as a work of art. Do you see yourself as a storyteller, a writer, an artist or a combination of all three?

I've spent almost all my life working as either a musician, a painter, or a writer (to varying degrees of success!), and – to me – all artistic processes are just variations on the fundamental idea of expressing yourself creatively. So if I do 'see' myself as anything (which I'm not sure I do!) I suppose it would be as an artist ... if that's not too pompous a thing to say!


Some have said that your novels are not suitable for teens given the dark reality of your work, but the on the flip side others would say you portray the truth of the reality that is out there and which others often sanitize. How do you respond to these views?

I've never met a teenager who has any problems whatsoever with any of the themes in my books. Young people are astonishingly wise and open-minded, and I simply don't worry at all about whether my books are 'suitable' for them or not.


You’ve said you don’t do happy endings, yet your endings are not necessarily sad ones either. Your books just end – generally leaving the reader with multiple questions. Is this deliberate or again, do you feel it’s more of an honest reflection of how life really is?

A bit of both, really. I don't like books in which everything is wrapped up and explained at the end, as this tends to prevent the story from living on in your mind – which, to me, is what a story should do ... and what I hope my stories will do. And, yes, because I try to write honestly about life, I think I'd find it very uncomfortable to end my books in a manner that, to me, would feel somewhat artificial.


You studied philosophy and this comes through quite strongly in the style of your books – you pose many questions, usually “big life” questions – are you searching for answers or just asking – and, as such, are you asking your readers to consider the same kinds of questions and come to their own conclusions?

No, I'm definitely not looking for answers. Mainly because most of the 'big' questions don't have any answers (which is why they're big), but also because it's more enlightening to look at the questions than to blindly look for the answers. I'm quite happy for my readers to consider the questions if they want to – but I'm just as happy if they simply want to enjoy the story. It's entirely up to them.


What would you say influences and informs your writing style and your choice of themes?

Absolutely everything and anything.


It often strikes me that you seem to set out to break new ground in teen fiction, to go where many of your peers don’t go – would that be a fair assessment and if so, what do you want to achieve?

Well, I don't consciously set out to break new ground, I just write what I want to write. And if that results in a bit of ground-breaking, that's fine with me. I suppose all I ever want to achieve is to write the best possible story I can.


You write in the first person voice – very effectively – yet I’ve been told by editors that writing in the first person voice is the “easy way out” – how do you feel about that and why do you choose to write in the first person?

Firstly, I just like first person narratives. I like the intimacy and the relationship that develops between narrator and reader. And, secondly, it's really important to me to get into the hearts and minds of my characters, to find that voice, and I find that a first person narrative is the best way to achieve this, particularly with teenage characters. As to it being an 'easy way out' ... well, that's news to me! In many respects it's actually a lot harder.


You have both myspace and bebo accounts which put directly in touch with your teen readers. How important is it to you to have that contact and do you find their comments and views inform what and how you write?

Yes, it's really important to me to have direct (and honest) contact with my readers – it makes the entire process of writing a novel complete. I think, however, that it would be dangerous for a writer to be overly influenced by the views of his/her readers – a writer has to have faith in themselves and what they write.


You’ve written 12 books in the past eight to ten years – that’s prolific output. How long does it take you, on average, to write a new novel – and how do you sustain your output?

Discounting the thinking time (which can be anything between 12ish months and 20ish years) the actual writing of a book usually takes me about a year. I sustain this by simply sitting down at my desk every day and writing.


Of all the books you’ve written, which is your personal favourite and why?

My books are kind of like my children, and we all know that parents aren't allowed to have favourite children


I’ve noticed that certain successful writers seem to almost bypass the editorial process. What is your view on that and what role do your editors play in bringing your work to the finished product.

My editor plays an extremely important role in creating the finished book – all editors should. That's what they're there for – to help make the book better. And that's what they do. It's hard for the writer sometimes, because deleting/changing/amending anything is always a kind of tacit admission that you did it wrong in the first place. But once you've learned to accept that you're not always a 100% error-proof genius, and that sometimes your editor knows better than you, it's really not so bad. The book is the only thing that matters, and whatever makes it better has to be embraced.


I’ve heard that you’re working on something new – can you tell us about it?

No, sorry! It's a secret.


This blog is frequented by many writers – some published and others still seeking publication – what advice do you have for new and aspiring authors and how long did it take you to first get published?

I started writing when I was five years old, and I didn't get published until I was forty. So it took me a while. And, as such, I've been an aspiring author for a lot longer than I've been a published author, so I know exactly what it's like.
Advice? It's really tricky, because there aren't really any short cuts or pearls of wisdom that can help. You simply have to keep doing it – write, write, write, write – and keep sending your stuff out to everybody and anybody, and – most importantly – never give up. The ones who don't make it are the ones who give up.


Many thanks to Kevin for agreeing to this interview.

And as to the rest of you - if you haven't done so already, read Killing God, I've no doubt it is destined to become a bestseller.

Meeting Kevin Brooks, young adult author – Part Two

I hope my non-writing blog buddies will bear with me for another couple of posts while I do writery things on the blog. This post (and I make no apologies for the length), the second in a four part series, is a rough transcription (of my hastily scribbled notes) of the dialogue that YA author Kevin Brooks had with a group of teens at the Cape Town Book Fair. The teens had read either Being and/or Black Rabbit Summer before attending the event, so some of their questions were about those two novels. It was very much a question and answer session so I will stick to that format. Please bear in mind that I do not quote Kevin verbatim and these are my notes of what he said.

Q: What is Robert Smith, the main character of Being - is he human or not, it’s never really made clear in the book?

A: The book is about what it means to be human or a living thing. Do we really need to know who or what we are to be content? The key thing is about not knowing because the reality is we generally don’t know. The idea for the story came about 20 years ago and it took a lot of thinking before finally finding its form as a story.
We assume we have a heart, lungs etc and that it is what is in our brain, our consciousness (perhaps our souls) that makes us who we are.
There isn’t a quest to find answers in the book but to explore the notion that “I am me but I also don’t have control or really know who I am” – as it is for Robert. So it is important that we never really know who or what Robert is.
Kevin wanted to portray Robert as normal to himself – so Robert sees himself as normal where others don’t, in the same way as we all see ourselves as okay/normal/bad even when that may not be the case. Because Robert has a certain coldness about him we don't see him as normal whereas he does.



Q: There are no big theme in your books – is that intentional?

A: No, it’s not intentional. Kevin knows what he’s writing about and yet also doesn’t. He’s been made aware that there are recurring themes in his books and he puts this down to the fact that most writers put some part of themselves, in some way, into what they write. For him, not knowing is a constantly recurring theme.
He has studied theoretical physics and philosophy and that influences the fact that he tends to write in a way that is not about solving questions but asking them. It is a journey of asking - and he believes it would be arrogant of him to assume he had the answers.
He purposely doesn’t explain things and purposely doesn’t know the answers – and he accepts that not everyone likes this aspect of his writing. But he maintains that there is stuff in life that can never be explained or neatly wrapped up and to do so seems false.
When a reader finishes a book it must remain in his/her head, it must stay alive. If it is all neatly wrapped up and explained then when the book is finished the story dies.
One of the other themes that is reflected in his books is how he sees the world and humans – which is pretty much as animals because we do quite brutish things. We’re a young, pathetic species and as such you can’t really judge people - just as you can’t really judge a lion for killing.



Q: You seem to write very much in a crime fiction genre, would you agree?

A: He doesn’t really think in terms of genres but agrees that all his novels have elements of crime fiction but he wouldn’t call them crime fiction. He acknowledges though that he loves crime fiction, particularly US crime fiction.
He believes it is essential for both writer and reader to be immersed in the story, and finds that with crime fiction the narrative takes you along with it.
He finds crime fascinating, even though he hates it. There’s a basic idea of law and order, the way to live as a society founded on laws – and it’s there that there is the big gap between us and other animals. When we tacitly agree to an unspoken agreement to abide by laws we are in a kind of guarded circle. The criminal part of life lives outside that circle – this is what is particularly fascinating and what takes him into interesting and complex aspects of morality, along with the consideration that right and wrong differ from one country to the next.
He likes to deal with powerful emotions and believes it’s the darker emotions that stay with us for a long time. Happiness is ethereal, unlike sadness, grief, anger or fear. These are the emotions that are linked with what people shouldn’t do.
The Road of the Dead is about violence and its ramifications, how it affects people. And the reality is that violence is intrinsic to human society.



Q: What is the role of music in your books?

A: Music is part of his life, he’s played in bands, recorded and spent many years writing songs. He sees painting, writing books and songs as very much the same thing – expressing oneself but through different mediums.
There is a lot about song writing which has helped in writing novels – for example rhythm, structures and themes. Rhythm is particularly important and helps to shape words, sentences, punctuation, paragraphs and chapters. Rhythm also adds to the creation of emotions and feelings in a reader at a subconscious level. When you read a book consciously you get stuff through words, when you read “unconsciously” you get stuff through rhythm.
In Candy he knows the “feeling” of the Candy song – he could write and record it.
In Killing God, Dawn Bundy is obsessed with the Jesus and Mary Chain and he’s used lyrics from their songs as a soundtrack to her life. He did think it would be great to have a Jesus and Mary Chain CD to go with the book but it worked out to be prohibitively expensive.

He feels that books should be seen in the same way as music, and that books and music should be intertwined so you could, for example read ebooks and play music together (books are in your head, music is in your heart and it would be good to blend the two) but unfortunately he finds this is a problem for the publishing industry and older people who see books in a very particular way.



Q: Your topics are pretty hardcore, as in Black Rabbit Summer, can you tell us about that?

A: Black Rabbit Summer is about friendships but includes drugs, sexual feelings and homosexuality. A reader once said she liked his books because they dealt with these things but without being about them. He feels kids find no big deal with this stuff – they deal with it far more easily than most adults do. Although he may write about sex, he doesn’t write about the details because that would be boring and he prefers to keep it subtle.



Q: Your settings are quite detailed, can you tell us about that?

A: Most settings are based on made-up medium sized towns in an unstated area of southern England – what he calls “anywhere towns” so that they can be relatable to a wide range of people.
Because the books are about young people he feels it’s important for the stories to have a small microcosmic world, because that’s how teens relate to their world – home is their area, the lanes, streets, rivers and trees in their immediate vicinity.
The book he’s currently working on is set in a high rise estate in south London.
Many of the settings in his books are based on memories of where he’s been and places he has known.
He also pointed out that you can find anything on the net in order to create a particular setting.
He felt the worst thing a Young Adult writer could do is to pretend or assume that they know what kids are about and what they are doing. He believes it’s dangerous for an adult writer to pretend that they are a teen and write in a teen way. He urged YA writers not to write in current slang. He writes about emotions because those don’t change – although he will research stuff which is current for teens, like texting.



Q: Do you relate to your characters?

A: He writes as the character but elements of himself come out in different ways. He never starts writing until the character has evolved organically in his mind.
In terms of his writing style he has ideas and puts ideas together and leaves them in his head to grow and waits for the character to start to build.
He had Dawn Bundy in his head for ages before he could find the right story for her.
He creates a framework for his stories and when the character has evolved in his mind and is as true to him, as alive as they can be – then he starts writing and he writes as the character, he becomes the character. He said he felt like he was possessed by Moo when writing Kissing in the Rain.



A: How are you guiding us as young people to make choices?

Q: His doesn’t “guide”. Books must be a good story first and foremost. If you are made to think about what’s been said that’s great, but he is very anti-issues and never takes a moralistic position because he doesn’t believe he’s in a position to tell anyone what to do – he has no great wisdom and he’s not qualified to tell people how to live their lives. He just writes about life, death and everything in-between – so this person does that and it has these consequences. Books can’t provide answers; people must find their own answers. But he acknowledges that some of his readers may get positive stuff from his books.
Stuff happens in life, good, bad, horrible, wonderful, and there’s something to be had from everything. But it is not his duty to provide directions, positivity or hope. He doesn’t consider that his role - if his books do that, then fine, but people find out stuff for themselves and from multiple sources.


Next week I’ll be posting an interview which Kevin Brooks has very kindly agreed to for the blog, along with a brief review of Killing God, his latest novel which was released in the UK today (25 June).

Meeting Kevin Brooks, Young Adult author – Part One

The Cape Town Book Fair took place a week ago and in gloomy, grey weather I headed out because one of my favourite Young Adult writers was visiting and participating in two events.

Author, Kevin Brooks
(he's a bit keen on hats...)

Kevin Brooks, author of Lucas, Candy, Being, Black Rabbit Summer (to name but a few) writes gritty, compelling novels for teens. His first novel, Martyn Pig, published by Chicken House in 2002, was shortlisted for the Carnegie Award and won a Brandford Boase Award for a best first novel. It was published at a time when the world was entranced by the adventures of a boy wizard. Not that one can begin to compare Brooks to Rowling – they are poles apart – one is a true artist, a writer adept at portraying the darker side reality, while the other tells escapist stories brimful with colourful imagination.

To quote Kevin from his myspace page he writes:

[my] books about real things, real lives (with occasional touches of other stuff), and although I wouldn't describe them as crime fiction, they often have crime fiction/thrillery elements in them. I like to write about the darker side of things, and I'm not known for my happy endings.

Aside from listening to Kevin speak at the two events, I was deeply chuffed to be able to chat to him when I ran into him at the Penguin bookstand – where I also got my grubby mitts on a proof copy of his forthcoming novel, Killing God (a beyond-awesome book, due out on 25 June 2009 in the UK). I hope to blog about Killing God at a later date - if the nice people at Penguin are kind enough to arrange an interview for me…

And yep, my copy is signed by the author

I’m a copious note taker and I hope my furious scribbles give you some insight into the thinking of an exceptional and extremely talented YA author.

Kevin Brooks (centre) as part of a panel discussion at the Cape Town Book Fair

Kevin Brooks - views and observations on writing for teens:

Young people are interested, as we all are, in the big questions of life – who and what we are, what it means to be a human. Because of his interest in the “big questions”, Kevin has often been accused of posing more questions than answering them but believes that it’s the journey, rather than answers per se, that is of interest,.

He dislikes the idea of books which are issue driven. Books should be a good story; they should entertain, rather than focus on an issue or a message. Messages, in particular, are patronizing to teen readers. But if one can write a novel from which a reader comes away with something powerful and that has left them thinking, then a book had done its job.

Even though Kevin deals with complex subject matter he believes that it is important to be able to convey multiple, rich images simply and without being overly complicated. He acknowledges that his writing is influenced by the tight, crisp style of American fiction.

He considers it critically important that YA writers don’t dumb down to their audience or try to reach the teens’ level through slang, “teen language” and styles (which are, in any event, transitory). The important thing is to reach what is inside a person. As it is this which is timeless and the same for all of us, young and old alike. The same holds true for the dynamics in relationships. And it is to these sorts of levels to which stories must be told. This is why Kevin says he sees himself writing about teens rather than for teens.

In response to one panelist’s observation that adults couldn’t really write for teens, Kevin remarked that adults were once teens and they’re not that different from who they were then to who they are now. He said he frequently felt like he was still 14.

In closing, Kevin said one of the things he’d realised as a writer was how important readers are to a book. A book, he said, doesn’t become a story, doesn’t become alive, until it’s being read – and it’s the reader who completes the circle initially started by the writer. As such, writing and reading books is very much a two way thing.


Chatting to Kevin later at the Penguin stand, he asked about my own writing and observed how critically important it is to realise one’s writing only improves by writing and then writing some more – and also, to keep submitting. He said if he hadn’t been published by Chicken House when he was, he’d have kept writing and submitting until someone had offered him a contract, even if it took forever. It is, after all, about pursuing and fulfilling dreams and goals.

I asked him why he thought Barry Cunningham of Chicken House had taken him on when he did. Turns out, unsurprisingly, that having become known as the man who discovered J K Rowling, all Barry Cunningham was getting in his slush pile were manuscripts about wizards.... So when Kevin called him and said, “Well my book’s about a boy who’s killed his father,” Barry said, “Send the manuscript!” And Martyn Pig was published.

Kevin has enjoyed a very successful career with Chicken House and I asked him why he’d decided to move from them to Penguin. It was, he said, very much a career move, a little like moving from a small club to Manchester United. Although it had been a hard thing to do because of loyalty issues, the timing was right especially given he’d turned down an earlier offer from Penguin.

Speaking to Kevin there’s no doubt that the old adage, “read, read, read, write, write, write, submit, submit, submit and never give up”, holds true.

In Part Two of my post on Kevin Brooks (coming later this week), I’ll be sharing an interview he did with a group of teens. And now I’m off to write, write, write before settling down with another of Kevin’s books – The Road of the Dead.



For a full list of Kevin Brooks’ books, with brief overviews, take a look at fantasticfiction.com