Interview I gave to blogger Fiona McVie today about being an author
Let’s get you introduced to everyone, shall we? Tell us your name. What is your age?
My name is Albert Clack and I’m 71.
Fiona: Where are you from?
I was born and grew up in Brighton, on the south coast of England. I now live in Letchworth Garden City, 40 miles north of London. In between, I’ve lived in lots of places, including Slovakia, France, Argentina, Yugoslavia, Cuba and Dubai.
Fiona: A little about yourself (ie, your education, family life, etc.).
I had a joyful childhood. I grew up on a council estate where there were lots of other post-war baby-boom kids. It was an age when few people had cars, so we could play outside safely, although some of the things we got up to on building sites would make today’s parents’ hair stand on end. In summer, little gangs of us trooped off unsupervised for the day to the beach or the Sussex Downs, and there was no suggestion that a paedophile might be waiting to lure us away. There were no mobile phones to keep tabs on us, and no gigantic cars to ferry us around in, insulated from the world. We had far fewer material possessions than kids today, my parents didn’t buy a TV set until I was ten, and of course there were no computers to bury our heads in. So we learned to read at a young age, played board games in each other’s houses on rainy days, and as we approached our teens we joined youth clubs and learned to play things like snooker and ping-pong. I went everywhere on foot, by bike, or on the bus, as my Dad didn’t get a car until I was about 17. I went to Varndean Grammar School in Brighton, then gained a BA in French & Russian at Bradford University, and an MA in International Relations at Sussex University. I’m now married to a wonderful lady called Fazilet Hadi, who is a senior executive in a big charity. I have a son called Duncan from my first marriage, and a grandson called Heath.
Fiona: Tell us your latest news.
As an author, I’m currently writing ‘Murder of a Professor’, the third in the series of my Inspector Warren Mysteries. As an actor, I’ve just been recording additional audio for my role as a ‘shock-jock’ phone-in host in ‘Radio London’, a film noir about the War on Terror, which has been entered for this year’s Cannes Film Festival. As a poker player, I’m the same old rubbish.
Fiona: When and why did you begin writing?
I won a certificate in a national essay competition while at primary school, aged about 10, but I forget the subject. For my GCE English exam, aged 15, I scored top grade for writing a short story set in a small town in the Scottish Highlands, which I’d visited in the army cadets. During my 38 years as an international journalist I started several novels, and given that I rubbed shoulders with communist and fascist politicians, diplomats and spies while living in Buenos Aires, Belgrade and Havana, it’s no surprise that those attempts were in the Cold War intrigue genre. The trouble was, I was always so busy reporting on the real thing for the world’s media that I never finished any of the books.
Fiona: When did you first consider yourself a writer?
If by ‘writer’ you mean anyone who earns their living by writing, then from the moment Reuters News Agency hired me as a graduate trainee journalist in 1969; but if you mean someone who writes books, not until the first Inspector Warren Mystery appeared in 2015.
Fiona: What inspired you to write your first book?
After retiring from journalism in 2006, I launched into a ‘third life’ career as an actor. In 2013 I played Polonius in Hamlet in London, then went on tour around England in The Pickwick Papers. Meanwhile I had become an avid reader of crime novels. And so it came about that, while I was sitting in a dressing-room in the Haymarket Theatre, Basingstoke, the idea came to me: why not write my own crime novel, using my knowledge of the theatrical world? I thought of poor old Polonius, whom Hamlet mistakenly kills with a sword through a curtain, then drags his body out on to the stage. What if the actor playing Polonius had really been murdered behind the curtain, and the actor playing Hamlet found himself dragging a real corpse into full view of 600 people in the audience? And that was how ‘Murder at the Theatre Royal’ was born.
Fiona: How did you come up with the title?
I toyed with titles based on quotes from Hamlet, but decided that would look as if I was trying to look clever. I wanted to write a series, so I went for the obvious choice: titles starting with the word ‘Murder’. The second one, already published, is ‘Murder of a British Patriot’, in which the victim is the leader of a far-right political party who is shot dead while campaigning during the 2016 Brexit referendum. Was the killer a Muslim terrorist? Was it a political assassination? Or was the motive non-political? Is it connected with the drugs gang warfare going on at the same time? And what could possibly connect the victim with the 1984 miners’ strike?
Fiona: Do you have a specific writing style? Is there anything about your style or genre that you find particularly challenging?
My writing is driven by plot and dialogue. I want to entertain readers by getting them so involved with ‘whodunit’ that they forget to turn off the bedside lamp. I write in scenes rather than chapters, and drive the story along by jumping between the main plot and sub-plots. I’m economical with descriptions of people and places, giving just enough to allow the reader’s imagination to fill in the rest. I like to build perceptions of characters through what they say and do. My cops are real people with personal lives, but this aspect is also dealt with economically. Years ago, one of my favourite TV cop drama series became transformed virtually into a soap opera, with more about police love affairs than about crime. I won’t go down that road.
Fiona: How much of the book is realistic and are experiences based on someone you know, or events in your own life?
Given that my plots and sub-plots are mostly about murder, violence, robbery, drug-dealing and general skulduggery, you may be pleased to learn that not a lot is based on my own experience. However, a friend who was part of a cocaine gang for ten years helped me with information about gang warfare for ‘Murder of a British Patriot’. Scenes from the 1984 miners’ strike in Yorkshire are based accurately on what I was told in interviews with some of the Fleet Street printers who stood with the miners on their picket lines, one of whom was my next-door neighbour in London. The boarding kennels where a key scene takes place in ‘Murder at the Theatre Royal’ is based on one owned by one of my poker-playing friends.
Fiona: To craft your works, do you have to travel? Before or during the process?
It’s the other way around. My books are set in north London, and I incorporate places I’ve been to, such as when I’ve been traipsing around as an actor looking for rehearsal rooms or filming locations in obscure places. When I’ve got time, I sometimes go off-piste in some of the poorer parts to soak up atmosphere on housing estates and in industrial areas. I’ve lived in various parts of London – Kilburn, Wimbledon, East Ham and Catford – so our great capital city is hardly unknown territory. Inspector Warren’s wife is from Argentina, where I lived for a total of four years, so I’m tempted to come up with a future story that involves him in going there to investigate; as an excuse for me to go back for a month or so. Needless to say, if I ever do that, it’ll be during their summer, which is our winter!
Fiona: Who designed the covers?
A friend called Samia Nichols, who is a theatrical designer. I especially love the way she concealed the motorcyclist’s face with an Arab scarf for ‘Murder of a British Patriot.’
Fiona: Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?
Definitely not. My sole purpose is to entertain. Some of my characters express political opinions, but they differ widely. Take, for example, the two main cops: Detective Inspector Warren grew up in a rather posh Oxford academic family, holds liberal views, and opposes Brexit. His sidekick, Detective Sergeant Philippa Myers, comes from a self-made, working-class family in east London, holds conservative views, and supports Brexit. DC Georgina Stanbridge is a vociferous feminist, and it comes out at briefing meetings when she objects to sexist remarks. But those are the opposing views of my characters, not mine. There is no authorial ‘message’.
Fiona: Are there any new authors that have grasped your interest? Who is your favorite writer, and what is it about their work that really strikes you?
I’ll just mention a few books that I’ve particularly enjoyed in recent years: A Week in December by Sebastian Faulks, Ordinary Thunderstorms by William Boyd, Headlong by Michael Frayn, Absolute Friends by John le Carré, and in Spanish, El Verdugo de Dios by Toti Martínez de Lezea. Favourite author: Graham Greene, because of his universal empathy, broad horizons, and willingness to share his existential angst.
Fiona: Outside of family members, name one entity that supported your commitment to become a published author.
My dear friend and former Reuters colleague Chris Peterson, who read my drafts and gave me excellent advice on what to change, what to cut out, and what was missing. Sadly, Chris, who survived the hazards of reporting the Vietnam War, finally succumbed last year to the Big C. An awful lot of people miss him.
Fiona: Do you see writing as a career?
Look, I’m 71 already. I see lasting until next week’s poker game as a career. Seriously: not a career, as such, but I won’t pretend that I wouldn’t be overjoyed if I ever achieved a best-seller.
Fiona: If you had to do it all over again, would you change anything in your latest book?
I would not use the word ‘Patriot’ in the title. I can tell from online feedback that some people assume from that word that the book is too political, and either in favour of their personal worldview or against it. Yes, the extremist politics of several characters play a pivotal role in the story, and Inspector Warren tries to understand what makes such people tick. While I was writing it, I did a lot of research into the motivations of extremists of both right and left in order that Warren’s interrogations should be realistic.
Fiona: Did you learn anything during the writing of your recent book?
Yes. What a patient woman my wife is. Seriously, though, every line of research, especially when it involves meeting up with people who inhabit worlds of which I know little or nothing, is a valuable and enjoyable learning experience. For the book I am writing now, ‘Murder of a Professor’, I am exploring the impact of so-called political correctness on university campuses, as well as academic corruption, and the risks that an anthropologist runs in Africa. I have read up on the Nigerian Civil War and the Rwandan Genocide, and interviewed a university anthropology lecturer, the son of the late Biafran Ambassador to the UK, and an ambulance paramedic on exactly what happens when a patient is rushed to hospital with an acute kidney stone
Fiona: If your book was made into a film, who would you like to play the lead?
Someone who’s never played a leading role in a TV drama before, but who has all the talent and imagination to bring Inspector Warren to life; so that it wouldn’t be one of the same faces being recycled yet again. One thing I’ve learned as an actor is: trust the casting director.
Fiona: Any advice for other writers?
Make sure you’ve got plenty of biscuits and tea-bags in the house before you sit down.
Fiona: Anything specific you want to tell your readers?
Not really. I just want to entertain them with a good yarn.
Fiona: What book are you reading now?
The Last Train to Scarborough by Andrew Martin; which I picked up at random from a second-hand book stall.
Fiona: Do you remember the first book you read?
Probably one of the Famous Five or Secret Seven books by Enid Blyton.
Fiona: What makes you laugh/cry?
Laugh: The Royle Family, for the way it extracts good-natured humour from the everyday banality of life, without losing sight of pathos.
Cry: The moment in The Railway Children when the steam clears, the father appears on the platform, and Roberta cries out, “Daddy, my Daddy!” It cuts to the heart of recovering a lost parent.
Fiona: Is there one person, past or present, you would love to meet? Why?
Not one, but a small group: the anonymous Russian soldiers who liberated my father from captivity in Germany in 1945. Why? Simply to hug them, thank them, and crack a bottle of vodka. (Dad’s true PoW story, which I edited and published, is called ‘My Underground War’).
Fiona: Do you have any hobbies?
I play in pub poker leagues, go to lots of plays with my wife, and we both enjoy travel and country walks. I fight an annual losing battle against brambles and weeds in our garden.
Fiona: What TV shows/films do you enjoy watching?
On TV, predictably, crime dramas. I’ve been loving the latest series of Endeavour. At the cinema I like to support British films when possible, but they mainly get far too little distribution. Something needs to be done about that. Recent American films we’ve liked: Three Billboards Outside Ebbings, Missouri; The Post; Manchester by the Sea; Fences; La La Land.
Fiona: Favorite foods, colors, music?
Food: exotic hot dishes from countries like Morocco, Lebanon and Vietnam.
Colours: being married to a blind person, I’m just thankful that I can see them all.
Music: classical, 1960s pop, R&B, jazz – but definitely not rap.
Fiona: Imagine a future where you no longer write. What would you do?
Carry on acting, and maybe set up an R&B band with other elderly rockers; at which point my wife would probably have me certified as insane.
Fiona: What do you want written on your head stone?
Thank you, God. It’s been fun. Can I do it all again, please?
My name is Albert Clack and I’m 71.
Fiona: Where are you from?
I was born and grew up in Brighton, on the south coast of England. I now live in Letchworth Garden City, 40 miles north of London. In between, I’ve lived in lots of places, including Slovakia, France, Argentina, Yugoslavia, Cuba and Dubai.
Fiona: A little about yourself (ie, your education, family life, etc.).
I had a joyful childhood. I grew up on a council estate where there were lots of other post-war baby-boom kids. It was an age when few people had cars, so we could play outside safely, although some of the things we got up to on building sites would make today’s parents’ hair stand on end. In summer, little gangs of us trooped off unsupervised for the day to the beach or the Sussex Downs, and there was no suggestion that a paedophile might be waiting to lure us away. There were no mobile phones to keep tabs on us, and no gigantic cars to ferry us around in, insulated from the world. We had far fewer material possessions than kids today, my parents didn’t buy a TV set until I was ten, and of course there were no computers to bury our heads in. So we learned to read at a young age, played board games in each other’s houses on rainy days, and as we approached our teens we joined youth clubs and learned to play things like snooker and ping-pong. I went everywhere on foot, by bike, or on the bus, as my Dad didn’t get a car until I was about 17. I went to Varndean Grammar School in Brighton, then gained a BA in French & Russian at Bradford University, and an MA in International Relations at Sussex University. I’m now married to a wonderful lady called Fazilet Hadi, who is a senior executive in a big charity. I have a son called Duncan from my first marriage, and a grandson called Heath.
Fiona: Tell us your latest news.
As an author, I’m currently writing ‘Murder of a Professor’, the third in the series of my Inspector Warren Mysteries. As an actor, I’ve just been recording additional audio for my role as a ‘shock-jock’ phone-in host in ‘Radio London’, a film noir about the War on Terror, which has been entered for this year’s Cannes Film Festival. As a poker player, I’m the same old rubbish.
Fiona: When and why did you begin writing?
I won a certificate in a national essay competition while at primary school, aged about 10, but I forget the subject. For my GCE English exam, aged 15, I scored top grade for writing a short story set in a small town in the Scottish Highlands, which I’d visited in the army cadets. During my 38 years as an international journalist I started several novels, and given that I rubbed shoulders with communist and fascist politicians, diplomats and spies while living in Buenos Aires, Belgrade and Havana, it’s no surprise that those attempts were in the Cold War intrigue genre. The trouble was, I was always so busy reporting on the real thing for the world’s media that I never finished any of the books.
Fiona: When did you first consider yourself a writer?
If by ‘writer’ you mean anyone who earns their living by writing, then from the moment Reuters News Agency hired me as a graduate trainee journalist in 1969; but if you mean someone who writes books, not until the first Inspector Warren Mystery appeared in 2015.
Fiona: What inspired you to write your first book?
After retiring from journalism in 2006, I launched into a ‘third life’ career as an actor. In 2013 I played Polonius in Hamlet in London, then went on tour around England in The Pickwick Papers. Meanwhile I had become an avid reader of crime novels. And so it came about that, while I was sitting in a dressing-room in the Haymarket Theatre, Basingstoke, the idea came to me: why not write my own crime novel, using my knowledge of the theatrical world? I thought of poor old Polonius, whom Hamlet mistakenly kills with a sword through a curtain, then drags his body out on to the stage. What if the actor playing Polonius had really been murdered behind the curtain, and the actor playing Hamlet found himself dragging a real corpse into full view of 600 people in the audience? And that was how ‘Murder at the Theatre Royal’ was born.
Fiona: How did you come up with the title?
I toyed with titles based on quotes from Hamlet, but decided that would look as if I was trying to look clever. I wanted to write a series, so I went for the obvious choice: titles starting with the word ‘Murder’. The second one, already published, is ‘Murder of a British Patriot’, in which the victim is the leader of a far-right political party who is shot dead while campaigning during the 2016 Brexit referendum. Was the killer a Muslim terrorist? Was it a political assassination? Or was the motive non-political? Is it connected with the drugs gang warfare going on at the same time? And what could possibly connect the victim with the 1984 miners’ strike?
Fiona: Do you have a specific writing style? Is there anything about your style or genre that you find particularly challenging?
My writing is driven by plot and dialogue. I want to entertain readers by getting them so involved with ‘whodunit’ that they forget to turn off the bedside lamp. I write in scenes rather than chapters, and drive the story along by jumping between the main plot and sub-plots. I’m economical with descriptions of people and places, giving just enough to allow the reader’s imagination to fill in the rest. I like to build perceptions of characters through what they say and do. My cops are real people with personal lives, but this aspect is also dealt with economically. Years ago, one of my favourite TV cop drama series became transformed virtually into a soap opera, with more about police love affairs than about crime. I won’t go down that road.
Fiona: How much of the book is realistic and are experiences based on someone you know, or events in your own life?
Given that my plots and sub-plots are mostly about murder, violence, robbery, drug-dealing and general skulduggery, you may be pleased to learn that not a lot is based on my own experience. However, a friend who was part of a cocaine gang for ten years helped me with information about gang warfare for ‘Murder of a British Patriot’. Scenes from the 1984 miners’ strike in Yorkshire are based accurately on what I was told in interviews with some of the Fleet Street printers who stood with the miners on their picket lines, one of whom was my next-door neighbour in London. The boarding kennels where a key scene takes place in ‘Murder at the Theatre Royal’ is based on one owned by one of my poker-playing friends.
Fiona: To craft your works, do you have to travel? Before or during the process?
It’s the other way around. My books are set in north London, and I incorporate places I’ve been to, such as when I’ve been traipsing around as an actor looking for rehearsal rooms or filming locations in obscure places. When I’ve got time, I sometimes go off-piste in some of the poorer parts to soak up atmosphere on housing estates and in industrial areas. I’ve lived in various parts of London – Kilburn, Wimbledon, East Ham and Catford – so our great capital city is hardly unknown territory. Inspector Warren’s wife is from Argentina, where I lived for a total of four years, so I’m tempted to come up with a future story that involves him in going there to investigate; as an excuse for me to go back for a month or so. Needless to say, if I ever do that, it’ll be during their summer, which is our winter!
Fiona: Who designed the covers?
A friend called Samia Nichols, who is a theatrical designer. I especially love the way she concealed the motorcyclist’s face with an Arab scarf for ‘Murder of a British Patriot.’
Fiona: Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?
Definitely not. My sole purpose is to entertain. Some of my characters express political opinions, but they differ widely. Take, for example, the two main cops: Detective Inspector Warren grew up in a rather posh Oxford academic family, holds liberal views, and opposes Brexit. His sidekick, Detective Sergeant Philippa Myers, comes from a self-made, working-class family in east London, holds conservative views, and supports Brexit. DC Georgina Stanbridge is a vociferous feminist, and it comes out at briefing meetings when she objects to sexist remarks. But those are the opposing views of my characters, not mine. There is no authorial ‘message’.
Fiona: Are there any new authors that have grasped your interest? Who is your favorite writer, and what is it about their work that really strikes you?
I’ll just mention a few books that I’ve particularly enjoyed in recent years: A Week in December by Sebastian Faulks, Ordinary Thunderstorms by William Boyd, Headlong by Michael Frayn, Absolute Friends by John le Carré, and in Spanish, El Verdugo de Dios by Toti Martínez de Lezea. Favourite author: Graham Greene, because of his universal empathy, broad horizons, and willingness to share his existential angst.
Fiona: Outside of family members, name one entity that supported your commitment to become a published author.
My dear friend and former Reuters colleague Chris Peterson, who read my drafts and gave me excellent advice on what to change, what to cut out, and what was missing. Sadly, Chris, who survived the hazards of reporting the Vietnam War, finally succumbed last year to the Big C. An awful lot of people miss him.
Fiona: Do you see writing as a career?
Look, I’m 71 already. I see lasting until next week’s poker game as a career. Seriously: not a career, as such, but I won’t pretend that I wouldn’t be overjoyed if I ever achieved a best-seller.
Fiona: If you had to do it all over again, would you change anything in your latest book?
I would not use the word ‘Patriot’ in the title. I can tell from online feedback that some people assume from that word that the book is too political, and either in favour of their personal worldview or against it. Yes, the extremist politics of several characters play a pivotal role in the story, and Inspector Warren tries to understand what makes such people tick. While I was writing it, I did a lot of research into the motivations of extremists of both right and left in order that Warren’s interrogations should be realistic.
Fiona: Did you learn anything during the writing of your recent book?
Yes. What a patient woman my wife is. Seriously, though, every line of research, especially when it involves meeting up with people who inhabit worlds of which I know little or nothing, is a valuable and enjoyable learning experience. For the book I am writing now, ‘Murder of a Professor’, I am exploring the impact of so-called political correctness on university campuses, as well as academic corruption, and the risks that an anthropologist runs in Africa. I have read up on the Nigerian Civil War and the Rwandan Genocide, and interviewed a university anthropology lecturer, the son of the late Biafran Ambassador to the UK, and an ambulance paramedic on exactly what happens when a patient is rushed to hospital with an acute kidney stone
Fiona: If your book was made into a film, who would you like to play the lead?
Someone who’s never played a leading role in a TV drama before, but who has all the talent and imagination to bring Inspector Warren to life; so that it wouldn’t be one of the same faces being recycled yet again. One thing I’ve learned as an actor is: trust the casting director.
Fiona: Any advice for other writers?
Make sure you’ve got plenty of biscuits and tea-bags in the house before you sit down.
Fiona: Anything specific you want to tell your readers?
Not really. I just want to entertain them with a good yarn.
Fiona: What book are you reading now?
The Last Train to Scarborough by Andrew Martin; which I picked up at random from a second-hand book stall.
Fiona: Do you remember the first book you read?
Probably one of the Famous Five or Secret Seven books by Enid Blyton.
Fiona: What makes you laugh/cry?
Laugh: The Royle Family, for the way it extracts good-natured humour from the everyday banality of life, without losing sight of pathos.
Cry: The moment in The Railway Children when the steam clears, the father appears on the platform, and Roberta cries out, “Daddy, my Daddy!” It cuts to the heart of recovering a lost parent.
Fiona: Is there one person, past or present, you would love to meet? Why?
Not one, but a small group: the anonymous Russian soldiers who liberated my father from captivity in Germany in 1945. Why? Simply to hug them, thank them, and crack a bottle of vodka. (Dad’s true PoW story, which I edited and published, is called ‘My Underground War’).
Fiona: Do you have any hobbies?
I play in pub poker leagues, go to lots of plays with my wife, and we both enjoy travel and country walks. I fight an annual losing battle against brambles and weeds in our garden.
Fiona: What TV shows/films do you enjoy watching?
On TV, predictably, crime dramas. I’ve been loving the latest series of Endeavour. At the cinema I like to support British films when possible, but they mainly get far too little distribution. Something needs to be done about that. Recent American films we’ve liked: Three Billboards Outside Ebbings, Missouri; The Post; Manchester by the Sea; Fences; La La Land.
Fiona: Favorite foods, colors, music?
Food: exotic hot dishes from countries like Morocco, Lebanon and Vietnam.
Colours: being married to a blind person, I’m just thankful that I can see them all.
Music: classical, 1960s pop, R&B, jazz – but definitely not rap.
Fiona: Imagine a future where you no longer write. What would you do?
Carry on acting, and maybe set up an R&B band with other elderly rockers; at which point my wife would probably have me certified as insane.
Fiona: What do you want written on your head stone?
Thank you, God. It’s been fun. Can I do it all again, please?
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