William Nicholson's Blog, page 6

My night of power

Last Friday night I went with my three children and four of their friends (all in their early 20s) to the Electric Ballroom in Camden for a club night called Ultimate Power. An article in the Guardian had promised me ‘the best night of my life’, an experience approaching religious euphoria as the 1980s power ballads blast out. I’m always up for religious euphoria, so long as I don’t have to believe anything, so I got tickets and begged my kids to chaperone me. I am after all 66 years old. I put on a red jacket, a brightly patterned T-shirt, and tight yellow trousers. We got there at about 11pm and I stayed to about 1.30am. I danced, I strutted, I played air guitar, and I chanted the words of the songs when I knew them. It was a hoot, but alas, no actual euphoria. The best bit was the way my kids protected me and wanted me to have a good time. I was so touched. As for the event, what it reveals is how many of us secretly want to be rock stars. The entire audience, over a thousand, were all pretending to be playing rock guitar, and singing, and posing, and because we were all doing it there was nothing embarrassing about it. Our inner narcissists could for once be on show without irony.

Next morning waiting on Victoria station for my train to Sussex I watched the televised horse races in Ladbrokes. They were running on a course I don’t know, and at 7am. I assumed they must be in America, or Australia. I asked at the booth and was told they weren’t real at all. They’re computer-generated. I was stunned. They look real, though a bit empty. Do people bet on these ghost races? Apparently so. But why? Who trusts a computer that presumably knows where the bets are going before it controls which ghost horse wins the race? The world grows ever more wonderful. I pretend to be a rock star. The horses pretend to race.

Review of ‘Reckless’ in Observer

A good prominent review by a fine writer, Justin Cartwright. He makes some critical comments, as he should, and of course I want to argue with him, explain to him exactly how he’s wrong, but I have to bite the impulse back. People’s responses are by definition correct, because it’s what they think. But oh God it can be hard to receive them. I so long for a review that gets what I’ve tried to do with this book, that perceives the extraordinary complexity of the structure I’ve woven, that links together high politics and private love stories. But all writers can be heard crying out like this. I suppose it’s the old cry of the child: please love me more. A little ridiculous. I should be grateful to be published at all, and to be reviewed at all; and I am, I am.

‘Times’ review of RECKLESS

First review in The Times last Saturday, January 25, by Angus Clarke: ‘He writes with a relaxed charm and seems to like his characters, especially the female ones… Nicholson braids his other themes into an equally satisfying, ambiguous and surprising conclusion… I hope that we have not seen the last of lovely heart-breaking Pamela.’ Reading reviews is no fun, believe me, I have to nerve myself to do it, starting with a quick scan to try to neutralise any wounding lines. But when a reviewer has enjoyed the book, it shows very quickly. So I’m relieved and happy with this first public judgement.

Meanwhile my head is full of Moscow 1988/9, which I’m writing about for the first episode of a possible TV series tracing a fictional Russian oligarch from wild youth to unimaginable wealth and power…

New novel coming

My latest work, RECKLESS, is published on February 6 2014. It’s my most ambitious to date. Still part of the sequence that began with THE SECRET INTENSITY OF EVERYDAY LIFE, but as with MOTHERLAND I’ve gone back into the past of my characters, this time to 1962. If you read MOTHERLAND you may remember Kitty and Ed’s little girl, Pamela. In the new novel Pamela is 18, and arrives in the London of Stephen Ward and Christine Keeler at the time of the Cuban missile crisis. She’s beautiful, naive, and eager for adventure, with disastrous consequences. I’ve extended my technique of entering the minds of many different characters to the world stage, and re-create the mental processes of Khrushchev, Kennedy, and Mountbatten as the crisis unfolds. There’s a second plot too, about a girl who sees visions of the Virgin Mary…

Gravestone

I’m puzzling over what to order for my mother’s gravestone, and a little saddened that all graves in the churchyard these days are nearly identical. Same height, mostly same shape. Old graveyards are glorious in their diversity. I don’t want to break the rules, but I do hope to place something a little more eccentric where my mother lies, as she herself was so gloriously eccentric. Perhaps a headstone with a stone sculpture of her beloved poodle lying faithfully at its base. Is that sentimental and naff? And anyway, where do you go for an animal sculpture? Mickey, her poodle, is still alive, but not for much longer, I suspect. I just know that if I could achieve this it would make me smile every time I visit the grave.

Power ballads

I’ve been reading about Ultimate Power night at the Electric Ballroom and I so want to go. At last the music scene is waking up to the hunger for emotion in music. Apparently 1,500 people gather each time and share a euphoric mass singalong to power ballads that borders on the religious. Very definitely my kind of thing, but do they let 66-year-olds in? ‘Don’t Stop Believing’ – ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ – ‘Purple Rain’ – and it’s a really young audience, and none of it’s ironic. I feel as if I’ve waited all my life for this. Now can we have a Tammy Wynette night?

No Oscar glory

No Oscar nominations for ‘Mandela’ apart from the song, which was nothing to do with the film-makers, and was only added at the end. I’m so proud of the film, and find it baffling that it’s got so little recognition on the awards circuit, but that’s how it goes. No point griping about it. Awards are good  because they draw people in to watch films, read books, and so on, but they also have this unintended effect of making not-getting-awards feel like failure. And that’s just ridiculous.

Mojo

Went with my family to see ‘Mojo’ last night, and realised almost at once that I was in the presence of an utterly original writing voice. The acting is top quality, but as a writer myself, I was awed by Jez Butterworth’s achievement. He wrote this at the age of 24. How? How did he find such an original voice, such sophistication, such lightness of touch, such sheer oddity? It’s the kind of writing that could never be taught in a creative writing class, or constructed out of formulae. Echoes of Mamet and Pinter, even Chekhov and Beckett; perhaps not as emotionally potent as the last two; but the guy was only 24. ‘Jerusalem’ has all the emotional potency you could desire. Great writing is extremely rare. I don’t know Jez Butterworth, I’ve never met him, but I raise my hat in profound respect.

Guardian profile

The Guardian Review has a profile of me today, a fine piece by Nick Wroe. Strange reading about myself, leaves me feeling slightly disoriented, as if maybe I’ve died. But he gets to the heart of what I’m about, both in my novels and screenplays, which is a real skill, as well as being of great value to me. No value judgements in his piece, but simply being understood in public is a source of strength. You can read the piece by clicking here.

Blue roses

My father’s stroke has left him with no sensation in his right arm. He only knew he’d had a stroke when he felt someone poking him, and realised it was his own hand. But his mind and his speech are thankfully unaffected, and he’ll be home in a matter of days. On the train to Holyhead and back I listened to all of ‘Mrs Dalloway’ perfectly read by Juliet Stephenson. A powerful somewhat surreal experience. In the novel Richard Dalloway buys flowers for his wife and determines to say, ‘I love you’ to her. He gives her the flowers, but doesn’t say the words. I decided I could do better. At Victoria station I bought a bunch of blue roses to take home to Virginia. (They feed the roots blue dye to get the colour. Ink-drunk roses, the gift for writers.) And I said ‘I love you.’