‘It’s not as though literature really is a mystical process of discovery’ – An interview with Jon McGregor, author of If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things & Even the Dogs

Valerie O’Riordan (VO’R): Firstly, I’d like to say how much I adored this book.  It’s bleak and tragic and incredibly beautiful – a real triumph.  To begin with a big question, tell me what brought you to write about these topics – addiction, homelessness, alcoholism?  You’ve dealt with urban anonymity before, in If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things, but Even The Dogs is a dirtier tale altogether.

Jon McGregor (JM): Thanks.  I’m glad you liked it. That means a lot, it always means a lot.
To answer your question though, I don’t really know.  In fact, I tried to avoid writing this book for quite a long time.  It started with the scene of Robert’s body being discovered, and initially my interest was just that – a body being found, and what happens to a body after its found, what happens to the people who are left behind.  But in the process of writing that first chapter I discovered (decided, in fact, because it’s not as though literature really is a mystical process of discovery; these things get decided) that Robert and his friends were alcoholics, drug addicts, people living on the edges of or well outside of mainstream society.  I didn’t think that was the sort of book I wanted to write.  But I couldn’t stop thinking about it either, or noticing it.  So I suppose I was just interested in making sense of a group of people living lives dominated by addiction.  Just: what’s it like?

VO’R: You don’t name the setting of Even The Dogs, but I reckon it’s somewhere in the East Midlands.  It’s very vivid, despite its anonymity.  How important is place to your writing?

JM: I’m confused about place in my writing.  It’s important to me that the reader has a vivid sense of where they are, and a coherent sense of how different locations and landscapes fit together.  But I’m also ambivalent about pinning that down to a real-world location.  In my last book (So Many Ways To Begin), the locations of Coventry, Aberdeen, and Donegal were an integral part of the story – the associations which the reader brought to the book’s version of those places was important.  But in Even The Dogs, as in my first book, it’s important to me that the reader isn’t distracted by any associations they might bring to the book’s location.  I think Faulkner had the right idea with his Yoknapatawpha County.  So, in Even The Dogs…  It could be any large city in England.  Topographically, it has a lot in common with Birmingham; some of the locations are from Nottingham; at least one location is from Sheffield.  But mostly it’s from my head, and, I hope, the reader’s head.

VO’R: Amongst the misery and death and hopelessness of much of the novel, the character of Laura presents the possibility of survival, almost despite herself.  Do you think there’s light at the end of her tunnel?

JM: That’s up to the reader.  I’ve always enjoyed novels where the story had a sense of an afterlife once the book was shut, and it’s something I’m always aiming for with my own books.  And I wouldn’t want to prejudge the reader’s own sense of what might come next.  Although I would say that if any of these characters have light at the end of their tunnels, it’s Laura.  That’s what the image of the cup of tea is all about.

VO’R: How long did the novel take to write? Do you find, with two previous novels under your belt, that the process has gotten any easier?

JM: Mostly it took about a year.  The first chapter was written, and put away, about seven years ago.  And I spent a lot of time preparing before I started writing: doing research, making notes, sketching out the structure, all that stuff.  So when I started the main chunk of writing I was ready to really hit the ground running, and brought a lot of energy to it.  I’m not sure that the process gets any easier – every book is so different.  But I did learn from the last book to try and be ready before getting started.  If that makes sense.

Of course, the editing took ages and ages, as it always does. And should.

VO’R: Did the success of your first novel, the hype around the Booker nomination, spur you on, or scare you off?

JM: Neither. It was just fun. A lot of fun. So much more than I expected, commercially. What I hadn’t been expecting was the self-consciousness which comes from reading reviews of your own work – good or bad, the reviews tend to stick in your mind and colour the way you think about your writing.  I’m not sure I got that out of my system properly before beginning to write the second book.  Whereas this time round, I was convinced that very few people would like the book, and so gave myself licence to do it exactly the way I wanted to. 

VO’R: As well as the three novels, you’ve also written short fiction.  What’s next? 

JM: Publication-wise, the next book will be a collection of short stories.  I’m pretty excited about it.  There’s no hiding place in the world of short stories – the work has to be very very good, or there’s no point.  I’ve got ten years worth of stories to draw on, so I’m looking forward to finding the strongest pieces and writing a few more.

Next as well is long-form non-fiction.  It’s going to be a steep learning-curve, I think.

VO’R: You teach on Arvon courses; how do you find the experience of teaching, and how do you think it affects your own writing life?

JM: Easy with the plural: I’ve taught one Arvon course so far.  I’m waiting to see if they’ll have me back.  Although I have also taught a few university seminars recently.  I find teaching writing puzzling, and enjoyable.  Preparing the sessions forces me to think more clearly about what I do, and have done.  Mostly I suggest that people go and read more, and find ways of reading their own work more clearly.  I worry that people who go through writing courses are afraid of the solitariness of writing, and are seeking too many opportunities to talk about it instead of getting it done.  But that might be unfair.

VO’R: You’ve cited Faulkner and Kelman as influences – can you elaborate, or give us any more examples of influences on your work?  You’ve spoken before about music, for instance. 

JM: As I Lay Dying and How Late It Was, How Late are quite conscious reference points for Even The Dogs, in that I went and re-read them when I was about halfway through the writing, partly to be careful I wasn’t unconsciously regurgitating them and partly so that I could work in a couple of (hopefully) subtle allusions.  Both are phenomenally well-accomplished works, at the feet of which Even The Dogs isn’t worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs of etc etc.

Beyond those, it’s difficult to talk about influences: the word seems to presuppose a comparison with one’s own work.  I can say that writers I have recently been very impressed by include – WG Sebald, David Foster Wallace, Alice Munro, John McGahern, Richard Brautigan, Michael Donaghy, Aleksandar Hemon, Peter Hobbs, and, as they say, many more.  But yes, music means a lot as well (Bon Iver, Tindersticks, Nick Cave, Beirut, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Will Oldham, Magnetic Fields, Ellen Mary McGee).  And films, and long bike rides, and beer, and all the other good things.

VO’R: What are you reading/watching/listening to right now?

JM: The Lazarus Project by Aleksandar Hemon. Man on Wire dir. by James Marsh. Blister In The Sun by the Violent Femmes.

Even the Dogs by Jon McGregor is published by Bloomsbury and is out now