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WHSmith Awards Interview - February 2003
Zane Radcliffe’s debut novel ‘London Irish’ is one of five novels short listed in the New Talent category of this year’s WHSmith People’s Choice Awards. We grabbed five minutes of the Ulsterman’s time.
Have you always wanted to be writer?
No. Right through school I always thought I'd do something with art. I used to draw on pavements for money and I had a lucrative sideline sketching portraits of people's pets (try getting a budgie to sit still). At 18, I told my mother that I would write a novel. She only said 'Sure what would you write about. You haven't lived.' I guess I spent the next fourteen years 'living' and London Irish is the result.
Was your experience as an advertising copywriter useful when it came to writing the book?
Advertising has given the literary world Fay Weldon and Salman Rushdie among others. It's a fantastic training ground for budding novelists and screenwriters. When I'm writing an ad, I have to tell a story in 30 seconds (TV) or 7 words (Poster). So having 350 pages to tell a story is a comparative luxury. In ads, every word counts. I try to apply the same discipline to my novel writing.
Did you find humour a useful way of approaching the Troubles?
For over thirty years the people of Northern Ireland have found humour a useful way of approaching the Troubles. You either laugh or you cry. The Northern Irish have an uncanny ability to laugh in the face of adversity. That's what makes us the best people on the planet. Not that I'm biased.
What books are you reading at the moment?
I don't find as much time to read since I moved from London. I used to read for a couple hours a day on my tube commute - a great way to avoid eye contact with drunks and psychopaths (and that was just the suits that got off at Chancery Lane). I'm currently reading Dead Cat Bounce by Damien Owens (Flame). Wonderful, laconic Monaghan humour. But I would say that - I used to share student digs with Damien in Belfast.
Who have been your literary heroes?
I like a good yarn. Roddy Doyle can tell them. Iain Banks has been known to spin one or two. And I love travel writing. But I owe the biggest debt to Colin Bateman. Not because I've enjoyed all his books or because he gave me the belief that I could one day get published. I owe him a debt because he awarded me my first job as a teenager, selling his ill-fated 'North Down and Ards' magazine door-to-door. The tight-arse paid me sod all, forcing me to concentrate on my education in pursuit of a proper job. The result was a degree in English Lit and a career in writing - journalism, advertising and now, novels. So if I have a 'literary hero' Colin's the man. And I've got three boxes of his unsold magazines in my parent's attic if anyone would like one.
In ‘ London Irish’ Bic says, 'Well if it wasn't for the Troubles, Northern Irish novelists would have nothing to write about.' What do you plan to write about next?
The Troubles.
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