The Men Himself
Today I am very excited to have James Lear as my guest – or rather guests. James is the author of the global bestseller The Back Passage, but you may know of him, or one of his alter egos, for other reasons. James Lear is just one name under which Rupert Smith writes, and he has had many books published including some high profile TV tie-ins. His novel Man’s World won him the Stonewall Writer of the Year Award in 2010 and he’s had plenty of other praise heaped upon him. So, let’s find out more…
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Tris: Welcome, James – or is it Rupert?
Rupert: Rupert is my first name, James is my second name, my family always calls me Jim. I don’t really mind!
Tris: Okay, let’s stick with Rupert then, which is the name you use for literary fiction. You write erotica as James Lear and commercial fiction as Rupert James. Why did you decide on a name for each genre?
Rupert: I’d love you to believe that it was anything as deliberate as a ‘decision’ to write under different names but to be honest it was all more or less accidental. I wrote my first few books as Rupert Smith. During that time, I was having difficulty getting a deal for a novel, and a friend introduced me to an editor who was looking for some new erotic fiction. I wrote one, it was accepted and published under the name James Lear because at the time I was working for a big corporation and I was a bit nervous about how they’d react. Over the next few years, the Lear and Smith names developed in tandem, each with their own audiences. Later on, I tried my hand at some mainstream commercial/women’s fiction, and my agent thought it might help us to get a deal if she sent it out without the baggage of the Smith and Lear books. She thought, quite rightly, that I was classified as a gay author, and the industry has very narrow, blinkered ideas about markets. So Rupert James was born.
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Tris: Well, so many good things in life happen by accident, don’t they? But I first came across you, if I may use that expression, when I discovered The Back Passage. I know there is much more to you than that one book, but I have to say it made me laugh out loud. Not many writers can do that, so you gained a fan immediately. Where did you get the idea for the book?
Rupert: First and foremost, I’m a big fan of Agatha Christie, and I always thought her books were fraught with erotic potential. There’s something about the mechanical nature of a good whodunnit that lends itself well to the pattern of seduction and interrogation that forms the structure of that novel. There were a couple of other major influences: firstly the film Gosford Park, and secondly a TV documentary series called The Edwardian Country House, which was a reality show that put people into the roles of butler, footman, hall porter etc in a big stately home. Some of the men in it were really cute, and the whole hierarchical structure is obviously good for sexual tension. I sent it out to a few publishers who turned it down: one of them said ‘a novel set in 1920s Britain will never sell’. Fortunately it was taken up by Cleis Press and they’ve been James Lear’s publishing home ever since.
Tris: Just let me stop choking on that comment on the saleability of a Britain-in-the-‘20s novel. Jesus! Ahem…Your writing covers a pretty wide spectrum and perhaps we should stress here that not all your books are gay fiction. Can you talk a bit about your work across the board and how you manage to juggle everything?
Rupert: To be honest, my main concern at the moment is making a living. The publishing industry, at least in the UK, is in a bad state, and I’ll write anything that I think will get a deal. Anyone who takes the trouble to read my work with an open mind will see that the style is actually quite consistent – I favour strong narrative, traditional structures, a lot of dialogue, not too much description – and there’s always a lot of humour. In terms of career management, I’m usually writing one book, revising the last one as part of the production process, and thinking about what to do next. When I’m in full-on writing mode, I work fast – up to four or five thousand words a day. For the last few years I’ve written two or three books a year. I’d actually like to slow down, or even take a break for a while. I think my writing would benefit in the long run. Unfortunately, unlike a lot of writers I’m not independently wealthy.
Tris: Well, you’re not exactly in an exclusive club there, Rupert. Membership card? I’ll show you mine if you show me yours. Now, your first novel, I Must Confess, was published in 1998. What did you do before you became a writer? I mean, what makes you what you are today? Who is the real Rupert Smith?
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Rupert: I was a journalist for many years, and before that I was an academic, which I didn’t like and wasn’t much good at. Journalism was great: in the 90s and 00s I wrote millions of words on a huge range of subjects, I interviewed thousands of people, and I got to know the entertainment industry from the inside out. That’s what inspired I Must Confess, which is a satire on all that stuff. Some of the people I met as a journalist were lovely, talented individuals, but there were also a lot of narcissistic, self-deluding monsters, who of course are much more fun to write about—
Tris: And actually much more common, in my experience. Talking of which (sticks tongue in cheek), you ghosted the aborted Michael Barrymore autobiography, you produced a 20th anniversary book for East Enders, you have praise from Paul O’Grady – is your day-to-day life filled with celebrities?
Rupert: Oh, and before that I’d written a couple of very left-field life stories, one the autobiography of singer Jayne County, and the other the biography of British physique photographer John S Barrington. But no – my life is anything but star-studded. All of that celebrity stuff arose from my journalistic career. I knew loads of celebrities, and I went to the parties and generally had a ball. Now I’m a full-time author I live like a hermit, frankly. Sometimes I pop out and do what I call ‘live journalism’, interviewing interesting people in front of an audience, and it’s a good balance to the solitary life of the writer. I knew Paul O’Grady quite well from the mid ‘80s, when he was starting out in the London pubs – I used to see him perform as Lily Savage in the Royal Vauxhall Tavern and elsewhere, and got to know him pretty well then. If we ever bump into each other now, he’s very happy to reminisce about the good old days. He hasn’t changed at all. This probably sounds nauseating, but he really is one of the nicest people you could ever wish to meet.
Tris: Rupert, would you mind just passing me that bucket..? Sorry, I do have some tissues somewhere. Right, where was I? Oh yes… I am dying to read Service Wash but it’s hard to get hold of. Can you put the story in a nutshell?
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Rupert: It’s about a sensitive not-so-young writer who gets commissioned to ghost the autobiography of a really ghastly soap star. He gets caught up in her very messy lifestyle with disastrous consequences. It’s very funny, but it’s probably the bleakest thing I ever wrote. I love it, but the publisher didn’t seem to know what to do with it. With luck, I’ll get it out as an e-book in the next year or so: that seems to be the way to breathe life into my backlist.
Tris: Please tell me the moment it’s out and it I’ll be the first to stick it on my Kindle. So, in or about the year 2000 you were finding it hard to get mainstream work published and your foray into erotica began, and James Lear was born. Subsequently you, like me, have been taken up by the US publishing industry. In your opinion, what’s the future of the British publishing industry, and indeed of the industry as a whole?
Rupert: In my darker moods, I think the whole industry is fucked. The big publishers are saving their resources for an ever-smaller pool of writers, the guaranteed money spinners. They’re not buying the kind of mid-list stuff that I do, so there’s a lot of writers not getting advances and a lot of agents not getting commission. Editors really need to get their heads out of the sand, because we’re close now to a situation where new talent is going to bypass traditional publishing routes and go straight to e-publishing. And the really big writers like JK Rowling have already done it. There’s no interest in nurturing talent: if you don’t sell a million copies in the supermarkets in your first six months of publication, they stop returning your calls. That said, we have a small but strong independent sector, and I’m very lucky to have found a home with Arcadia Books, who do my literary stuff in the UK. I don’t know what the future is for the industry as a whole, but I guess, like everyone else, that e-books will be the dominant form. They cut out materials, printing, warehousing, distribution and so on. It’s a completely different publishing model. The one thing that’s missing from e-publishing is the ‘seal of approval’ that a proper publisher gives a book. So much self-published work is just rubbish, and without the brand values of a decent publisher it’s hard for readers to know what they’re getting. That said, if the publishers don’t sort themselves out soon, they’re going to be extinct.
Tris: Although, we should be clear that e-publishing and self-publishing are two different things. The better e-publishers are now pulling away from the crowd and I sense that their endorsement will start to carry as much weight as the big traditional publishers. In fact, I think it’s happening. So, if you could ask the British commercial publishers to do one thing, what would it be?
Rupert: Apart from ‘buy my damn books’, it would be to look beyond the supermarkets. The stranglehold of supermarket buyers is largely responsible for the diabolical state of British publishing. I don’t think we’ll ever return to dinky little bookshops where you can sit in leather armchairs, but there’s a whole world of online retailing out there with diverse audiences to be exploited. If they could see beyond rigid ideas of ‘sections’ they could sell a lot more books.
Tris: The mention of sections makes me think of genres and to my next question. The argument goes on as to whether there is a difference between what has become known as the M/M genre and gay fiction. Where do you stand on it?
Rupert: Good books transcend labels. I’ve read a lot of nonsense on blogs, in which people get their knickers in a twist about this subject. The way I distinguish between my James Lear books and my Rupert Smith books is that the Lear books put sex first; they’re very carefully designed to turn the reader on. The Smith books are much more about story and character in more general ways. That said, there are very sexy bits in the Smith books, and there’s very strong narrative in the Lears. Sometimes I think ‘gay fiction’ is used to describe books published by ‘proper’ publishers, and M/M is used to describe the other stuff. I try not to worry too much about all this, because at the end of the day it’s a pointless distraction. In the words of Oscar Wilde, books are either well written or badly written.
Tris: I think we can all agree on that. Sometimes I remind myself of the old sherry advert when I get on my hobby horse and say quality counts. You mention turning the reader on. Is there a difference between erotica and porn?
Rupert: Of course not. ‘Erotica’ is the more genteel term, and ‘porn’ is used as a put-down. I can’t stand this false distinction that one is better or subtler or cleverer than the other. Your book is either sexy, or it’s not.
Tris: Does a romance have to have a happy ending?
Rupert: Yes. I’d say it’s one of the defining qualities of romance. You have a situation in which the lovers can’t get together, they go through various trials and misunderstandings, and then, thanks to the intervention of some outside agency, they resolve their problems and get together. The whole point of the story is to raise a very strong desire in the reader for resolution, and if you thwart that then you’ve wasted your time, and the reader’s. A lot of crap is talked and written about ‘subverting the audience’s expectations’. But if you’re doing your job properly, you’re the one who’s in control of their expectations. Don’t build towards one effect and then pull out another one just because you think it’s clever. Obviously you can have love stories with sad endings, but that’s not ‘romance’, that’s something else.
Tris: I hear you have some new books to look forward to in 2012. Can you tell us something about them?
Rupert: One Smith and one Lear. The former is called The Interlude, and it’s about a young woman who discovers that her grandfathers were lovers in the Second World War. I’m really proud of this one, I think it brings together a lot of my strengths as a writer across different genres and consolidates them in one book. The Lear is called The Hardest Thing, and it’s my take on the Lee Child/Jack Reacher school of macho thrillers. It’s set in the US, it’s got plenty of sex in it, but it’s possibly a bit more character/plot driven than the earlier Lears. I’m excited about it, and I hope people are going to fall in love with the hero. He’s very butch.
Tris: Well, I can’t wait for those. Looking back on 2011, what events will stay with you?
Rupert: It’s been a frustrating year in some ways, because of the shutdown of the industry, but I’m in the lucky position of having a couple of books coming out next year, so I’m surviving. In literary terms, the big events for me were Alan Hollinghurst’s The Stranger’s Child and Philip Hensher’s King of the Badgers, both of them amazing books. We’re so lucky to have those two writing at the height of their powers. In news terms, the defining event was the summer riots in the UK. We’re still dealing with the fallout from that, and I’m absolutely horrified to see that some sections of the press have become apologists for crime and are trying to shift the blame for the riots on to the middle class. Please! We were too busy working to earn the money to pay the tax to fund the bloody country. God, I’m such an angry old man!
Tris: Maybe we can both get taken on for the next series of Grumpy Old Men? I can gripe for England. Ah well, I guess the time has come to let you get back to your parties – sorry, work. Thanks for talking to me, Rupert. I wish you every success with your new books and hope 2012 turns you and your fans well and truly on. Before you go, please tell my readers where they can find you.
Rupert: My website is: www.rupertsmith.org.uk
I’m on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/#!/profile.php?id=609553618&sk=wall
There’s also a James Lear page on there: http://www.facebook.com/pages/James-Lear/113055228725291?ref=ts&sk=wall
I tried Twitter and it nearly drove me crazy! Mind you, when I have a book out it’ll be all hands to the pump, you’ll be sick of the sight of me.
Tris: Ssh! Don’t tell Rupert, but his Twitter link is this: http://twitter.com/#!/RupertSmith
And this is the book that I stumbled upon which led to me being a James Lear/Rupert Smith/Rupert James fan:-
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The Back Passage blurb:
Hardcore sex and scandal meet in this brilliantly hot and funny whodunnit. A seaside village, an English country house, a family of wealthy eccentrics and their equally peculiar servants and a determined detective – all the ingredients are here for a cosy Agatha Christie-style whodunnit. But, Edward “Mitch” Mitchell is no Hercule Poirot, and “The Back Passage” is no “Murder on the Orient Express”. Mitch is a handsome, insatiable 22-year-old hunk who never lets a clue stand in the way of a steamy encounter, whether it’s with the local constabulary, the house secretary, or his school chum and fellow athlete Boy Morgan, who becomes his Watson when they’re not busy boffing each other. When Reg Walworth is found dead in a cabinet, Sir James Eagle has his servant Weeks immediately arrested as the killer. But, Mitch’s observant eye pegs more plausible possibilities: polysexual chauffeur Hibbert, queenly pervert Leonard Eagle, missing scion Rex, sadistic copper Kennington and even Sir James Eagle himself. Blackmail, police corruption, a dizzying network of spy holes and secret passages, watersports, and non-stop queer orgies mark this hilariously hardcore mystery by a major new talent.
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