The House of Writers (24 page)

“Jesus,” Erin said, thinking of her bio: “Erin Grahams writes soap operas featuring the occasional cannibal nurse. She has a fondness for escalators and have-a-go heroes. Her two kittens think she smells.”

“Thanks for sharing, Gerald,” the doctor said. Erin stared into Gerald’s calm eyes, and for a microsecond, thought she saw the bio-addled psychokiller look into her soul and see the needy narcissist inside.

“He knows. About my shit bio.”

“Sorry?”

“I wrote the sort of embarrassing cutesy bio that drives him to homicide.”

“Oh. I shouldn’t concern yourself with that. Shall we proceed?”

“What if he escapes and hacks me into bitesize chunks as I sleep?”

“These doors are secure. You’d need a battering ram to penetrate those locks.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Now, let’s—”

“What do those bios say? They say I am the sort of attention-seeking plonk who needs to engineer a quirky persona to make myself appealing outside the fiction I have written. That I am not content with letting the work speak for itself, I have to persuade the reader that the person who wrote the work is awesome, intriguing, and a Talented New Voice on the Scene, and probably fabulous to have as a friend. That by taking a jokey tone, I am trying to distract you from the truth that I consider myself a fucking legend-in-the-making, illustrated by the three paragraphs of literary magazines I have been published in, that I am—”

“Yes! All right. I have other things to do.”

“Sorry. Carried away.”

“It’s OK. Writers are arseholes.”

“Damn right.”

Freed-in-Fiction

T
HE
Freed-in-Fiction movement was the hippest club for intellectual dropouts, child/wifeless male academics, and assorted creatives unwilling to face up to their personal problems. A coterie of exhausted English Lit & Creative Writing students, failing upon graduation to rise to the challenge of carving careers for themselves in teaching or editing or corporate proofreading, decided that their fictional creations were far more alive and interesting than their real lives, and elected to neglect the quotidian in favour of vicarious living through their novels. One of the founders, Dan Inch, laid down various rules to help direct the group, the first being a complete shunning of publication of any kind—to publish was to acknowledge that books (and themselves) existed in the real world, whereas they were looking for an ontological loophole that excused them from the business of living (choosing to dismiss their actual corporeal presences on the planet as irrelevant). The second was that their physical presences on the planet were to be treated as part of their ongoing oeuvre—an unwritten extension of their books through the medium of movement and speech. This unhinging of reality, naturally, led to deviant behaviour. One writer in his novels had written an antihero who went around shooting corporate criminals and having sex with random beauties whenever one wandered into the narrative. This behaviour, replicated in real life, was not repeated, although the author beat up random bankers, shop managers, or anyone who appeared to be indulging in capitalist excess, and conducted himself in improper ways around women with pinching and unsolicited touching. These writers were commonly regarded as laughable and clueless until a harsh winter finished them off.

The New Established Writer Movement

New writers, i.e. those who had been passed over by agents and publishers for decades, chose to establish themselves as established writers. To achieve this, a list of books published overseas was invented, alongside false overseas agent and publisher contact info (including false agent and publisher websites), and new (i.e. old) manuscripts were sent to UK publishers with the salvo of a respected publishing history (in Australia or New Zealand) to help pique the interest of agents and publishers. If successful, The New Established Writers would find their latest (or earliest) novel published and, depending on sales, find their non-existent backlog sped into print to meet the demands of a burgeoning audience. Most of the writers had ten or so complete novels in their drawers, and in some cases a whole catalogue was “re-issued” simultaneously (with the author having to typeset and print fake copies privately to send to their real publishers so facsimiles could be made). This movement was exposed in a similar manner to the The New Writer movement some years earlier, and a harsh winter finished them off.

The Serial Listing Movement

These writers believed that the furniture of conventional novels was superfluous; that the ordered line-by-line dialogue of characters was superfluous; that the linear page-turning plot was superfluous; that deep insight into the human condition was superfluous; that the finger-tingling all-over assault on the brain and body produced by the most masterly of stylists was superfluous; that the words on the page themselves attempting to communicate something or nothing at all were superfluous; that double or triple meanings were so many layers of mouldy custard within a smelly trifle; that the spooky transference of art from brain to page was mystical bunkum; that the physical rigor required to bring books to fruition was a lazy dreamer’s hyperbole; that the bitter sacrifice of sanity, soul, and sexual needs was the pitiful cry of a loner; that all the precious components of timeless literature could be reduced to a series of blank lists with no substance or heart. The movement was criticised as a direct
nouveau roman
rip-off, and a harsh winter finished them off.

The Anti-cis-heteronormativist Movement

This movement set about rewriting literature with the assumption that all characters were trapped in false gender identities, and by allowing characters to realise their true gender roles, free literature from the oppression of the cis-heteronormativists who had been imposing heterosexist ideals on readers since time immemorial. The first rewrite was
Jane Eyre,
with the famous heroine recast as a pangender transitioning towards a more male-centred outlook. The plot was tweaked to castigate Rochester for his persistence, where he learned to respect Jane’s complex gender position and stronger romantic pulls towards female sexual partners. Further rewrites included David Copperfield realising himself as a queer heterosexual, which better explained his attraction to Dora Spenlow; Molly Bloom identifying herself as a “fifth sex,” outside both genders, outside all non-gender classifications, a separate class known as Bloomism—sort of a magnet for all sexualities, genders and non-genders; and Raskolnikov as a transsexual in process of becoming a woman so he could be kept by a husband and write without having to concern himself with making a living. This movement, while an amusing contemporaneous reimagining of the patriarchal canon and a necessary riposte to the tyrannous influence of university syllabi, suffered due to the lack of talent involved in pastiching the originals. A harsh winter finished them off.

The_______Movement

Four men who did no writing whatsoever and bragged about their lack of achievements at writing groups, readings, and events. Their belief that more than enough fiction had been penned over the last three centuries was illustrated with the blank notebooks they carried around and the no pens in their pockets (if approached for a pen, they made a show of patting their pockets and declaring: “Sorry, we never need one!”), and if presented with a book published after their inception, they refused with the refrain: “Sorry, for us the buck stopped a while ago!” (the buck meaning new books). In writing classes, the men would sit in silence, staring into space during the live writing portion, infuriating the teachers by insisting on a four-minute silence during their allotted reading aloud time. At author readings, the men would turn their backs on the authors during the readings from their new books and listen to loud punk on headphones, resuming their attention after the applause. If the author’s first book had been published after the group’s inception, the men would book seats and not turn up to the events, leaving the chairs blank as a protest (despite the fact the rooms were usually empty anyway). In online workshops, the men would embed pictures of blank pages, or include a sequence of blank_______lines, and delete the abusive feedback. One time, an ex-vintner with a first novel out castigated them for wasting his time by standing up to ask a question and singing the chorus to “Fernando” by Abba, humiliating them after the show by exposing their movement as a testament to their own failure as writers, and their pathetic need to flaunt their failure by spoiling the success of others. The harsh vintner finished them off.

A
FTER
a month I refurbished a motorbike and set about spreading the wire-nibbling destruction across a vaster catchment. ScotCall had been unable to react to the problem with speed— three thousand coffee confabs and latte chattes had to take place before opting on a course of misaction—however, one afternoon I was embroiled in the first of their hard-hitting retaliation manoeuvres. Several dozen operatives shouldering bazookas came zooming along in their landcruisers and proceeded blowing the sheep to floccules. I took refuge behind a plastic tree as the thugs roared past, leaving streaks of flame in their wake and mere remnants of the several hundred sheep I had strenuously bred. The air was rank with gasoline, peat, and sheep semen. I cursed the band of hellacious devils (immaculate crew cuts in top-buttoned white business shirts) as I made my escape, unscathed except for a few scratches, and retreated back to The House. The phone lines had been disturbed to such an extent that the roads were populated with aimless protesters—confused “customers” had migrated up from England and were seeking a solution to their current problems.

Furious banner-wavers camped on the roads making incoherent chants in noncommittal mumbles, blocking the buses that arrived bearing an extra spew of arms-wide appeasers. The unanswered
vox populi
in their muddled huddles hurled questions at each Scot-Call operative who approached them with throatfuls of warm indigestible appeasement. The operatives abandoned their spiel to bark quick-fire replies at their fuming customer base. “How does my VCR work?” “Turn it on!” “What is the point of the sky?” “To store the clouds!” “Can I use my toothbrush as a suppository?” “Depends!” “Green shoes or brown slippers?” “Green slippers!” “Can absinthe be used as an antidepressant?” “Yes!” “Is it possible to transfer debit to credit by switching banks?” “No chance!” “Why is Greenland so icy?” “False advertising!” “How do I review a dreadful book online without hurting the author’s feelings?” “Rate five stars and the opinion is irrelevant!” “Is a shepherd allergic?” “Never!” “Does a swan mind if you insult its beak?” “Swans are sensitive to all complaints!” “Does it matter?” “It does to
me!”

Pockets of satisfied customers migrated back home, but most of their queries led to further queries and the ratio of operatives to customers meant a mass-resolution (even with megaphones) was impossible. Forty-seven operatives had fatal heart attacks as the crowds shuffled towards the ScotCall HQ. Half-cocked attempts were made to keep the crowds outside the gate (operatives asking the crowds to please remain outside the gate) and helicopters whirred overhead with loudspeakers blasting stock responses to the most common questions. As the crowd spilled into the ScotCall HQ building pandemonium ensued across the nation. Operatives were being disrupted from their phone duties to attend to the invaders and this caused millions of unanswered customers and
en masse
migrations from England, Wales, and Northern Ireland to seek responses. Hundreds of directionally challenged stragglers arrived at The House, where they were recruited into the new campaign as run by a faction of experimental novelists, helmed by Alan the Experimentalist, and given a basic education with a view to reforming the country using intelligence and books to govern the
hoi polloi
in place of fear and ignorance.

The House was the only place to escape the march of mayhem. ScotCall enacted various tactics to clear their buildings and roads. Helicopters went skywards so operatives could scatter the ten most common solutions written on millions of strips of paper onto their customers’ heads. The top ten queries were: 1) How do I turn toast back into bread? 2) Is Monaco a country? 3) Can I use 1½ AA batteries instead of an AAA? 4) What shape is a square? 5) Who is Tim Pritchards? 6) Is it legal to sing a pop song in public without seeking public performing permissions? 7) Does a radioactive duck have green poo? 8) How many numbers are there in the alphabet? 9) Where is the toilet? 10) Can I put a fridge on my cat when she’s asleep? In addition to this, covert operatives were smuggled into the crowds to whisper solutions into passing ears—a technique that backfired as the customers lashed out at having other (assumed) customers giving them false solutions when the definitive ScotCall answers were all that was sought. Loudspeakers blasting out advice were raised alongside two enormous cinema screens broadcasting subliminal messages (“Please bugger off home!”). The last and most effective option was to hurl canisters of fainting gas into the crowds from the helicopters. The unconscious bodies were removed to special tents where upon waking the solutions were offered in orderly ways. This technique also backfired, as on their way back to their houses, the bemused customers would have a brand new query:
what the hell happened to us? Did you bastards just gas us?
It was certainly not an excellent PR move. Needless to say, I was happy in my safe haven.

T
HE
event organisers had witnessed many writer brawls, in particular the little-known fistfight between Gore Vidal and Norman Mailer back in 2007, where Gore emerged the victor after a vicious blow to the belly, ending Mailer’s life (a press release lied that he had been undergoing lung surgery), and the bizarre bout between E.L. Doctorow and William H. Gass in 2015, resulting in a fractured tibia for Doctorow, and a 1000-page treatise
On the Vicissitudes of Violence
from Gass (never published). The safest option was to clear the area—the organisers knew that writers were the most cowardly, traitorous fighters out there, never averse to an attack from behind, or punching someone in their sleep, or shaking hands and calling a truce and stabbing through the navel with an icicle. In that vein, Muriel Barbery clobbered Paul Murray with a bag of frozen beefsteaks; Ben Marcus shoved Geoff Dyer towards an open freezer and, having failed to move him an inch, crouched down and begged “Don’t punch me!”; Jáchym Topol kicked Claudia Rankine in the shins, and received a stunning slap in return; Warren Motte attempted a headbutt on Mark Haddon but ended up hurling himself at Lydia Lunch, who rolled him up like a carpet and fired him out the window. The scene of violence that followed does not bear rendering in another list form—to reduce these shameful acts to mere rote would be in itself a shameful act. I leapt up later to take the microphone and shouted: “YOU HAVE COME HERE TO DIE, NOT TO BRAWL!” This created the desired silence, and I followed this up with: “Did not Nabokov once say, ‘Beauty is mysterious as well as terrorful. God and the devil are fighting there, and the battlefield is the heart of a man’?” This caused an eruption of laughter.