Interview with Richard Godwin

British author and international man of mystery Richard Godwin already is an household name in the underground genre fiction community. Posessing a Dean Koontz-like capacity of switching from noir to horror to psychological thrillers to whatever genre he damn pleases without affection the quality of his work, Godwin entertained us with two highly disturbing novels in the recent years: the dark police procedural APOSTLE RISING and the wacky and savage giallo extravaganza MR. GLAMOUR. 

But his latest novel ONE LOST SUMMER is a little bit different. It has that X factor that sweeps you off your feet, that keeps your reading three hours passed bedtime. I did not mince words and qualifiers in my review and six weeks later, I still stand behind every word I wrote. Since I could not shut up about ONE LOST SUMMER, Richard had the kindness to sit down with me and answer a few questions.

ONE LOST SUMMER strikes me as a rare occurrence of a truly original obsession story. What was its inception moment? What happened that made it click for you? What made you want to write it?

I believe that humanity is governed by irrational impulses despite its avowed rationalism. Obsession is a common behavioural trait, far more common than people realize. I was thinking about the fact that we live in an age of surveillance and I outlined the idea for the novel. I developed that and sat down to write it feeling strongly the characters of Rex and Evangeline. It wrote itself in many ways. I allowed the story to tell itself. The narrative voice felt strong instantly.

I believe the main reason why ONE LOST SUMMER is so successful is that it makes a clever use of first person narrative. That story would have been a lot less powerful if Rex wasn't clearly identified as the character you should root for. Would you agree? If not, what do you think was the secret ingredient that tied everything together?

The fact that ONE LOST SUMMER is a first person narrative is integral to how it works. It would be a quite a different novel if I had written it in the third person, but when I started writing, it was evidently going to be told by Rex. The reason that is so key is because the events are filtered through his perceptions and they would be anyway, if you read the novel you will understand why I say that. And obsession is a subjective outlook, so we rely on what Rex sees and tells us to work out what is happening.

What other works influenced you to create ONE LOST SUMMER? Was there anything at all or do you seclude yourself from outside influence when you write?

Influences are hard to determine, the unconscious is always sifting and evaluating. I try to seal myself off. Maybe in the world of the semi-permeable mind this may be hard to do. I let the story write itself.

It's answer most writers can relate to. An aspect of ONE LOST SUMMER that will probably always fly under the radar is its strong statement on beauty and how it is used as a mean of control. Why do you think ONE LOST SUMMER's protagonist Rex has a different relationship to beauty than other men?

Rex may deny his love of Evangeline's body but that denial is bound up in an equation both temporal and sociological that has roots in the need for empire. He understands Evangeline's need to assert her physicality before it decays and reveals the hollow roots of her personal investments, and of course Rex sees her archaeology of sexual knowledge in both nuance and act. And he falls between the lines, a watchful shadow on the wall of her private and well-rehearsed dramas. Of course he desires her but his real desire lies elsewhere, as he says:

 ''I needed some singular form of privacy in which to reveal Evangeline. She could have a hundred lovers. I didn’t want her body. I wanted something else entirely from her than the thing she gave to other men.''

I thought it exposed the fallacy of beauty very well. How do you think beauty and desire are being marketed in today's society? Were you trying to address that in ONE LOST SUMMER?

I think beauty and desire are being represented as commodities by an industry that has failed to understand its precise workings within history. It is a desperate industry with many people working in it who neither love what they are doing nor understand what it is they are meant to do. They are given targets but they lack definition, as do their managers. In ONE LOST SUMMER I was trying to address the nature of illusion and how that may be tied to identity.

Aside from the artists you personally know, who are, according to you, the leaders in today's genre fiction? Who do you think pushed the boundaries of fiction and why?

When I answer this kind of question I always avoid talking about people I know for fear of the omission that causes endless offence. I would say the leaders in crime fiction were and are: Elmore Leonard, now past tense. He was the most disciplined of novelists, never indulgent, wrote the story from the characters up and never strayed into the banality of formula, a great writer on many levels. Present tense: James Lee Burke. Burke is a different kind of talent, profound, lyrical, dark and a writer of beautiful prose. Who do I think historically pushed the boundaries of fiction? Dostoyevsky, he changed the course of the novel with CRIME AND PUNISHMENT the first and last whydunnit, and he probed deeper into the psyche than any novelist. Shakespeare who reinvented poetry and portrayed psychological conditions with unerring accuracy before psychology arrived. Ben Jonson who wrote the best low lifes apart from Leonard and was a fine plotter. Kafka, who was prophetic and stark at the same time and showed the novel a new way forward. Graham Greene who wrote good and bad characters equally well, a rarity in itself. Gabriel Garcia Marquez who changes the reader's perceptions like Picasso did with his art. Also, Cormac McCarthy for redefining the American frontier.

Anything you can tell us about the projects you're working on right now?

My next novel, NOIR CITY will be published early next year by Lite Editions. It follows Paris Tongue, the Gigolo, who seduces the wife of a Mafia boss and ends up being hunted across Europe. I have just finished two novels, one will be published by MeMe who want translation rights to Italy, France and Spain and I have a possible big offer on the table for the other one.

Thank you for answering my questions, sir. Keep up the good writing!