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KS: As for more graphic sex in novels, a friend of mine has said the test about whether or not to show the sex is if you can take out the scene and the story still works. If that's the case, then you probably don't need it there. The first time I showed what I would call explicit sex between Jeffrey and Sara was in Indelible. I was nervous as a whore in church. This will probably freak out Sarah Waters, but she really encouraged me to go all the way and show it for what it was. I think the scene in Indelible tells the reader something new about Jeffrey and Sara's relationship, so it enhances the story and works in the book. It's like when you had Jack making the beast with two backs in the stairwell with Rebecca. I think it said so much about both of them as characters. Here were two emotionally unsettled, needy people making an incredibly irresponsible decision and having unprotected sex in a semi-private place. To me, that says a lot more than the usual stand-bys for character development of telling the reader what kind of alcohol some guy drinks or music he listens to.
Mo: The big problem in writing about sex is choosing the words for all those horrible gristly bits that get used during the skilful execution of the bad thang. The best advice I ever got is to call it/them what the character would call it/them. That advice was one of those lightning strike moments, when the huge lightbulb on top of my head lit up like a bad Christmas display, because although I'd understood when writing how to get 'into character,' to use a Stanislavskian metaphor, I had a yawning gap when it came to sex scenes (oh, the innuendos are out in their hundreds today, aren't they?) I just couldn't take that step -- it all felt too personal. Maybe that's because a character is easy to portray if they're just eating breakfast, having an argument, selling an ice cream, whatever, because we can be witness to these things: but we don't on the whole (and speak for yourself on this) witness other people having sex, so we have nothing to mimic. It could be the reason death scenes are so difficult -- because as a society we avoid looking at death. Of course, all of these problems go up a notch on the difficult gauge when you're trying to write in the first person - then you become utterly exposed, utterly out on display. I've been very squeamish about sex and the first person, but maybe I'm getting over it now, because my next book is all about sex and all in first person.
When's the book out?
Mo: April 2006. I'm introducing a new character -- Oakesy, a British journalist who works for a magazine that specialises in exposing paranormal hoaxes, faith healers etc. A bit like James Randi. In Pig Island, a hazy, poor quality video arrives at the magazine showing a naked half beast/half human being walking along a beach on a remote Scottish island. Also living on the island is a cult rumoured to be involved in Satanism. The theory goes that this creature is the devil, and that the cult has somehow conjured him down to the earth. It's Oakesy's job to disprove the claim that this is the devil.
How about you? Any feelings on which is easier. First or third?
I've only had one published story written in first person. I don't know that I'll ever do a novel in first, because I find it too revealing for the many reasons you mentioned above. There are also a lot of writers who don't do it very well -- you being my favorite exception -- and to me their tone tends to sound too self-involved and/or self-satisfied. What you did brilliantly in Tokyo was bridge two first-person narratives by giving them distinctive voices. That's always a big worry of mine. I don't want all my characters to sound alike. With Triptych, that's my challenge: create something totally new. You did it wonderfully.
You're right about naming the different parts, though, because I swear to God the words "throbbing member" kept coming to my mind as I wrote.
In Indelible and later in Faithless, I think the sexual intercourse (double entendre intended) adds a lot to the story. I see Sara as multi-faceted. There's the trusted pediatrician, upstanding citizen of Grant County -- and then there's the other side of her, the side that really enjoys sex and wants to be with Jeffrey. I've alluded several times to her gutter mouth during intercourse, but people seem to gloss that over when they're thinking about Sara because of course good girls don't say "fuck me."
There's this really (I think) great scene between Sara and Jeffrey in Faithless that I worked on for quite a while -- sex scenes always take much longer than the other stuff -- and I really like how it turned out because it tells you everything you need to know about their relationship at that point. Sara is always going to surprise Jeffrey. I, for one, find that very sexy about her, but then I spend way too much time thinking about my characters.
But, come on -- you've never watched porn? How many years have you been married? You can't tell me your copy of The Thorn Birds didn't have all the good pages turned down…?
Mo: My boyfriend got suspended from school at age 8. He'd found a pile of porn mags: he didn't know what they were, but he knew the older boys liked them, so was making pocket money selling them. Larry Flynt's Mini-Me: he'd made fifty quid by the time they stopped him. But I hardly ever watch porn because I know how humdrum it is for the actors, so I discount almost everything I see in porn as exactly not how people behave. Plus I've heard some of the frankly unrepeatable tricks of the trade. (But maybe I'm digressing……….)
Since when did you pull punches?
The thing that bothers me about porn is that with some famous exceptions, men still can make more money than women in this profession. I saw an interesting documentary on gay porn, where "straight" guys could make thousands of dollars a day by doing gay porn, or gay-for-pay. Women don't have that same option because of course the lesbian narrative is as common to porn as satin sheets and a wah-wah chicka-boom soundtrack. I doubt very seriously anyone is going to fight for equality in this arena, but especially with the advent of Viagra, it's not like one person is doing more work than the other. I suppose the implication is that the women are interchangeable. That's what bothers me about pornography.
Mo: As a child, some very soft porn literature found its way into my house. Henry Miller, plus my favourite -- Portnoy's Complaint (although I wish Roth would drop the sex thing now -- it's all getting far too Woody Allen). I don't know what was going on in my mother's mind, because although my memory is of a constant Jane Austen/Charlotte Bronte diet, some cool things did creep onto my bedside cabinet. Probably the most memorable was Metamorphosis. That blew me away -- age 12. What did it for me was that much-analysed opening sentence: "As Gregor Samsa woke one morning from uneasy dreams"... I think I can trace a lot of my literary tastes back to the moment I read that sentence.
But how about you -- do you ever sit and unpick your influences? What were you reading as a mini KS?
God, I had forgotten about Metamorphosis. I must have been around the same age as you when I read it. (Hm... some secret international plot to spawn thriller writers…?) I'd never read anything like it and that book is probably one of the few stories that I started reading again as soon as I finished. Like all children, I guess I keyed into Gregor's isolation. He's such a tragic hero, and despite the plus of having more arms, who wouldn't be sad to be a cockroach?
Another book that I feel marked me was The Painted Bird. There has been a lot of scandal about whether or not it's a true account, but I was a kid when I read it and all I knew was that it was a shocking and amazing story. Bird is the first book I remember reading that had graphic violence, but in the context where it actually said something about the characters and moved the story. Up until that point, it'd been John Jakes (soft porn!) and V.C Andrews (incest!) that occupied my mind, but after the reading Kosinski, I think I turned into a more serious reader, which leads me to...Flannery O'Connor.
Growing up in the deep South, I had never been exposed to a woman writing about violence in such a matter-of-fact way. I didn't think it was allowed. O'Connor was so masterful at blending everyday characters with horrific events, and she had a wicked sense of humor. I loved the way she used humor to balance the violence. There's this great line at the end of A Good Man is Hard to Find where the Misfit, who has just killed an entire family, says about a nagging grandmother lying dead at his feet, "She would have been a good woman if…somebody had been there to shoot her every minute of her life."
How can that not inspire you?
Mo: Well, exactly....
Mo Hayder's Pig Island will be published April 6, 2006 in the UK.
Triptych will also be released in 2006.