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J. Francis Bolick interviews Ken Bruen for Guttersnipe
Ken Bruen is the undisputed king of contemporary Noir. That he is also a gifted
writer by any reckoning is all too often overlooked. Bruen is a
writer of rare gifts. He writes sentences as good as anyone this
side of Samuel Beckett. Sentences that rattle and hum like living
things, powered by some primeval current: call it Celtic Soul. His
best prose nearly sings. He is, perhaps, more well known for his
rage than for his lyricism. The personal tragedies and hardships
that shaped his infamous rage have been documented elsewhere. I
will not dwell on them. On the one hand, there is Ken Bruen,
fierce raging soul fueled by a bottomless anger at the indignities
and injustices suffered by himself, his people, his species, an
anger born of a filthy jail cell in Brazil, born of the smoldering
ruins of another Irish village laid to waste by Cromwellian nazis,
and all the human misery and injustice that lies in between. On
the other hand, there is Ken Bruen, ancient Celtic soul, brimming
with love, compassion, and most importantly, Grace. A conversation
with Ken Bruen, "walking contradiction".
Q:In Allan Guthrie's introduction to 'A Fifth of Ken Bruen' he
describes you distributing your early work hand to hand in the pubs
of Galway. That is a great story. It's like a rock-n-roll band
putting a hundred thousand miles on an old Ford Econoline van
playing one-nite stands just to break even. We used to call it
'payin' yer dues'. What were them days like?
A:Back then, I wasn't long out of prison, I never figured I'd make it as a writer and I was teaching abroad, Ireland was in
real bad shape economically and no jobs, dire weather, ......fookin pits
I'd come home, do the rounds of seeing who'd, if anybody would, buy the books.
The guys figured I was in the Ra (IRA) as I'd be gone for months at a time, (teaching) and theyn I'd appear, always wearing
a seaman's jacket they said, with books nobody could get then, Derek Raymond, Thompson, Goodis, Bukowski and... very quiet
Q:From your writing it's obvious that you've got a certain level of authenticity working as far as drinkin', or gettin' knocked
upside the head goes. Do ya think that makes a difference, or would it be the same if you'd just gone straight from college
to the Iowa Writers Workshop? (Do ya think there's a big difference between being a Tarentino versus being a Peckinpah, who
would get drunk and brawl in Mexican cantinas?)
A:Having had more hidings than I can count and drank with the best and the brightest, I feel I write about what I know. You
can't fake writing about the down in the toilet hangovers unless you've kissed the porcelain and more's the tragic Irish-ed
pity, I've seen the best go down from booze and dope, including my beloved brother and best friend.
If I'd gone straight to writing school from college, I'd be writing noir lite.
Tarantino is the commercial face of violence, the video-ed game of cartoonish shite that is mass produced like a big mac and
just as enduring..........Peckinpah, now there's the real deal, lived it, fought it, filmed it, died it.........you watch
his vision, images up there on the screen and you know, this dude, he had the knocks on the side of the head and everywehre
else too, esp his psyche......they say he was difficult..........they should say...........real.
Look at the face of a Warren Oates or Robert Ryan or Holden and tell me, in a street fight, who would you have as back
up, those guys or the baby face from Titanic........Jesus wept or Matt Damon?
Q:Ken bro', I gotta ask you this. An awful lot gets made of the whole
"Noir" thing. In the end, isn't it mostly a marketing thing to
sell books? Isn't writing writing, some of it good, some of it bad?
I don't read you 'cause you're "Noir", I read your novels 'cause
they're GOOD. I LOVE it when Brant makes fun of
'Nora"! I do think a lot of the "Noir" writers get THE BEST
packaging and graphic design though!
A:The whole Noir gig is so tired,
and I agree fully with you, I read books regardless of so called genre.
Derek Raymond called his books the black novels and I agree with him, the writer's job is to report back from the trenches.
But Hard Case, covers to die for.
In the end, it comes down to,does your writing disturb, affect, uplift get a reaction......and the real test, which books
would you be delighted to read again.
Q:There's a long tradition of certain writers attracting
musicians and music lovers as fans. This is especially true of the
rock-n-roll crowd, starting with the Beats and on through writers
like W.S. Burroughs, Bukowski, Hunter Thompson, and onward to today
with writers like Irvine Welsh. To some extent I think you are now
part of this tradition. Do you agree and how do you feel about that?
A:Wondrous premise.
As always, I attract the marginalised, the musicians who could have been huge but wouldn;t bow down, and they sought me
out.
Johnny Duhan, before Rory Gallagher, his band was the first real rock band in Ireland on the cusp of real stardom, he
walked away. Phil Lynot begged him not to and he said,,,,,,,,,,,,it's not about celebrity, it's about the music.
He went to Galway and produces one album a year.
We did a gig together this summer and turned over 200 hundred people away.
He is delighted to be the soundtrack of the Jack Taylor novels.
Then David Soul, a friend of over 30 years, wanted to play Jack and his new album............superb.
They keep asking me, why won't you hang with musicians who are commercial, they'd put you on the map.
I don't want to be on that map.
Q:Ken, your body of work includes numerous "one-off" novels and short
stories, but you are best known for your two ongoing series, the
SE London novels and the Galway novels. What is striking is how
completely different in tone they are. The monochromatic punk rock
of the Brant novels, the feedback drenched blues of the Jack Taylor
novels. The former pure surface, pure action like a screenplay,
the latter oozing philosophical "sub-text", a Greek tragedy. How
the hell did that happen? Was it intentional? Which series is more
fun for you to write?
A:Brant was meant purely as a tribute to Mc bain and I was blessed to become his friend and he loved Brant!
They are pure fun to write, and like a vacation.
What Graham Greene called his ..............entertainment novels.
They almost write themselves.
But taylor..........pure torture..................as they are so closely linked to my own life and the friends i've lost.
Writing Brant is a joy, Taylor is dread.
I delibarately set out to write one fun series and then to go for a deeper one, it's like appearances, I'm forever being told
how easy going I am and laid back, but i never felt one iota of that me whole battered life.
Q:It's like Brant is what we'd like to do...simple solutions to simple problems (a punch in the head), but Taylor, that's
the reality of it...real life ain't like Batman, it's like Samuel Beckett. I've told you before that I love the Galway
novels for their brave pessimistic moralism in the face of our totally fucked "reality". There's nothing cheap in these novels
brother, that's why I can't help but mention the MADDAGH MOR (izat right?), Sammy B!
A:Bro, I sure wish life were like Brant, kill a rapist and walk away, smoke a child molester and have a brew after.
But like you say and your Sam B. is right on target, life, alas, ain't so.
Taylor gets me in such shite in ireland cos you're supposed to love yer mum............and fook, never..............never
criticise a priest.........or show the poor bastards are human
a smoking priest?...............they much prefer the smoking gun
and a gay ban garda.............irish women couldn't be gay...........could they?
god forbid.............and make it as a guard?..........pure heresy
and deal with cancer............or down syndrome........or god forgive the guttersnipe..............alcoholism..........sure,
in ireland, crack, not the dope variety is what we're famous for................right..............and fuckin pigs in the
parlour, even if it's yer mum............................dont mention it!!!!!
would damage the tourist trade
and yes, we do have leprachauns...........they're called the goverment
the rain is always soft and well intentioned............like the republicans, in america as opposed to our boyos
what's to be bitter about, we might even have another visit from the pope, almost as good as Bono coming
we speak american and when my daughter who is 14 tells me............take a chill pill...........i go yank me own self and
cry................this friggin sucks
all is well in the land of saints and scholars and the three tenors sing about the famine looking like they spent one too
many sessions in mc donalds
time was, we'd be excited by a new play, or music but fook that shite, starbucks is coming and tommy hilfigger now has
the premises of our oldest shop............let us raise a guinness lite and drool over Beyonce, Oprah is repated three times
daily and we never had it so good
or empty
Q:As dark as the Jack Taylor novels are, they also contain
some humour. The hilarious conversation about the "gifted" Irish
weatherman on the telly in "Priest" comes to mind. I read that out
loud to my wife both times I read the novel...couldn't help myself.
In the latest of the series "Cross",which, thanks to you I've been privleged to read, it seems you've pushed the edge
a bit further and taken out even the nervous laughter. If you were
an American Southern writer they'd call this one "gothic" instead
of Noir (replacing one cliche with another) and you'd draw
comparisons, rightfully so I think, to Flannery O'Connor. Did you
feel like you were going even darker on this installment of the
series?
A:Gallows humour, the dancing on the Titanic type. I agree with the old jewish comics.........humour is our way of getting
even.
Cross was very deliberately stripped of the nervous laughter, I wanted something very bleak and I swear, I felt like I
was channeling Flannery O'connor.
And the next one, Benediction, the very last is gonna be so dark, they wont see the page.
Cross was distilled from the whitest cleanest rage I've ever had.
Q:You reference a wide array of writers and musicians in the Jack Taylor novels, so I feel like I know to some extent who
you are a 'fan' of. What I'd like to know is are there any particular writers (including poets, musicians,etc.) who you view
as actual influences on your own writing?
A:Springsteen of course, esp American Skin and Waites..........and Ol Hank.......Merle, Gram Parsons, the Clash, Warren Zevon,
poets..........Rilke, Baudelaire, Louis Mc neice, Yeats, Berryman, Rimbaud, Lowell, Ann Sexton
writers.............Bukowski, Fitzgerald, Beckett, Alvarez, Chekov, Merton, and oddly, St Augustine.
go figure.
Q:Ken, much of your writing is more heavily marked by Irish words and expressions than almost any other contemporary Irish
writer. Thanks for the introductory Irish lessons. I love them. Is your motive in doing this just to create atmosphere
(since Galway is in the 'Gaeltacht'), or is it to promote the survival of the Irish language?
A:One, it's to try and get some interest back to our native language, and two, I love it. I'm delighted you like that.
One of my greatest joys is that my daughter says her prayers in Irish.
I go out with me close mates, we talk in Irish, and I love it.
I still say me own prayers in Irish. In English, they don't resonate.
Slan go foil.
Gra agus bheannacht.
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