‘The Hunting Ground’ – Cliff McNish in conversation with Marty Mulrooney from Alternative Magazine Online & Keith B Walters

The new paperback edition of ‘The Hunting Ground’ will be released on 1st July 2019.


MM: What can you tell us about your book?

CM: It’s about two teenage brothers who go to a new mansion house and discover a ghost there so terrifying that other ghosts have stayed behind just to contain it. In my first ghost novel, ‘Breathe’, I created what is sometimes known in the trade as a ‘good-bad’ character, the ghost mother. You can take your pick on where morally you think she deserves to end up.
In ‘The Hunting Ground’ the ghost is an undiluted menace. I’ve spent more than ten years creating villains, and though it’s fun to give them more rounded personalities, it’s sometimes good to do exactly the opposite – create a heart of unmitigated darkness.





MM: How much research is involved when you write your books? Glebe House in ‘The Hunting Ground’ almost feels like a real place!

CM: For my first ghost novel ‘Breathe’ I did quite a bit of research into certain aspects of burial etc – almost none of which actually got used. I didn’t do any research of real mansion houses for ‘The Hunting Ground’. I just pooled my knowledge of such places together, and then used a few specific details to make it feel real. Actually, there’s a trick of the trade here: you revisit a place, in a slightly different way, like the East Wing, and those nuanced differences in a by-now familiar setting (since you’ve read about it once) make it feel more real.

 

KBW: How did the doll being dragged across the floor and its head bouncing along come about? – That’s an image that still stays and haunts me now.

CM: I don’t know. The doll idea – well, every creepy ghost story has to have a little dead girl and her doll she still won’t be parted from, doesn’t it? But the bumping/dragging stuff … I just wanted something unnerving you would hear and not understand for a while… ghosts stories should always be filled with those sort of things, don’t you think? Less seen, more heard…





MM: When did you first start writing fiction?

CM: When I about 36/37. I wanted to be in closer contact with my 9 year-old daughter, from whom I was separated. She loved witches. I decided to write her a little story about one. It just got bigger and bigger – and I found, quite by chance, that I enjoyed creating monsters…





MM: You seem to have written most prominently within the fantasy and horror genres. What makes you lean towards these genres and which do you prefer the most?

CM: I love both equally. Fantasy with a dark horror edge sits very naturally with me. As for why I like these genres, who can say? All I know is that unless I include a powerful element of real fantasy in my work I often lose interest in it. And while some people would say that I am often writing ‘horror’ I don’t see it as simplistically as that. My imagination does incline me towards dumping my characters into deeper and deeper trouble, but I think there are good writerly, structural, plot-related reasons why this makes sense. On the other hand, I can’t deny that at some primal level heading for the dark side appeals to me. I’ve no idea why really. I guess I’d feel more comfortable turning the question around to other novelists, and asking why they prefer, often, not to do that? I mean, why bother writing about happy friendly ghosts when you can do the scary stuff?






MM: Do you believe in ghosts in real life?

CM: No, though I’m keeping an open mind. Hold on, what’s that dark thing moving just behind my curtain…?




KBW: Do you have a favourite ghost story in fiction?

CM: I don’t have one single favourite ghost story, although two I’ve read recently have impressed me for different reasons.
1. 'Strangers' by Taichi Yamada – an adult Japanese ghost story that is deceptively simply written and very beautiful and cold.



2. ‘My Brother’s Ghost’ by Allan Ahlbeg is as wistful and beautiful a ghost story for kids or adults you’ll ever read. The Guardian short-listed it many years ago.





MM: How long does it usually take you to write a book?

CM: Generally about 9 months, 3-4 months to do a first draft, then the rest to get all the revisions done and dusted. But my horror novel ‘Savannah Grey’ took 2 years. Its writing became a horror story! And there are other novels I’ve never got right.



MM: What inspires you as a writer and where do your ideas come from?

CM: My inspiration comes largely from other writers. When I see what they do – how they create these extraordinary edifices from nothing – I’m deeply awed and inspired to attempt in my own small way to emulate them. As for where my ideas come from, in the end we’re all saturated in the same cultural environments, books, TV, film, interpersonal relationships – and the ideas filter out of some kind of hash of those things in a piecemeal, impossible-to-fathom way.





MM: Your books are written specifically for young adults. Do you think older readers can enjoy them too?

CM: Actually, quite a lot of my readers are adults. I’m pleased about that, because I do include themes in my fiction which younger readers might not yet have the experience to fully appreciate. Someone once pointed out to me that there’s a strong theme of guilt running through my fiction. Guilt is not an emotion or mental state unique to adults, but adults have more experience of its forms than most younger people simply because they’ve been alive longer. You have seen more guilt; you have felt it yourself. That leads you into other regions: forgiveness, for example, and all its attributes.


KBW: What scares you?



CM: Real life scares me all the time. In fiction, I’m scared when an author makes me like a character and then does nasty things to them that are totally unexpected but feel psychologically true.



MM: Are there any other genres you would like to explore in the future?

CM: I’m quite happy for now working primarily within the horror/science fiction/fantasy genres or hybrids thereof. I have no ambition to move outside of them and write, say, a romance, or historical fiction. But I have written two novels that are more humorous about animals – GOING HOME and MY FRIEND TWIGS – so I’m not a totally black character. I suppose if I did move elsewhere it would be into pure thriller/crime writing. But I love creating monsters too much ever to stray for too long from fantasy writing of some kind.



KBW: What can we look forward to next from you?

CM: At the moment I’m writing another ghost novel for teens provisionally titled LILY’S MONSTER. Then I think I’m going back to my first love – fantasy. It’s also the 20th anniversary of my DOOMSPELL trilogy this year, so I’m going to write a new Doomspell short story. A prequel.




www.cliffmcnish.com/the-hunting-ground

www.alternativemagazineonline.co.uk