A Q&A with Peter May
Peter May is the author of fifteen novels and an honorary member of the Chinese Crime Writers’ Association. Read an interview with him about his latest book, The Blackhouse, which has just been selected for the Richard and Judy Book Club.
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A MURDER: A brutal killing has taken place on Scotland’s most remote island. Detective Fin MacLeod is sent from Edinburgh to investigate. For Lewis-born MacLeod, the case represents a journey both home and into his past.
A SECRET: Something lurks beneath the close-knit, God-fearing façade of the Lewis community. Something primal. As Fin investigates, old secrets are unearthed, and soon he, the hunter, becomes the hunted. The Blackhouseis a crime novel of rare power and vision. Peter May has crafted a page-turning murder mystery that explores the darkness in our soul, and just how difficult it is to escape the past.
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What first gave you the idea for writing The Blackhouse?
The Blackhouse evolved in my mind over a long period, dating back to the 1990s when I was producing a television drama series shot entirely on location on the Isle of Lewis. That is when I got to know the island, its people and culture so intimately. Filming in all weathers gave me an amazing feel for the place, and over time I found it seeping into my soul – along with the rain. But it wasn’t until ten years after I had finished filming, that the story began to crystalise for me, building itself in layers around an ancient island tradition which sees 12 men make a perilous trip into the north Atlantic each year to slaughter 2000 young gannets.
Can you tell us a little more about the background to the novel?
The book takes us on a journey back through the life of an exiled islander in his mid-thirties. His name is Fin Macleod, now a police detective in Edinburgh. Sent back to the Isle of Lewis to look into a murder almost identical to one he is investigating in the city, he is forced to confront a past he has spent eighteen avoiding. As we make the journey back through time with Fin, we meet all the players of his childhood and adolescence, including his best friend, Artair, his first love, Marsaili, and the class bully – who, it turns out, is also the murder victim. In retracing the footsteps of his past, Fin finds that they parallel the tracks of his investigation, until the two converge to reveal a startling truth. The centre-piece of the story is the annual expedition to kill the birds – something Fin was forced to participate in as a teenager. As he arrives, the expedition is preparing to leave once again, and we discover that Fin’s past, the murder, and the perilous trip to “the rock”, are all inextricably linked.
What was the most difficult aspect of writing the book? How did you overcome it?
This was a complex story that I wrestled with over several weeks. The biggest problem was how to tell it. I knew all the elements I wanted to include, but it took a revelation that came unexpectedly as I sat in the sunshine of my garden in France to break the deadlock in my mind. As with all solutions, it really was remarkably simple. The real story was in the history, the past not the present, and only by exploring the past could I shed light on the present and bring the story to resolution. And so I determined to tell the past and present stories in parallel, with the history being related in first person, using Fin’s own distinctive voice, and the present being related in third person. I was aware of the danger of disrupting the narrative and confusing the reader, so it was important that there were concrete links to lead us into the past, and then back again to the future. It was, therefore, very carefully plotted.
Does working with an editor help you to shape your work, or are you a writer who dislikes their meddling?
I have never worked very closely with an editor, but I very much recognise how essential it is to have a perceptive and objective eye cast in detail over your work. For me, that is the value of a good editor. I have worked with editors who nitpicked and fussed over irrelevant detail, as if determined to have any kind of input. But, equally, I have worked with editors who have forced me back to the drawing board with insightful comment which has led to re-writing and, ultimately, improvement. A good editor stops you from being lazy.
Do you know how your book will end when you begin or is writing a journey of discovery for you?
I am a writer who very much believes in structuring his work. Writing is not just an art, it is also a craft. Some are capable of starting on page one with a vague idea in their head, and working through to some kind of conclusion. There usually follows re-write after re-write, draft after draft. I believe that good writing does not require re-writing. I structure my work by writing a detailed synopsis after many weeks or months of thinking and research. This is an intensely creative process that takes place over five or six days. Once I have my story in place, it provides a safety net which gives me the absolute freedom to focus on the quality of my writing and the bringing of my characters to life. It is not, however, a straight-jacket. Ideas occur in the process of writing which sometimes mean a radical change of direction, even a different end from that originally envisaged.
How did you first manage to get published?
I had written several books during my teen years and early twenties, but it wasn’t until I was around 24 that I finally followed the advice that everyone had been giving me – write about what you know. I was working as a journalist at the time, so I wrote a thriller about an investigative journalist. I also developed the idea for TV. The BBC bought it, producing a 13-episode drama called The Standard. My first book, The Reporter, was published simultaneously.
How long have you been writing?
I have been writing, almost literally, all of my life. I recently came across my first attempt at a book – aged four. It’s about 120-words long, and is called Ian the Elf. Written during my first year at school, having barely learned my first words, I also made the cover – sewn together with needle and thread – and provided a couple of illustrations. About a month ago I scanned each page into my computer and put together a little slide show of it, set to music, and uploaded it to YouTube. You can see it by following this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTxOEfwclh0
Is there anything you feel you can’t do well as a writer that you’d like to be able to do?
Writers always know their own limitations, even if they are not obvious to others. But they are certainly a source of internal frustration. I won’t share mine with you, but I will note that most novelists write terrible dialogue – as I did when I first began. But fifteen years working as a scriptwriter in television honed my dialogue skills, enabling me I think to develop character and plot more easily through the words that people speak, rather than the ones that I use to describe them.
What do you do when you are not writing?
It is increasingly the job of a writer, when not actually writing, to be actively engaged in promotion. I spend up to two-months a year promoting my work in the US, and as much time again travelling to book fairs all over France to talk to readers and sign my books. Music has always been my other great love, but I seem to have so little time these days either to play or to listen.
Did you have an idea in your mind of your “ideal” reader? Did you write specifically for them?
The advice that I always give to young writers is to write what you would like to read. And that’s the advice I follow myself. So if I have an “ideal” reader in mind, it is me.
How do you write? With pen or pencil? Straight onto a screen? Revision after revision or fairly spontaneously?
My years in journalism taught me to be fast and accurate with a keyboard. When computers came along I embraced that technology from the start. I touch type. So that when I sit in front of my computer to write, it seems to me that what I think appears on the screen like a kind of magic. I am barely aware of my fingers on the keyboard. I am an instinctive writer, working from a structured storyline. I polish my writing but almost never revise it. If feel that if I don’t get it right first time I never will.
What are you working on now?
The facetious response would be, “my annual accounts”. Ahhh, the joys of the self-employed writer! In writing, I am working on two projects – the third book in the Lewis Trilogy, and the screenplay of one of my China Thrillers, which will be shot in Hong Kong next January.
Who is your favourite writer? And who is your least favourite?
The writer who influenced me most as a young man was Graham Greene. I read all of his books in the library. Then bought them all in paperback and re-read them. Then read his revised versions, along with his notes on the cuts and additions he’d made. I can’t say there is any one writer whom I particularly hate. There is a lot of really bad writing around, and I hate the thought that a marketplace swamped with bad writers inevitably means that good writers are being lost to us.
Who is your favourite fictional character?
This will probably sound incestuous, but my favourite fictional character is Enzo Macleod, the protagonist of my Enzo Files series. I have so much fun with Enzo, and empathise with him so closely (too closely, my wife says). He has most of my worst traits, and his best are all ones I covet. Research for his adventures take me all over France, drinking wine and eating 3-start Michelin cuisine. So how could he be anything but my favourite character?
Do you have a favourite quote?
Yes, it’s from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam:
Tis all a chequer board of nights and days,
Where Destiny with men for pieces plays,
And hither and thither moves and mates and slays,
Till one by one back in the closet lays.
I wrote it down from memory, so excuse me if it’s not 100 percent accurate.
What is/are your favourite book(s)? What is the last book you started but didn’t finish?
My favourite book is The Beasty Beatitudes of Balthazar B by J. P. Donleavy. It had a profound influence on my writing style and my view of the world. The last book I started but didn’t finish was Reversal by Michael Connelly. But not because I wasn’t enjoying it. Simply because life interrupted reading, and I haven’t managed to get back to it yet.
Do you have any tips for the aspiring writer?
Write what you know. Write what you would like to read. But above all, just write.
eBooks: good or bad?
Bad for publishers, bad for booksellers, great for readers (maybe), and possibly for writers, too. The technology enables almost anyone to by-pass publishers and booksellers these days and publish their own e-books. The problem is, that with nobody to filter content, the market could be swamped with dreadful stuff. And how are readers to know? The upside is that the books are cheaper and more readily accessible. Personally, I love my iPad. It allows me to take any number of books with me on my travels.
Are you optimistic about the future of books and reading?
Yes, I am. I think that technology is putting electronic books in the hands of young readers who might otherwise never have picked up a paper book. But technology will also change style and content, which will have to evolve to keep pace with a digital age where readers are short on concentration and susceptible to distraction.
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An award-winning journalist at twenty-one in his native Scotland, Peter May left newspapers for television and screenwriting, creating three prime-time British drama series, and accruing more than 1000 television credits before moving to France to concentrate on writing novels. He is the author of fifteen novels including two series: The Enzo Files and The China Thillers. May won the French Prix Intramuros in 2007 for Cadavres Chinois à Houston (Snakehead) and is the only Westerner to become an honorary member of the Chinese Crime Writers’ Association.
