Which book has had the most impact on you and why?
The 1973 Vauxhall Viva owner's manual, as my stepfather used to hit me over the head with it.
Which book would you take with you to a desert island?
Strangely enough, I was once marooned on a desert island, and by an extraordinary stroke of good fortune a crate filled with copies of Pulling No Punches by John Prescott washed up on the shore. It made an excellent anaesthetic when I was forced to amputate my own foot.
What is your earliest memory?
In innocent childish curiosity, I totter across the floor of our shack and put my head into the cage where my stepfather kept his fighting-rats. One of them battens onto my nose. I stagger around the room in agony, the pair of us squealing. In an effort to dislodge it, my stepfather whacks me on the back of the head with a spade. I go staggering forward and put my head through the front of our wood-burning stove. My hair is on fire; so is the rat. It lets go of my nose but in terror darts down the back of my shirt, setting that alight too. In fear for his prize rodent, my stepfather attempts to beat the flames out with the spade. Then he tosses the pair of us into the septic tank. He has forgotten I cannot swim, and has to reel me out with a fishing rod. It takes ages as I at first refuse to bite. He gaffs and lands me and rushes the rat to the hospital. Fortunately it made a full recovery and won its next three fights. Still my mother yelled at him for allowing me to roam wild so he put me in the rats' cage and tucked the rats up in my bed. I can still hear him tenderly singing them to sleep.
Strange, the trivial little incidents that stick in one's mind.
What is the most important thing you have learned in your life?
Never insert your genitals into a box containing a crazed vampire bat (long story, seemed like a good
idea at the time).
What makes you smile?
Nothing, as I was born without the necessary muscles, and following an accident in my youth a baboon's backside was grafted onto my face by a deranged scientist. I have learned to clench the buttocks wryly if I wish to register amusement, although I do not often have much cause for it, frankly.
Do you have a comfort book you re-read?
One Day In The Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, an escapist tale of an idyllic day in a really pampered life. I fantasize about being him.
Do you ever listen to audiobooks or do you need the real thing?
I happen to possess my own living audiobook! My adopted daughter is an autistic savant who can recite any book she has ever read verbatim. She often tells me bedtime stories when she is home from university. The only drawback is that she also suffers from Tourette's Syndrome. She is currently narrating The Tale of Mrs. Bastard Tiggywinkle by Beatrix Sodding Potter.
If you could invite three fictional characters to a dinner party at your house, who would they be?Cunegonde from Candide - I was once raped by Cossacks and would be interested to find out how their technique compares to Bulgars. Ivan Denisovich, to make the party go with a swing. And James Bond, in case the dinner party was hijacked by terrorists as my last one was.
What advice would you give to someone who wants to be a writer?
You should only go into it with your eyes wide open to the risks and pitfalls. I fractured a shin when a typewriter fell on it, a laptop slammed shut on me and severed the tip of a finger, and I once almost suffocated after getting my head trapped in my waste-paper basket.
Do you read your reviews, good and bad, and do they make a difference to you?
Yes and yes. The Misery Lit Review awarded my book 9 1/2 Sobs out of 10, which was gratifying, whereas Pain Today complained that my description of the Cossack rape was 'offhanded, even brusque.' But, you know, so were the Cossacks.
Can you tell us a bit about what you're working on now?
A cannibal cookbook. As well as consuming my own foot on a desert island I was once trapped at the bottom of a mineshaft with my best friend and forced to eat him to survive. I think a guide to the choicest cuts might be useful for anyone who ever finds themselves in a similar situation.
What's the strongest reaction you've had to your book?
A reading group hung themselves after discussing it. To have had such a profound effect is humbling.
