‘PROUD AS I AM OF THE BOOK, IT WAS LIKE A FURBALL THAT
JUST CAME UP'
Park lifer
Solitary confinement is one link between novelists and convicts. DANNY LEIGH tells Brian Donaldson about the blocks in prison cells and writers’ heads.
)1 his time as a journalist in the world ol‘ entertainment. Danny Leigh met a lair number of
‘monsters'. lle recalls an appalling interview with one l'amous l5rench actress whose handshake was lar lirmer than it needed to be: and then there was the high prolile hip hop DJ who got yery' annoyed when Leigh had the gall to ask him his age. The lidinburgh-born. Brighton-lnised author is now more content merely producing stories ol’ beasts on the page.
His second book. The .llonxlr'rs of (irrunt'n‘y l’urk. takes its natne iron) the children‘s story (about a bunch ol~ naughty gargoy les being forced iron) the city they are plaguing) within Leigh's l'S-set noycl (about a female crime noyelist with writer‘s block who turns to writing the biography of a him in a super-maximum security prison). The kids' book is written by this prisoner. \Vilson l'lysses \'ele/. a Latino gangleader whose mind. body and spirit haye been crushed to a nth until the writer. Li/beth (ireene. is allowed regular access l‘or interyiew time. tracking his traumatic story l‘rom wide- eyed street kid to public enemy number one.
lntermingled in the narratiye are a magazine prolile ol
(ireene (recalling her horrible childhood. during which she witnessed her mother's murder. to her later experience of being kidnapped by a man w ho turned out to be a notoi‘iotis serial killer) and her own el'l‘orts at retelling the \'ele/ story.
(‘onl'us‘ed yet‘.’ It would barely" be a wonder considering that the author himself described the process ot‘ getting all the strands ot~ this crime mystery. biographical tiction. kids noyella and social commentary as a 'headl‘uck‘. Despite that. reading the book is a
relatiye brec/e. ‘There was a point about two thirds oi the way through when the room I was working in looked ever so slightly like a serial killers lair.’ Leigh tells me in the London ol'lice ol his publisher during an alternoon wetter and wilder than the one which kicks oil .S'r'7t'ii. ‘.»\l| these scraps of paper and one or two-word messages to myself and bits stuck to the walls: il' anyone was to walk in at any point. they 'd be somewhat alarmed.‘
lix-inusician Leigh may now be on his dillicult second novel. but his debut didn't l'ollow the prescribed path oi lirst time authors. The (imam! (ii/i artliully tracks the death then lil‘e of Matthew Viss. a caring worker at a blue-chip concierge service. Some called it cral‘ted. ()thers dubbed it lilashy‘. ‘\\'hen people write a lirst noy'el. it's ol‘ten a coming ol' age story or yery c\p|icitly autobiographical: someone in their 20s going through something l‘ascinating in t'tistic (‘ornw all or w hereyer and it wasn’t the book I was writing. l’roud as I an) ol‘ the book. it was like a l'urball that just came up.‘
The book Leigh has now written can be taken in many dil‘l‘erent ways. As an indictment on America's attitude to incarceration. it's on the money. ‘They'ye honed the art of imprisonment and then honed it again. just to make it more humiliating. more degrading and more soul-destroying tor the prisoners and their l'amilies. ln blunt. simplistic terms. the [ISA doesn‘t build factories or schools. it builds prisons: in all those prison towns. people just hay'e jobs as guards or in the "corrections" industry somehow.‘ (iod bless America.
The Monsters of Gramercy Park is out now published by Faber. Thanks to GNER for travel.
llit
THE BEST BOOKS, COMICS & EVENTS
>l<
=i< Kazuo Ishlguro The next Booker winner? Maybe. Never Let Me Go is another delicious tale from the author of The Remains of the Day, in which the salad days of boarding school are recalled through a sinister eye. See review. Faber.
>i< Danny Leigh After the quirky debut of The Greatest Gift, the Brighton-based bibliophile returns with a more solid offering, The Monsters of Gramercy Park, a compulsive tale of a cn'me writer and the maximum security liter she begins to profile. See preview. Faber.
>l< Joe Coleman The Mystery of Woolverine Woo-Bait may be the best title of the fortnight, but it's also one of the issue’s finest publications. It's a heavily plotted and highly detailed crime tale that will require a pair of readings at least. Which is no bad thing. See review. Fantagraphics.
>i< Grant Morrison 8. Dave McKean A welcome reissue (15 years on) of Ark/7am Asylum, the story of what happens when Batman has to enter the institution where many of his enemies are now housed. See review. Titan/DC.
>i< Christopher Brookmyre The Scottish crime writer (pictured) may have a batch of the most oddball titles in the books business, but he’s more than just a gimmick-meister. His latest lo-fi epic is All Fun and Games Until Somebody Loses An Eye. out in May. North Edinburgh Arts Centre, Wed 16 Mar
".’ 1'. " THE LIST 31