You wrote eight successful books under the pseudonym Tania Carver. How’s it been writing as Martyn Waites again? Do you miss Tania?
Not yet. I’m just enjoying being Martyn again and writing about Tom Killgannon. Being Tania for such a sustained length of time was an interesting experience. At first the publisher kept my identity quiet which was difficult for me as I have a natural tendency to talk about myself as much as possible, especially when I’ve had a drink. The first book, The Surrogate, was a bestseller, nominated for the Theakston’s Award, and WHSmith’s book of the week. It was difficult to stand there in Smith’s watching people pick my book up and buy it and not be able to tell them that Tania was really me. And yes, I did stand in bookshops and watch people buy it. It was the first book of mine to have that kind of success. And it didn’t have my name on it!
When I was writing as Tania I always knew the difference between a Tania story idea and a Martyn one. If I had a Martyn idea I’d have to file it away to use later. Well, now it is later. After nearly a decade writing only Tania stories it’s great to come back and write as myself again. I wouldn’t rule out another pseudonym in the future, though, especially if I had an idea that was miles away from my usual stuff.
You’re well known for your love of gothic horror, having penned the sequel to The Woman in Black, Angel of Death. What first got you interested in that genre?
That came before crime fiction. It came before most things, really. Doctor Who, horror movies and comics. That was my childhood. Actually, it’s been my adulthood too . . .
Growing up in the seventies, there was always a late-night horror movie on Friday nights. It was kind of a rite of passage to be able to stay up late and watch that. Then BBC2 started running summer double bills of old Universal and Hammer movies on Saturday nights. I couldn’t have been happier. It was often the highlight of my week. Yes, I was a sad child. I didn’t just watch the films, though. I bought books, magazines, model kits, posters, comics, the lot. And it grew from there. I still have most of the things from that time. And now I’ve added to that collection with DVDs and Blu-rays. And books, of course. Too many to list.
My latest passion – which really informs the novel – is the folk horror revival. I’m very much a part of that. For years it was thought that urban landscapes held the most potential for horror. Obviously that’s not right. Hopefully books like mine will go some way towards correcting that. Also, a great read is Adam Scovell’s Folk Horror: Hours Dreadful and Things Strange.
St Petroc is a fictional town in Cornwall, but the ‘old religion’ is very much a reality of Cornish history. When did you first come across it and are you a believer?
Of paganism? No. I’m not a believer in any religion, especially not organised ones, I’ve got no time for them. But I do think paganism as an abstract idea makes sense and seems fun. I do love the whole mythology and ritual aspect that comes with it but I would never partake myself. I could never be a believer.
Paganism in the novel is kind of a means to an end. It’s just playing on a community’s fear and beliefs. It’s about what would happen if a convincing, charismatic fanatic took hold of a scared and impressionable populace. What could you get people to do? How far could you take it? That’s kind of how I see most organised religions. Systems of control. And then they’re taken to extremes: If you do something horrible in another’s name – God’s name – then you can lie and convince yourself you’re doing it for a higher reason, for some kind of greater good, you’re not just some shabby little murderer. Religion is a great justifier.
There’s also a true story behind the novel. Charles Walton, a seventy-four-year-old labourer, was murdered in the village of Lower Quinton in Warwickshire in February 1945. Despite suspicions his killer was never prosecuted although it was strongly suspected Walton had been murdered as part of a blood ritual for the land or in a witchcraft ceremony. 1945 isn’t that long ago. Especially in remote rural areas . . .
Crime fiction is often described as taking events of the day and exploring the ramifications, both the good and the bad, of some difficult subjects. The Old Religion can be read as an exploration on Brexit and what could happen – and in some cases, already is happening – to those areas that have benefited substantially from EU support, but whose people voted to leave the EU. Why did you choose this location to tell this particular story?
Just for that reason. That was a big part of it. Cornwall is one of the areas, if not the area, most heavily reliant on EU subsidy and grants in the UK. They all voted to leave the EU. But expected to still get the same amount of money from . . . somewhere. Obviously this won’t happen. Farmers were the same. I think it’s just dawning on the leavers that they’ve been lied to, or at least I hope it is, and all the things they’ve been promised won’t be happening. In fact, their lives will be substantially worse than before. Normally I would say they deserve it for what they’ve done, but unfortunately they’re dragging the rest of us down too.
So this question kind of follows on from the last one, really. The Brexit referendum was hijacked by the odious Farage and the far right. Johnson and Gove blatantly lied to the country. No one thought the leavers would win, especially not the leavers. But they did. Their lies were believed, unfortunately. And now St Petroc is kind of the UK in microcosm. A dangerous fantasist has taken hold of a scared populace and is insisting they do something that would make them palpably worse off. I quote Chesterton in the novel: When people stop believing in something they don’t believe in nothing, they’ll believe in anything. That’s our country at the moment. Brexit is the worst thing to happen to this country in my lifetime. And crime fiction should absolutely be discussing it.
Who are the people – writers or otherwise – who have most influenced you and your writing?
How long have you got? I’ll keep the novelists separate as much as possible (I’ve seen the next question) so here goes. What I love most is a distinctive voice and a restless spirit for an artist. I hate it when some people say, ‘This is my era’ about things they were watching/listening to/reading in their twenties as if everything they experience subsequently isn’t worth bothering with. Not me. It’s my era till the coffin lid gets nailed down. And those are the kinds of people who inspire me.
In music I guess my main guy is Tom Waits. He’s been through so many different styles of music yet his true persona, his voice, has shone through every time. Scott Walker is another. I know people say they hate his new avant-garde stuff but I don’t. I wouldn’t say I love it as much as Scott 4, but then there are very few things I love as much as Scott 4. I have a massive love of sixties Southern soul too. Get me drunk and I’ll tell you the whole history of Stax Records. Or if you’re really unlucky, I’ll sing it to you.
Again, comics have been a huge influence. Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko and Stan Lee are the holy trinity. Kirby’s Fourth World series are among the greatest works of twentieth-century art and I’ll fight anyone who says they’re not. There are loads more since then, but everything stems from those three.
Doctor Who is still the perfect TV series. I never get tired of watching and rewatching it. Same with The Outer Limits, The Avengers, The Prisoner, film noir, old horror movies . . .
There’s so much more stuff I could mention. I have a huge collection of old pulp horror and crime paperbacks that I still read and reread.
It’s all there in my writing to lesser and greater degrees, because it’s all in my head and heart.
Who are your favourite authors?
My all-time favourite is Graham Greene. He did everything from literary to genre, serious to comic and he did it superbly. I still reread him and still find more and more things in his books.
I have a passion for seemingly neglected twentieth-century British writers. I love Patrick Hamilton. He should be huge. James Curtis. Gerald Kersh. Julian MacLaren-Ross. All those guys.
As far as crime goes, there’s the holy trinity of Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandl
er and Ross MacDonald. Massive influences, all, especially Chandler. But beyond them there’s Cornell Woolrich, David Goodis, Jim Thompson . . . And plenty more besides. I tend to read older stuff for fun.
As for current authors, if I name them all I’ll probably miss someone out. I will say I particularly love what Laura Lippman, Megan Abbott, Alison Gaylin and Christa Faust are doing with the contemporary crime novel. Damned exciting.
Have you any advice for aspiring writers?
I could teach a course on it! In fact, I have done . . .
The main thing to say is to keep going. Don’t be put off by rejection, learn from it. If you write a novel and try for six months to get it published or to find an agent then decide to give up or publish it yourself, you’re not a real writer. You need to work at it. Constantly, day and night. It has to be in your head at all times. If it doesn’t feel like hard work you’re not doing it right. If you can walk away and leave it, you’re not a real writer.
But if you can keep going, not take no for an answer, ask why someone who read your work didn’t like it and learn from it, then you’ve got a chance. Go on a course, get your work properly critiqued. Be prepared to put in the effort.
And read. Constantly. Obsessively. If you don’t read other people’s books, then no one will want to read yours. And nor should they.
What are you reading at the moment?
I’ve just finished Prelude to a Certain Midnight by the aforementioned and brilliant Gerald Kersh. It’s kind of a crime novel but, being Kersh, so much more than that. I’ve also got a collection of Arthur Machen short stories on the go that I dip into when I need a bit more weirdness in my life. I’m about to start rereading the great Ted Lewis and I’m also rereading Ed Brubaker and Darwyn Cooke’s run on Catwoman.
What next for Tom Killgannon?
Well, he’s coming back. Definitely. That’s the first thing. The new novel is called Cage City and it’s quite different to The Old Religion. Tom’s in prison. Why? What for? I’m not saying. You’ll have to read the book. I’ll only say one thing and it’s a quote from the great Jim Thompson: ‘There is only one plot – Things are not what they seem . . .’
If you enjoyed The Old Religion why not join the Martyn Waites Readers’ Club by visiting www.bit.ly/MartynWaitesClub?
Turn over for a message from Martyn Waites . . .
Dear Reader,
Wow. Writing those two words makes me feel like I’m a character in a Jane Austen novel. Or even Jane Austen herself. I have a history of literary crossdressing (I’ve written eight thrillers under the name Tania Carver). But there, I’m afraid, the similarity ends. I’m here to talk about my new novel, The Old Religion. My editor describes it as a cross between Peter May and The Wicker Man and who am I to argue?
It’s a series of firsts for me. My first novel with a totally rural, as opposed to urban setting. My first novel set in Cornwall. And my first to explicitly acknowledge the result of the Brexit referrendum. I’m primarily known as a crime writer having written the above mentioned Tania Carver novels as well as another ten under my own name (and co-authored along with Mark Billingham, Stav Sherez and David Quantick Great Lost Albums, the funniest music book ever written, but that’s for another time). But one of those ten was the official sequel to Susan Hill’s The Woman in Black. Definitely not crime. Horror. Ghosts. Gothic.
I had a great time writing it. Every gothic urge that I’ve suppressed when writing urban crime novels came out. Thinking it would be my only chance to write anything like that I threw the kitchen sink at it. All my influences from Poe onwards showed. And I didn’t care. It also got me interested in a nascent movement that’s since gained quite a bit of traction. Folk Horror. It explores rurality not as anything idyllic but more as an uneasy, terrifying place that can’t be tamed by humanity and retains its own secrets and powers. A place where superstitions and rituals still take precedence.
I had all this in mind when I started on The Old Religion. I wanted to write a noir novel that not only explored what contemporary rural communities are like – and how they are suffering – after the referrendum, but also incorporate strong folk horror themes of fear and superstition. I hope I’ve succeeded. I’ve certainly given it my best shot.
With that in mind, there’s a little something extra here for you. Originally I had sections in the novel showing rituals and their outcomes. These were cut for various reasons and their stories subsumed into the larger narrative but I kept the original pieces and think they work well as short stories or vignettes, expanding the wider world of the novel. Here’s one of those pieces.
If you would like to hear more from me about The Old Religion and my other future books, you can visit www.bit.ly/MartynWaitesClub where you can join the Martyn Waites Readers’ Club. It only takes a moment, there is no catch and new members will automatically receive an exclusive ebook extract from The Old Religion. Your data is private and confidential and will never be passed on to a third party and I promise that I will only be in touch now and again with book news. If you want to unsubscribe, you can of course do that at any time.
However, if you like what you read then please let people know. Social media (I’m on Twitter as @MartynWaites and on Facebook, but I rarely go there), Amazon, GoodReads, all of that. It really does make a difference for writers.
But enough of my yakkin’. It’s time to enter the world of The Old Religion. Enjoy, dear reader . . .
All the best,
Martyn Waites
First published in Great Britain in 2018 by
ZAFFRE PUBLISHING
80-81 Wimpole St, London W1G 9RE
www.zaffrebooks.co.uk
Copyright © Martyn Waites, 2018
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
The right of Martyn Waites to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978–1–78576–431–8
also available as an ebook
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Printed and bound by Clays Ltd, St Ives Plc
Zaffre Publishing is an imprint of Bonnier Zaffre, a Bonnier Publishing company
www.bonnierzaffre.co.uk
www.bonnierpublishing.co.uk
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