Sunny Garden

Interview questions: Benjamin Law

Do you always put aspects of yourself into your novels? Since they always seem to be written in first person, does this affect what characteristics and qualities you give your protagonists?

This used to be something I gave a lot of thought, partly because I didn't know how much or how little of me I was supposed to put in there (particularly, I guess, into my central characters). Then I realised that, when I was writing, it was the character's perspective that I had to keep in mind. That was position I was writing from, after all. So bits of me probably make my way in there, and I don't push them in and I don't stop them. I don't even necessarily notice them. Most of my characters' features and what they do are fictitious, but if they happen to take on something of mine, I don't hold it against them. As far as I'm concerned, wherever the many parts come from, the whole - the novel - is in the end best read as fiction. Even something that might have come directly from my life is in a different context in the novel, so it doesn't have the same meaning.

Writing in the first person certainly affects how I tell the story, but maybe it does also affect how I construct my central character and the kind of character I construct. One of the main things I want to do when I'm writing is get the central character right, and I find that putting myself in that person's head makes it easier for me to get there. And perhaps there's a limit to how far I could stretch myself and still write a story from the inside. I'm not sure.

Do the cultural idiosyncrasies (like vegemite, paddle pops, chuppa chups, the Courier Mail, even particularly QLD references like QUT, Toowong and Indooroopilly) become a hindrance when it comes to presenting your stories to an international audience?

Not as much as I might have thought. There's actually an article on this subject on the internet called, I think, 'What the hell is a Tim Tam?'

What I think I've learned is that human stories travel, but that most stories happen in a place and to me it makes sense to ground the story in that place.

Plus, in many cases it's obvious what kinds of things you're reading about from the context. The Courier-Mail is a newspaper, and if you know the Straits Times or the Wigan Evening Post or Le Figaro you know what a newspaper is, and that's enough. The context has told you it's a newspaper you're reading about, even if you've never laid eyes on a Courier-Mail.

The same applies to suburbs (as a concept, at least) and to some degree plenty of other things, such as snack foods. I'd read about Hostess Twinkies plenty of times in American comics before I ever saw one, and I had enough of an idea of the kind of thing they were. So I didn't sit there baffled, going 'Hostess Twinkie? Is it a suburb? Is it a kind of car? Is it a self-improvement class?'

And just as we're used to importing a lot of stories from other countries, many other countries are pretty relaxed about importing things, working most of the specific references out one way or another, and living with those they can't.

The American market seems to be one that's more likely to require changes than others. The only change my UK publishers have ever made was to replace doona with duvet on the Bachelor Kisses back-cover blurb. They didn't change a word of the novel, and people didn't seem to have problems.

Why are the protagonists of your novels usually the underdog? Do you think Australians have a culture where they like seeing the underdog win and the tall poppy get cut down?

I think quite a few cultures have that view, and I guess we do have it here. I think, in terms of my characters, I'd look at it more as triumph over adversity. In a way that's what the novels are about - taking a regular person, tossing them something difficult to deal with and then taking them through that process.

I like to see underdogs get through, but I don't cut down a lot of tall poppies. And not all of my underdogs inspire unqualified affection. Rick in Zigzag Street is, I think, endearingly vulnerable, but Jon in Bachelor Kisses can be annoying sometimes. That's part of what makes him interesting as a person (or made him interesting to me) - he's got a lot to offer but he lacks the judgement to work out when he's going to cause harm sometimes, and that he should handle things differently. Maybe he's starting to work some things out by the end. But I figure there are lots of people like that. I don't expect my friends to be perfect, so I don't expect my characters to be perfect either.

Are you consciously aiming at the youth audience with your novels? Do you have some ulterior motive to start getting Australian youth reading again?

I think, when I'm actually writing the novels, I do it without any real regard to audience demographics. I've learned to separate the two parts of the process - the writing and the marketing. In the writing phase, it's all about getting the most out of the story and the character, telling the story as well as I possibly can. I think I've got a duty to do that first. It's only when that's over that we address marketing issues.

I guess most of my readers are aged 15-40, but not all. I had a woman in her 80s tell me Bachelor Kisses was her favourite, and the very idea that someone grandmotherish had read some bits of it practically made me blush. But I figured that was ageism on my part, and I told myself to get over it.

But having said that, I do actually like the idea that a lot of my readers are people who are approximately my age (or younger). It's nice when I hear from people that something I've written has meant something to them, that my version of what we're going through connected with them in some way.

And naturally I think reading's important. It's important for basic literacy reasons for a start, but there's more to it than that. I love film, and I love TV, but the novel's got something special going for it, and I think it'd be a shame if we lost it. Actually, I don't think we will. Its place is too distinct. TV didn't kill film, and the internet won't kill the novel. People will go to a novel (even if its downloaded into an e-book) when they want a narrative experience that's selfish and intense and personal. When they don't want all the pictures given to them, but they want a whole big story to explore. When they want to devote hours or more to working their way into characters and the journey they're on.

And I think it's a shame if anyone of any age misses out on that.

Why the shift from more 'serious' books (like After January and particular short stories) to more light-hearted subject matter (Zigzag Street onwards)? Was that shift a conscious decision, or just where your writing evolved? Or are there still 'serious' stories being released, but it's just the funny ones stealing the attention?

Hmmm, maybe it's where each of the stories evolved. Certainly years ago I took myself very seriously, and I wanted to write serious books. Then I realised that wasn't me and there were ways of telling stories that might work better for me.

Headgames (which, of course, is relatively new) has some pretty serious bits to it and, interestingly, some of them have been the parts that have got the best response. It was good to see that the people who read my books were happy to let me do that, and that we weren't all just in it for the laughs.

Don't get me wrong. I love comedy, but I love stories that get into people's heads too. I've just finished work on a novel for next year, and I think it's worked out to be a mixture of some of the typical way I do comedy, plus a more serious side.

Plus, it wouldn't be smart to set myself the task of trying to make each book funnier than the last. I'd drive myself crazy all too quickly. The task has to be to write the best book I can, each time I sit down to write.

Do you have any influences when it comes to (i) your writing style (which, you have to admit, is slightly unconventional) and (ii) your subject matter?

I don't know really. In a way I try not to ask these questions. TV has probably influenced my subject matter to some degree. It and film and other things (as well as novels) may have influenced the way I put stories and character together as well.

I've read a lot theories about what might have influenced my writing. Some of them are probably right, but often they're suggesting people whose work I haven't read.

It's probably other people who feel they need to work out where I fit in, rather than me. As far as I'm concerned, there's no reason to resist anything that's influencing me in a productive way, but also nothing much to gain by trying to evaluate it too closely.

What's with the UK cover of Bachelor Kisses?

Well exactly. What is with the UK cover of Bachelor Kisses? It took me rather by surprise, that one. A now well-publicised communication problem led to it being the cover without it really being run by me first. it seems to have sold quite a few books, though. But it will be rejacketed some time.

In the UK, the Mirror called the cover 'criminally bad packaging', but said the novel was '... a snortingly funny and sincere tale of the life and loves of a young Australian doctor. Like Earls' fantastic first novel, Zigzag Street, this is frequently hilarious and at times rather touching. The first Aussie to make me laugh out loud since Jason Donovan.'

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