Graham Joyce Interview                                                                     by Paul Fuhr

Since the publication of his first novel Dreamside in 1991, author Graham Joyce has written novels that defy easy description--expertly weaving together many different genres all while managing to surprise, shock, and haunt his readers. For nearly two decades, Joyce's critically acclaimed works have proved not only compelling and entertaining, but delve much depper into the human condition than their supernatural and mystical façades suggest. The writer of thirteen novels and twenty-six short stories, Joyce occupies his own unique corner of the literary map, inspired by writers of "weird tales" like Algernon Blackwood.

Joyce is a four-time winner of the World Fantasy Award and the winner of the French Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire. In addition to writing, he teaches Creative Writing to graduate students at Nottingham Trent University. Joyce currently lives in Leicester with his wife and their two children.

How has the publishing world (or your experiences as a writer) changed since the publication of your first novel in 1991?
The mid-list has contracted massively while the publication of celeb books has expanded.  The celeb books are really only magazine journalism, but in book covers. The trouble is they command huge advances, which previously went into supporting new writers and mid-list writers who were not best sellers but who maybe had a steady audience.  Some writers whom I’ve enjoyed reading for a long time aren’t getting publishing contracts any longer. Though this has given a break to small or independent presses and there is a lively non-corporate alt.fiction vibe to these presses and the decisions they make, which is hugely encouraging.
 
Is it difficult to balance teaching creative writing and your own writing?
Well, I’ve never thought of it as a problem, but someone recently described me as a cognitive writer rather than an intuitive writer, and ascribed this to the fact that I was craft-conscious through teaching. I nearly fell over, because I’ve always thought of my books as messy and intuitive and possibly not fully rationalized. I tend to see writers like Ian McEwan as cognitive—even too schematic. I would worry if I really thought I had drifted into that overly cognitive mode. But then the aim of achieving a balance of these things is the cursed and beautiful challenge.
 
You are particularly skilled at writing about adolescence. Why do you return to it in your work?
It might relate to the above: adolescence is such an irrational time. Character is forming; it hasn’t crystallized. You can be brave and beautiful, and stupid and ugly all at the same time. An adolescent is still in the state of potential, in a world where so many adults seem to have given up and limped away. They can go either way.
 
Since your works aren’t neatly packaged into one genre, you’ve often been labeled as a “magical realist.” You’ve rejected this notion in the past, stating that the idea of magical realism has more to do with “academics who are slightly embarrassed about reading fantasy, horror or anything else with supernatural elements.” Is this still true, in your opinion?
I was deploring the class-based snobbery that consigns the levity of genre to the waste-bin. And I think it’s still largely true, though not amongst the younger generation of critics and readers, who have selected the “debased genres” for themselves, having grown up with brilliant comics, graphic art, genre movies without prejudice. Though another danger is that fiction is marketed as a fashion accessory—a lifestyle signature. People who are unsure about who they are only want to be seen with this or that type of fiction.
 
How long do you research prior to embarking on a new project? For example, with Dreamside, you clearly researched lucid dreaming. How much do you depend upon current research/findings in your work?
It’s very different for different types of books. Historical settings require massive amounts of background material that you never use. For Dreamside I read pretty much everything there was on the subject of lucid dreaming—and most of it is speculative, though there have been some scientific studies. When I find that the research is getting too interesting I abandon it and get into the book. Research can be just one of the 1,001 self-deceiving methods of running away from writing.
 
You’ve suggested an alternate ending for Dreamside to the producer currently developing a film version of the book. Is this ending meant to satisfy a filmgoing audience/make it more commercial, or was this alternate ending something you had always envisioned?
No, I had the idea long before the film got optioned. To me, the ending of the book is unsatisfactory as it stands, and I didn’t jump out of the bath with my new idea until seven years after publication. It would work in film or book, I think. I’ve offered this alternate ending to the guys working on the film script. They were very interested, but maybe they were just being polite.
 
Are you concerned about how filmmakers might interpret your work on screen?
Well, you have to do the script and then accept that you’re out.  Move on.

Have you considered any follow-ups to your works, or revisiting any characters and/or settings?
All the time. I would love to do a follow up to The Facts Of Life, moving through the ’60s and ’70s, and then through the ’80s and ’90s. And The Tooth Fairy keeps beckoning.  But I don’t know if these things will happen because I always have other fish to fry. New ideas come every day, but extra time doesn’t.
 
Symbolism plays a central role in your fiction. As a writer, do you consciously treat sex, psychology, and religion symbolically? 
Yes, because the subjects have too much mass to deal with in any other way. The last book, The Limits Of Enchantment, is the clearest example because it’s a book about the male-female dynamic gender struggle that can and will never be resolved. On the face of it, it looks like a smaller book than, say, Facts Of Life which had a war backdrop rather than this small village setting. But although the setting is reduced, the huge issues are pretty unmanageable. You just hope the symbolism isn’t too obvious on the one hand or too obscure on the other.
 
Requiem is about sex and religion, while your other works are motivated by sexuality (dreams articulating sexual impulses and drives; adolescence and burgeoning sexual awareness, etc.). What interests you about the tension between the sacred and the profane?
It interests me that so many religions base their notion of the sacred on a denial of the body. I understand it may be, or may have been, necessary when physical suffering is the norm for life, but it’s also based on an absurdity: that you hate what you are. It’s a kind of psychosis and often these things will find a way to connect up again but in perverted ways.  (I’m mindful of a rash of recent cases of paedophilia by priests both in the U.S. and the U.K.). Sexuality is dangerous and volatile, of course, but it is life-affirming—a positive energy. We need some clever, far-seeing person to help us have an integrated view of these things.

You’ve mentioned being attracted to the “weird stuff”—why? What, in particular?
Do you know the poem “The Twa Corbies?” They know where the body lies, and how it came to be there. I think those amongst us with a taste for secrets and dark meat are like those two crows, or ravens. I could bore you with a lot of autobiographical stuff, but the interest has certainly been there all my life.
 
Redemption--to varying degrees of success--seems to be a major theme in your books. True?
I’m not so sure that it is true. There is a redemptive arc in some of the stories, but not in Facts Of Life, Tooth Fairy, Limits of Enchantment and some of the others. Smoking Poppy has a big redemptive structure; so does Requiem and Dreamside. It depends on the type of story.
 
The Tooth Fairy is, on the surface, a coming-of-age story. However, could one argue that it’s all in Sam’s head?
Well I often argue that it’s all in the author’s head—in other words, my head. The game in The Tooth Fairy is exactly that: to keep the reader guessing about whether this is all in Sam’s head or whether something magical and frightening is actually happening.  But to answer that question is to kill the goose. The ambiguity is the energy; the uncertainty is the nature of the ride.
 
What were your impressions of Jerusalem while writing and researching Requiem? Have you returned since?
Spooky place. It occurred to me that were I a crime writer, crime stories would come out the walls at me; a thriller writer, the same; a romance writer would have had star-crossed lovers from opposite quarters. It is like a polished black glass and it reflects back whatever is projected onto it. The spirituality of the place and the historical violence are linked at the core. I can’t explain this, but you know it to be true as soon as you set foot inside the city.
 
Creativity plays a large role in your novels. Could you describe your own creative process, or day-to-work writing routine?
I take an industrial approach. I’m too practical to be fey about creativity. You don’t wait for inspiration, you go dig for it and find it inside the writing. I mean creativity begets creativity, and writing begets more writing. Some days, the words won’t seem to come out even with a hammer and chisel; other days they fall out on their own. Either way, I don’t leave the thing until I’ve done at least 1,000 words.
 
In your opinion, what are the challenges of writing fiction for young adults?
Prissiness, preaching and patronizing. I think I sometimes get dangerously close to the second of those two, but I try to rescue it with humor. 
 
What are you currently working on?
Just finished a new novel. Hurrah!