Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I’m mostly human, but part-sloth and part-writing desk. I think that’s because I’ve spent so much time sitting here. Mostly waiting for stuff to happen.
In the process, some book emerged, mostly guidebooks, but there was also a bit of journalism and a lot of rants about stuff (Government education policy, Southwark Council’s repairs team, misuse of ‘less’ and ‘fewer’, etc).
Once upon a time, a novel happened. And – about a dozen years after I wrote it – it’s just been published.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
‘The Human Script’ is a work of literary fiction, dealing will all sorts of deep stuff like determinism and free will, grief, sexuality, philosophy, art, celebrity and the nature of fiction.
But there’s some jokes in it too. Not many though. Don’t read it for laughs – you’ll be disappointed.
Instead read it because you want a strong storyline that makes you think and feel. It’s about a young guy working in a junior lab job on the Human Genome Project, but that is underselling it. There’s a love story involved, some tragedy, some sex and drugs. Quite a few anagrams too.
I’d like to thing it’s a good read if you like really intelligent material that you don’t have to work at. It comes to you.
Like all the best books, it was inspired by a small monkey with nipple tassels.
I wrote the first draft more than a decade ago while studying the world-famous masters course in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia. Once I had a manuscript, literary agents were competing to represent me, but at the time publishing was in a woeful state and they weren’t prepared to take a risk on literary fiction by an unknown author.
The book went under the bed, but the monsters that have lived there since I was a child kicked it out again when they heard about a small indie publisher called Red Button, who have been nice enough to let the world have a look.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
Apart from hanging from the ceiling and wearing a maid’s outfit? Not really.
I research a lot.
Partly because I like to understand what I’m writing about (or to think that I do).
And partly because I used to be a great procrastinator. I’m not so good at it any more – I keep putting it off.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
The Hungry Caterpillar was extremely powerful for me. The sense of a quest, an inner aching that could never be filled and ultimately, the transformation representing a redemption from the quotidian woes of the flesh. An apotheosis, if you will.
Beyond that, trying to identify your influences is like trying to mend a favourite shattered mug. You’ll never find all the bits and working out what goes where is impossible. Even if you could, it’ll probably still leak. And your coffee will taste of glue. Stop me if I’m over-extending the metaphor.
In The Human Script, I write quite a lot about influences, the factors that make things happen. Everything happens for a reason, or, more accurately, for many reasons. But those reasons are not in the future. Things don’t happen because they are directed towards an inevitable outcome. Things happen for reasons that are now in the past, unchangeable. Except in stories – where they’re hurtling towards the end and writers create the past to fit the future.
My influences creep into the book in very transparent ways. My literary inheritance – like the genetic code we all inherit – is quoted, referenced and alluded to symbolically, thematically and cryptically. There’s plenty of the Bible and Shakespeare, but also Joyce, Dickens and Woolf. Throw in some Vonnegut, Umberto Eco, Nabokov, Kafka, Borges, Martin Amis, Rushdie, Brett Easton Ellis, Nicholson Baker and just keep adding. You’ll never put that mug back together.
What are you working on now?
Answering your questions. Then I might have some coffee.
I’ve got an idea for a book about a robot called Fluffy who falls in love with a droid who becomes a woman. It’s called ‘Transister’. What do you think?
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
Well, your website. Obviously. Remind me which it is again?
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Write.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Before you speak, ask yourself whether what you’re about to say is kind, true, necessary… and well modulated. If not, don’t say it.
Oh, and never eat anything bigger than your head.
What are you reading now?
This sentence. There. Finished.
Before now and after now, I am reading Tom McCarthy’s brilliant ‘C’.
What’s next for you as a writer?
More coffee.
What is your favorite book of all time?
I can’t tell you that. The others will get jealous. And besides, maybe I haven’t read it yet.
Author Websites and Profiles
Johnny Rich Website
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Goodreads Profile
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