Reader:  Thank you for agreeing to take part in this interview. I know how you would rather avoid personal exposure.

Iain Brimswall:  Writing can turn a soul into a sociophobe. The current project takes over. It becomes a standing excuse for skipping social engagements. I shouldn’t duck out of these since other people supply the raw material.

Reader:  You came to be a writer fairly late in life. What prompted the decision?

Iain Brimswall:  At an age when quite a few people are turning their thoughts to retirement, I decided to embark on the career I'd always intended. I'm unconvinced by the supposed advantages of retirement. It makes people old overnight. There's no gold-watch presentation day in writing: you continue till you've said all you have to say. Which, in my case, might be some years yet. Be warned.

Reader:  But you're not exactly new to writing, are you?

Iain Brimswall:  I've done bits all my life – articles, technical descriptions, little stories – and seen them appear in print. Two full length drafts of novels didn't make it past the waste bin. But this is the first time I've been described as 'writer' by the Inland Revenue. It's the first time I've had publication of a book.

Reader:  This being The Zoo Keeper, released – when? – last February, February 2004. How do you feel about the book almost one year on?

Iain Brimswall:  I like to think my writing style has moved up a notch or two since then. I feel it's evolving at quite a pace, actually. A test is to look back through previous work: I do this occasionally, and I find myself catching breath as I spot the rough edges and occasional gaffs. When a writer can pick up earlier stuff and admire its presentation without reserve, then for that writer the development process has almost certainly come to an end.

Reader:  And the test applies to The Zoo Keeper.

Iain Brimswall:  It certainly does. There’s a lack of sophistication in places. Maybe one day I'll revise it.

Reader:  If you did a revision, what changes would you make to The Zoo Keeper's sociological content?

Iain Brimswall:  None. None, whatsoever. I fully support the content – that's something I would not want to change. Before publication, I asked various individuals if they would read the draft and without exception they queried the form of Chapter Ten, the 'theory chapter'.

Reader:  The one where your character Ellis Carmichael undergoes a sort of mental breakdown and imagines he's giving lectures?

Iain Brimswall:  That's the one. Anyway, I listened and considered, but then I left it as I originally planned it. I wouldn't alter a word. The idea is for that chapter to be read and to make sense on its own, if required.

Reader:  How much of The Zoo Keeper is autobiographical?

Iain Brimswall:  The first part of the story is semi-autobiographical. I think it had to be. After years of academic work, I'd become moulded into a way of writing in which everything has to be backed up by evidence and footnotes. And here I was about to splash into creative writing – fiction. Initially, I didn't want to wade too far out. Throughout The Zoo Keeper, there's a firm basis to events and places.

Reader:  And what about the characters?

Iain Brimswall:  My characters are blends of existing individuals. I'm perhaps the least blended in the first part.

Reader:  You really did move into a high-rise block on a sink estate, just like your protagonist?

Iain Brimswall:  Been there, done that, got the tee-shirt. Even wrote a book about it. They blew the block up last year. No chance of an 'Iain Brimswall lived here' plaque.

Reader:  And what about before? Where had you come from?

Iain Brimswall:  A story for another time. [holds up a hand]

Reader:  The Zoo Keeper has been described as a sociological novel –

Iain Brimswall:  That's what you called it, when you reviewed it. I haven't come across the description anywhere else – though it's not inaccurate.

Reader:   Well, let me put it this way: what category, what genre did you have in mind when writing it?

Iain Brimswall:  The Zoo Keeper began life as a formal academic study, bearing the title 'Tending Poverty'. Boxes full of notes and photographs. I use the name in Missed Chapters so it hasn't been lost altogether.

Reader:  The question begs to be asked: what happened? Why did you transform an academic study into a work of fiction? A novel?

Iain Brimswall:  [laughs] In a nutshell, nobody wanted to know. My days at the university were over. Besides, the idea of social deprivation as deliberate policy is seen as too leftish for the present mood. It's not the sort of thread social science departments are encouraged to pursue. So, I added characters and turned it into a story.

Reader:  Nevertheless, even as fiction it's received a lot of response with regard to the concepts framed within the book. It's seen as an attack on the community development profession, for example.

Iain Brimswall:  A critical depiction, an objective observation, an antidote! I don't attack community development per se, just the way it's carried out at estate level – or rather not carried out. It's a meal ticket for a lot of middle class poverty workers, and I would like them to be a bit more sensitised to the frustration experienced within the estates they help maintain. If this particular thrust of The Zoo Keeper makes even a handful of community development workers pause to think about their role, then I'll be happy. The book will have served some purpose.

Reader:  Okay. Enough said. I'd like to turn now to Missed Chapters, if I may. You've been kind enough to let me read the working draft.

Iain Brimswall:  Do you like it?

Reader:  Yes, I'm impressed.

Iain Brimswall:  You're under no obligation to say that, you know. I won't throw you out.

Reader:  I mean it. I think it's a powerful piece, with an original storyline. You have a keen ear for dialogue and an equally keen eye for detail. Having read the draft, I'm full of curiosity, though. There's a lot I'd like to know about the preparation.

Iain Brimswall:  Ask away.

Reader:  The first thing that hit me of course was that the same characters appear, the main characters from The Zoo Keeper. Is this latest novel meant to be read as a sequel?

Iain Brimswall:  No, it isn't. It can be read as a sequel, certainly; that's by way of compensating the people who bought The Zoo Keeper. But it's not a ZK2, is it? This is an altogether different story, one that may have a social flavour, but it isn't 'sociological'. I use the same characters because I have them in my head. I feel I know them and can therefore describe their actions better. Although the characters return, perspectives are entirely reversed. It's a sequel if you want it to be, but it's also a completely free standing story.

Reader:  You say it isn't sociological yet the backcloth is community development.

Iain Brimswall:  Well, there are still one or two things to be said and, through my characters, I say them. This time, the process is viewed from the other side of the glass, with glimpses behind the scenes of a community development agency. None of this is allowed to get in the way; rather it sustains a storyline which calls for an organisational setting.

Reader:  The story proper concerns a woman, a successful woman by her own reckoning, who sets off on a voyage of self understanding.

Iain Brimswall:  Yes, that's right. A voyage taking her into her own past.

Reader:  How easy is it, do you think, for a man to portray the thoughts of a woman?

Iain Brimswall:  I would say that, normally, it ranges from very difficult to outright impossible – to any depth of thought. But that shouldn't stop a writer.

Reader:  Is the Gardeen character based on a real person?

Iain Brimswall:  Next question. [smiles]

Reader:  Is she a blend?

Iain Brimswall:  [laughs] Well, I'm very aware of the composite Su Gardeen. She's unique, and that's what makes her worthy of a story. But she's only unique as an assemblage. I'm sure there'll be real women who recognise an essence of Su Gardeen in themselves, just as there'll be men who see elements of her in the women they know.

Reader:  We follow the character backwards, as it were: her rise up the career ladder; then the marriage she walked away from before her career started; then the teen time spent on the fringes; and finally the schoolgirl.

Iain Brimswall:  I believe this is how a voyage of self understanding is. You start off from where you are – you travel back from the present. A forward chronology from first memories wouldn't necessarily work.

Reader:  It wouldn't for this unfolding, that's for sure. But, between the various excursions to the past, the story does move forward, in real time.

Iain Brimswall:  As indeed life does.

Reader:  True. And the present can be just as challenging as the past. Is this what you're saying in the story?

Iain Brimswall:  Potentially, it can be. The present can go either way, depending on how you handle it, and on how other people react. The past is the part of you that already happened – you either accept it or relegate it to the subconscious. At the beginning of the story, Su Gardeen feels incomplete despite her achieved position, or because of it. She reasons that in order to advance any further she needs to know what it is that makes her tick. For this, she must review episodes of her life she'd planned to forget. The reader sits in on the experience.

Reader:  And I'd say the reader is the better for it. It's an entertaining book above all else.

Iain Brimswall:  I'm glad you think so. The writer's duty: to entertain and inform.

Reader:  At one stage, Gardeen is worried about her mental state. She believes she may be facing the same deterioration that overcame her mother. Mental disturbance crops up in The Zoo Keeper. Is this a favourite theme of yours?

Iain Brimswall:  The two are unrelated. In The Zoo Keeper we have a man who undergoes a temporary switch to another mental state as a result of his situation. In Missed Chapters, we are dealing with something called early onset familial Alzheimer's disease. Thankfully, it's rare, but to know it was in the family line would be a cause of anxiety for anyone. To answer your question, I see life itself as a mental state. Most people enjoy a relatively stable mental state for most of the time, but there can be few amongst us who haven't had a storm to break the calm at some stage. Yes, you could say mental disturbance is a theme of mine.

Reader:  What about the theme of paedophilia? It’s present throughout the greater part of the story in Missed Chapters, isn't it?

Iain Brimswall:  Now we come to the tricky bit. [pauses] In Missed Chapters, I make the following points. No, scrub that; just let me flow. We – by that I mean society – tend to be afraid of the subject of the paedophile condition – of discussing it, of writing about it, of reading about it. It's as if it somehow rubs off, and we'll be contaminated if we talk about it. We believe we risk accusation by association. What we know about paedophiles is often limited to media reports of court cases in which there's an evil adult perpetrator and innocent child victims. But, if we can bear the truth, it's not always so black-and-white. There may be more going on.

Reader:  That comes out in the story. But there is black-and-white, too, though, isn't there? For example, the attack on the home of the registered sex offender, and the computer downloads. These are essentially – may I say? – clichés.

Iain Brimswall:  You're right, they are clichés. They're inserted to serve as reference points, if you like. They say: 'here are the aspects we are familiar with'. When that's agreed between writer and reader, then I invite the reader to explore further.

Reader:  Don't you think that, by inviting this further exploration, you also invite sympathy for the paedophile condition, as you call it? If not sympathy, then grounds for hearing out. That’s how some people will interpret it, I'm sure.

Iain Brimswall:  You’ve read the draft – did you feel you were being drawn into something you would rather not be?

Reader:  No, not in the least. I found it – well – informative. There's a sense of objective balance.

Iain Brimswall:  The character Stan – a self-confessed and time-served paedophile – did you find yourself sympathising with him?

Reader:  He's sad. I do admit to feeling sorry for him, for what happened to him in the story, but I can't condone his philosophy in any way. Let's face it, he's also disgusting.

Iain Brimswall:  Well, there you are. To explore a subject is not necessarily to defend it in any way. To explore it is to understand it better. We move away from the witch-hunt approach, towards a more useful methodology.

Reader:  I guess so. Let's leave it there – I can't go on without the risk of giving away the ending – which, I have to say, some readers may find unsettling. Okay – two more themes caught my curiosity.

Iain Brimswall:  Only two? [expresses mock incredulity]

Reader:  It's a theme-rich book.

Iain Brimswall:  I try to give value for money.

Reader:  The character Fee, Fiona Kemp-Davies, Su Gardeen's lover – she gets religion and joins a fringe church. It's little more than a donations scam, but she falls for it hook, line and sinker. Great description, though I again felt we're close to cliché. Is this another reference point?

Iain Brimswall:  It's important to consider what Fee is escaping from, not what she is running to. I want the pull factor – the fringe church scenario – to be readily recognisable. That way, the push factor can be given more space.

Reader:  Yes, that’s rather subtle. It's also an example of the writer expecting the reader to put in some effort of their own, I guess. Talking of writers, the other thing I was particularly intrigued by was the character Craig Mains – like yourself, an author.

Iain Brimswall:  Me like him? I wish! Craig Mains sells books by the warehouseful.

Reader:  I want to make sure I've got this. Here we have an author who hits the lists by writing books which offer alternative explanations. [from notepad] Man provides his own evolutionary impetus by being nasty to his own kind. Man the only self-culling species. And what about this? – especially this: God sends his second son to punish the Jews for what they did to his first son. Tell me, if you believe these ideas could sell books, then –

Iain Brimswall:  Then why don't I write the books myself?

Reader:  Precisely.

Iain Brimswall:  Well, it's certainly a thought – but that's all. [smiles] Craig Mains is in the story for two reasons. Firstly, he's at the centre of a circle Su Gardeen wishes to be part of, though the intellectual subscription is beyond her. Secondly, success in being published comes easily to Craig Mains, while Ellis is still bumbling about with his thesis on poverty. I had to give the Mains character some bite, so here he is with a fistful of ideas that are odd-ball but eminently marketable.

Reader:  Are these your own ideas, or are they in general circulation?

Iain Brimswall:  My own, as far as I'm aware. These ideas buzz around my head like wasps in the lounge. It's sometimes necessary to open the window and let them out.

Reader:  What about the future?

Iain Brimswall:  I have a plan for a book. It's still assembling.

Reader:  How long does it take – to assemble? The sketch for Missed Chapters took only half a day, didn’t it?

Iain Brimswall:  More or less. I scribbled it out in a tiny notepad on the train down to London. Storyline, characterisation, outlines for some of the scenes. But it had been piling up in my mind's in-tray for some time. It's like that with my next book.

Reader:  What will your next book be about?

Iain Brimswall:  Not so fast! Missed Chapters isn't out yet.

Reader:  Will it be blessed with a social flavour, like the others?

Iain Brimswall:  There's a thought! I'd like to try my hand at satire. Funny with meaning. You'll have to wait and see.

Reader:  Iain Brimswall, thank you.

Iain Brimswall:  You're welcome.

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