News 2010
Martin Amis Launches New Novel
Amis, 60, who is Professor of Creative Writing at Manchester University, was reading from and discussing the launch of his new novel The Pregnant Widow. At the event, Martin Amis spoke to BBC One's North West Tonight programme about the event and Manchester's creative writing courses. To see the full interview click hereMan Booker Prize winner DBC Pierre reads at Literature Live event
Review by Sophie Stephenson
The University's Centre for New Writing hosted a reading by the novelist DBC Pierre on 22nd February 2010. DBC Pierre won the Man Booker prize for his first novel Vernon God Little in 2003, along with a Whitbread award the same year. The novel was described by the Booker judges as a 'coruscating black comedy. Its central character, a troubled teenager accused of a killing spree at his American High School, drew comparisons with Salinger's Holden Caulfield from The Catcher in the Rye. Pierre's second novel, Ludmila's Broken English, was published in 2006.
M.J. Hyland introduced the author at the John Thaw Studio by reading a short piece from Vernon God Little and describing it as 'the last great novel to win the Man Booker'. Hyland also mentioned Pierre's recent short story for the Ox-Tales collection, all profits from which go towards funding Oxfam's work.
The author's latest novel, Lights out in Wonderland, is based on the theme of decadence and is due to be published at the beginning of September. This follows the fortunes of an anti-capitalist depressive who wishes to commit suicide but is searching for the party to end all parties before he dies. Pierre told the audience that his Editor had only read the novel that afternoon and said the work had taken 'a long time to gel'. The charismatic novelist then read from the book, complete with a range of voices, and revealed a dry sense of humour with his comment that problems in writing can often be resolved through 'fatigue'. Pierre went on to describe the process of writing as being similar to 'embarking out to sea without a boat — you just have to keep swimming'.
After the reading, DBC Pierre participated in a discussion with M.J. Hyland, who asked him several searching questions about his strange biography and 'peripatetic past'. Pierre's name is a pseudonym - the initials allegedly standing for Dirty But Clean - which references the author's former drug habit. Born in Australia, he went on to live in Durham and grew up in Mexico City before settling in County Leitrim, Ireland. He credits his time in Mexico City for the 'dissolute and chaotic' aspects of his character, which, in addition to his drug problems, led him to cheat an associate out of the proceeds from the sale of his house; he later paid the money back.
The discussion moved on to consider the ways in which the UK publishing industry differs from the rest of Europe, with its focus on 'profit over everything else'. DBC Pierre commented self-deprecatingly that the aim of the publisher is to create a name, after which a writer can present them with 'a phonebook and they could still sell it'.
After a second reading from the new novel, which portrayed a trip round IKEA as a descent into capitalist hell, Hyland invited questions. One audience member asked if Pierre believes that writers don't, as a rule, study English literature, to which his response was that 'it feels true'. Pierre initially found literature boring and was, in his own words, not a big reader. The idea for his first book came from an item on the television news, after which he began to write in the character's voice and concluded that it is possible to write a modern novel which is also 'authentic'.
The following day DBC Pierre held a useful workshop with the Centre's creative writing students, giving a complex breakdown of the structure of a commercial novel.