Tony Black interviews Allan Guthrie on Slammer
TONY BLACK: Tell us about Slammer, it’s your fifth full-length novel isn’t it?
ALLAN GUTHRIE: Amazing to think so, but, yes, Slammer’s my fifth novel. It’s a prison novel written from the perspective of Nick Glass, a very young prison officer, who’s not terribly well equipped, psychologically, for the job. He gets bullied by his colleagues, and also by the prisoners, and his home life’s not great either. Things get worse when the inmates apply some pressure on him to carry out a ‘wee favour’ for them, and that favour, of course, turns out to be the first of many. Before long, Nick’s in the kind of mess that leaves him vulnerable and scared and with nowhere to turn. Except to his one friend, a con called Mafia, who happens to know a man with a gun...
Where did the idea for the book first come from?
I’ve been intrigued by the idea of writing a prison novel for a long time. I’m generally intrigued more by exploring abnormal psychology than by focusing on the puzzle solving and police procedure you tend to find in a lot of detective fiction, and there’s plenty of abnormal psychology on display in prison. I also couldn’t resist the lure of the potential drama contained within a confined space. It’s great for building plots because there’s so much scope for conflict, which is the lifeblood of all good fiction, crime or otherwise.
How would you like your readers to interpret the book?
I try to write in such a way that the reader is invited to interpret much of what happens. By that, I mean that they have to work out how to read a character or action on the basis of how that character behaves. That’s the kind of novel I find that I engage with, so that’s how I try to write. The answer to the question is that I would like my readers to interpret the book individually. My aim is to engage them in the story, but what they make of the story is up to them. I’m just delighted to have people read it.
What does a nice chap from the Northern Isles know about life in the Slammer?
When I started the book, I knew almost nothing. I ended up probably knowing too much! I did more research for Slammer than any of my previous novels. I stopped short of getting myself arrested, but I learned what I could from various resources and tried to impart that information in as interesting a way as possible. I got a wealth of great anecdotes from an ex-prison officer and various stories he told me found their way into the novel. One of my big bugbears is books that smack of research, though, so I tried to avoid that, and left out a lot more than I’ve put in.
How do you think you’d fare in the Slammer?
Very badly. I’ve had my experience of institutional life - four years at a boarding school - and never adjusted to it. And it’s easier as a kid. I was certainly more resilient back then. These days, the lack of privacy and the boredom on the inside would do me in pretty swiftly. If a sharpened pork chop to the heart didn’t get me first!
If you were ‘put away’ what would it most likely be for?
A bank heist. Let’s face it, my luck’s got to run out sometime. I can’t keep defeating the odds and getting away with it time after time after time, can I?
Inside, what would you miss most?
Apart from my family, privacy. The lack of privacy would drive me demented.
You moved to Edinburgh some time ago, can you remember what drew you to the place?
I came to Edinburgh for holidays as a kid and fell in love with it. Coming from Orkney, which is full of open spaces, I found most cities quite claustrophobic. But the simple fact that Edinburgh’s main drag only had shops on one side of the street allowed me to breathe, even when I couldn’t see the sea. So I always had strong feelings about the city and wanted to move here when I grew up. I arrived when I was twenty and haven’t regretted a minute of the past twenty-odd years. I still like to be able to see the sea, though. At home, my study looks out across the Forth to Fife. It’s a view I appreciate every day.
Orkney has produced a number of well-known authors, George Mackay Brown and Duncan McLean to name two, do you feel part of any tradition?
I don’t feel part of any kind of geographical tradition. I feel part of the noir fiction tradition, but I don’t think noir knows geographical boundaries. It first appeared in the US, but it’s international now.
Orkney does seem to punch above its weight in terms of literary talent, why do you think that is?
Clapshot. It is to Orcadian literature what spinach is to Popeye.
It was a school teacher who first inspired in you the urge to write, I believe...
At primary school in Kirkwall my P5 teacher, Anita Grieve, allowed me to scribble away on my novel when my classmates had art periods. To this day I still can’t draw a stick man, but I always loved to write. My teacher was hugely encouraging, and I completed my first novel that year during those art classes.
You write a very gritty form of literary noir, is this the high end of the Crime genre?
That’s just marketing. The same books have been published as pulp fiction and literary noir, depending on the sensibilities of the publisher.
Can a crime novel tell us anything about ourselves?
When I write, I’m hoping to get the reader to empathise with the protagonist. If I’m successful, that means, in the case of Slammer, that you’re led places that may be unfamiliar and a little dangerous and disturbing. While the narrative may expose you to some situations you’ve not experienced before, it does so through the unfiltered mind of Nick Glass. So what it tells you about, hopefully, is him. If you see something of yourself in him, that’s fine too. But I suspect it’s unlikely that a novel will tell you something you didn’t already know, or at least suspect, about yourself.
What do you think that teacher would make of your writing now?
My first reaction is to think that she’d be shocked and surprised. But thinking back on it, that novel I was writing in her class was about a series of grisly murders. So maybe she wouldn’t be all that surprised after all.
What did you read when you were growing up?
I was pretty obsessive about reading. I read virtually everything Enid Blyton wrote. I shouldn’t admit this, but I even read the Malory Towers books – the series set in a girls’ boarding school. Fortunately, my P5 teacher weaned me off those and gave me some Agatha Christie to try. I ended up reading most of Christie’s vast output in large print from the local library over the next two or three years. I was also reading quite a bit of Edgar Rice Burroughs at the time – I liked Tarzan and the Venus series. And at some point I read all of Richmal Compton’s Just William books.
What first attracted you to crime?
As a writer, crime fiction enables you to place characters in extreme situations and see how they behave. That’s always fascinating. With crime fiction, you get to push character and plot as far as they’ll go. Nick Glass, for example. I push the poor guy over the edge, and it’s a long, long way down.
And finally, can you tell us what you’re working on now?
I’m working on a thriller provisionally titled Blood Will Out. I dare say the title will change – it usually does. Never thought I’d try my hand at a detective novel – especially one with a serial killer -- but I came up with a story I really wanted to write, and it seemed like a good time to face the challenge of exploring unfamiliar territory. So far, so good, I think. But there’s a long, long way to go.
- Tony Black’s first novel Paying for It is out now. The follow-up Gutted is published by Preface/Random House this summer. For more information visit his website.
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Young prison officer Nicholas Glass is finding the stresses of the job increasingly hard to handle. When a group of cons use outside help to threaten his wife and daughter, Glass agrees to help them out with a 'favour'. But, as their threats escalate, and one favour leads to another, he grows ever closer to breaking point.
