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Jump to navigationJump to searchThe Interview: Bookbag Talks To Robert Crompton (view source)
Revision as of 13:34, 18 June 2015
, 13:34, 18 June 2015no edit summary
* '''BB: How did you gather the research to portray that section of Manchester's criminal underbelly in the novel? Did you run into any problems?'''
RC: #Drinking in some of the seedier pubs of Bolton and Manchester! As my Dad used to say, ''If you want to be a writer, go and listen to the babble in the bar.'' The landlord of a Bolton pub once told me that his previous work before taking on the pub, was as a prison officer in Strangeways. ''Bit of a change, then,'' I suggested. ''Not at all,'' he replied. ''I meet all the same people.'' No real problems – except that I once met a rather scary bloke who was convinced that I was the driver of a JCB who had deliberately injured him to get him off a building site. And there was another pub where, whenever I walked in, several of the guys would suddenly disappear out the back and I felt very unwelcome and unsafe. A couple of years later the pub changed hands so I ventured back and learned that one of the regulars (a quite delightful rogue, actually) had told folk when first I went in there that I was a social security snooper. ''You'd have had an accident on your way home,'' he told me, ''if I hadn't said I was only kidding.''
* '''BB: In ''Leaving Gilead'' there's a clear link between the heroine's struggle to leave the Gilead Jehovah's Witnesses and your own experience of being brought up in the religion. How did having to take yourself back to those days affect your writing and, indeed, did it affect you?'''
RC: Drinking I believe that it is only by experiencing first-hand the struggles involved in some of the seedier pubs of Bolton and Manchester! As my Dad used breaking free that it becomes possible to say, ''If you want write authentically about it. And it was also important to be a writer, go and listen to the babble in have laid all the bar.'' The landlord ghosts of a Bolton pub once told me that his previous work those years well before taking on I tackled the pub, was as a prison officer subject in Strangeways. ''Bit of a change, then,'' I suggested. ''Not at all,'' he replied. ''I meet all the same peoplefiction.''
* '''BB: Why did you specifically select the Gilead Jehovah's Witnesses for the Ridley family's devotion and not just the Jehovah's Witnesses?'''
