Alex Preston was working as a City trader whilst he wrote This Bleeding City, an impeccably timed fictional complement to the new generation of economic ‘what went wrong’ deconstructions of the financial crisis. Imbued with the pace of the trading floor, Preston’s debut is an insider’s guide, not just to what went wrong, but also how it felt to be part of it. Lucy Chatburn spoke to Alex…
Lucy Chatburn (LC): First of all, thanks for agreeing to the interview! This Bleeding City is a great read and I’m privileged to get the chance to grill you about it.
Alex Preston (AP): Thanks for having me and I’m glad you like the book. It still feels weird that other people are reading it. As if you’re looking into my brain. I’m a big fan of Bookmunch, by the way.
LC: According to your bio you’re still working in finance, doing an MA and you have a family. Plus you’ve found the time to produce a book too. That’s quite a busy schedule. Do you ever sleep?
AP: I had a fairly Thatcheresque few years while I was working until seven, going home, wolfing down food, writing until midnight and then up at six for work the next day. So maybe not the Iron Lady’s four hours, but not really enough sleep. I gave up a lot of other stuff too. I sloughed off friends, commitments, fun. Everything became subordinate to the novel. I finished it while waiting for my son to be born.
Those last few months of pregnancy are burrowing time. It was winter and freezing outside and we curled up on the sofa, duvet over our laps. My wife would read or watch television whilst I wrote with my headphones on, occasionally leaning over to feel the baby kick, to massage out a knot in my wife’s back. I look back on it as a wonderful time, as the story came together and the baby grew and we were deeply happy in our little house in Shoreditch, snow piled against the back door.
LC: What are you reading at the moment?
AP: I’m reading Iain Sinclair’s Downriver, Frederic Jameson’s The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism and John Lanchester’s Whoops! It sounds like a lot but the first two are for my MA and the latter is a deeply engaging account of the credit crunch from an outsider who really gets it.
LC: Which authors inspire you?
AP: Hollinghurst is a huge inspiration. His novels have a pace to them that doesn’t stop them reaching for profound truths. Reading him is like skimming stones over deep water. I don’t think anyone alive does the English class system better.
Amis’ Money was at the back of my mind when writing This Bleeding City – although clearly stylistically very different – in the way that it tried to epitomise that particular era, to vividly capture that capitalist moment.
When I decided to write the book I was reading a lot of panic literature from earlier market crashes. Frank Norris’s The Pit has particularly stuck with me, but also Dreiser’s The Financier and Upton Sinclair’s The Moneychangers.
LC: To what extent does the story of This Bleeding City reflect a journey you’ve been on yourself?
AP: It seemed that people expected this to be a roman • clef, an insider’s view of the seamy underbelly of the City. All of the advanced press pitched the book like this, but Charlie Wales’ experience in the novel was very different to my own. I wanted him to be representative of my generation, of the young people who were at the heart of the crash, and as such he is a composite of many of my peers.
Perhaps where the story chimes most with my own is away from the City sections. Charlie’s anxiety about becoming a father, the comfort he finds in his friends and in mentoring young Ray – these are more direct representations of my own life. I’m relieved to say that my own credit crunch was rather more boring professionally.
LC: Why the unhappy ending?
AP: I don’t think it is an unhappy ending, although most readers have seen it as such. It’s an ending that recognises that life, in general, is difficult and shit. That it’s hard to achieve anything meaningful or satisfying in a world whose hedonic treadmill is constantly marching you on to the next goal, the next meaningless affirmation. At least for Charlie the world of money, with its hard abstract numbers, gives him something tangible to strive for, something simpler and more real than the pipe-dream of a happy family life with Vero.
LC: This Bleeding City has ample coverage of what the city has become. In your opinion what’s the solution? Is there a way for the financial system to fulfil the role it’s there to do without maintaining the destructive culture you describe?
AP: Good question. I think it’s clear that we’ll look back on the first decade of this century with a shudder. Selfish capitalism polluted everything and the financial crash was merely one demonstration that things had gone a long way in the wrong direction. The solutions have been discussed ad nauseum – stricter regulation, separation of banking and speculative activity, removal of conflicts around rating agencies, return to simpler models and structures… But I think perhaps the most important change is one I can’t see happening. For us to live lives that are rather more measured, more humble, less hungry for money and the cheap fix of consumerism. As far as that goes it’s as if the crash never happened.
LC: Book promotion seems to be more and more important these days and I have the impression that authors are expected to be more proactive in marketing their books. Has that been your experience? Has any part of your day job helped with the publishing / promotion process?
AP: Ha. I think I’m quite a rubbish salesman. That isn’t really part of my job. I enjoy talking about the book, I’m proud of it, and the whole promotional side is immensely fun. I imagine that dims with time, but at this point it’s just very,
LC: What makes you write?
AP: My grandfather – Samuel Hynes – is a writer and I remember holidays in the South of France as a child when he would sit under a fig tree in the garden with a notebook, filling page after page with his thoughts. I would sit and watch him and plan my own stories, imagine myself one day moving with such ease in the world of the mind. My grandfather’s best-known book – The Auden Generation – was published by Faber in the year of my birth: 1979. It feels somehow fitting that my book was accepted by Faber in the year of my son’s birth and will be published three weeks before my second child is due.
I also write because I live a fairly conventional life and my writing allows me to live worlds of feeling far beyond my everyday experience, thrust myself into situations which are wild and unusual. Very exciting.
LC: What’s your dream? What do you want to be doing ten years from now?
AP: My little boy will be coming up for twelve, likely taller than me and getting his first pimples. The next one will be burying his or her nose in a book as I did at ten years old. I’ll be forty. Hopefully I’ll have written a few more books, each a little better than the one before. I think a writer is supposed to be in his prime between thirty-five and forty-five, so I’ll be right in the sweet spot. But I think what my twenties have taught me is don’t look so far forward, don’t spool the rug behind you in your haste to rush to future happiness, riches, success. So my dream is to be happy now, to enjoy this amazing time with my first book and the new baby and my son who is talking and kicking footballs at me and laughing in his sleep.
LC: Anything else we should know?
AP: I’m an obsessive Joanna Newsom fan. Stalker-proportions. If the next baby is a girl I’d like her to play the harp. And ride unicorns.
This Bleeding City by Alex Preston is published by Faber and it’s out now.
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