oii imagine that lor an author. the naming
ol a novel intist be the inn part. Or
maybe the least lun part. l-ior Alan Warner. his lilth novel‘s title. The Worms (tin ('iirrv Me In l/(’(II'(’H. came like the mythical bolt lrom the blue. With his mother on her deathbed. talk gingerly turned to the impending luneral. 'lt was obvious that she wasn't going to make it. so she was asked whether she wanted anything special. She was very down to earth and not very religious. She said: "ach you know what I'm like". There was this pause and otit ol her morphine stupor she said: “the worms can carry me to heaven". ()l course. you take a step back. She had come out with some lantastlc stull belore. but I thought: "wow. there's a title".‘
.'\s w ell as a title. Warner had a subject. the one which crops up time and time again in his work: death (though this is olten accompanied by escape. hotels. travel. language. a splash ol se\
and a sliver ol animal mutilation - btit more ol
that later). .llnri'erii ('ii/liii'. his scintillating debut lrom l‘)‘)5 begins with a suicide: the perlectly' named ItilltHV—tlp These Demented [um/s is a dense allegory ol hell with characters called Aircrash Investigator and The Devil's Advocate: in The Sopranos (about a hunch ol choir girls lrom the Highlands heading to the big city rather than the New Jersey mob). ()rla attempts to have sex with a cancerous young man: 2002‘s The .I'ltlll ll'hii llii/lts passes through a bloody (‘ulloden. And now. in 3000. The Worms ('iiii ('iirrv Me In Ill'tll‘t'll has at its ruptured core. Manolo l-‘ollano. a lortysoinething
‘AS A WRITER, YOU'RE TRYING TO POKE A LITTLE PIN INTO YOUR READER’S HEAD'
Spanish playboy who rellects on his lile alter being told by his doctor that he is HIV positive.
The boss ol a hugely successlul architectural design company. Manolo leads a comlortable existence by the coast. with a host ol memories llooding his coiisciousuess and a sect ol strange characters lalling into his range. As he crawls towards his own big sleep he reprises a past packed with colourful vignettes: among them the attempted suicide ol a mechanic who is taken in by a lamily which he eventually destroys: some South Koreans who cut part ol their tongues so they" can pronounce linglish words better: and an abandoned boat inhabited by a cluster olcats.
So why is a guy lrom ()ban who has long been based in Ireland writing about Spain'.’ Maybe it‘s because he went there on summer holidays as a child or perhaps it‘s due to his wile being hall- Spanish (the other hall being Irish). Whatever the reason. Warner clearly has more than just a fleeting attraction to Spain. ‘lt‘s the polar opposite ol Scotland in many ways.‘ he tells me over the phone lrom a balmy Alicante. ‘Blue skies. grey skies: sea that you can swim in. sea that you can't swim in: you can smoke in one. not the other.’ And in .llori'erii (‘u/hir. our griel-stricken heroine escapes to Spain. and returns lrom there in These Demented [um/s. In The .S'opriinos. the girls talk about going on holiday there but The Man Who IIii/ks might actually be a Spain-lice zone] he concedes alter a thoughtful pause.
For Warner setting is less about location and more about helping both his characters and his
writing take flight. 'lt‘s really just a technique to put mysell in a dillerent place and imagine things dillerently. I would hate to think that I am in any way seen as harbouring pretensions ol being a Ilispanicist or something; I‘m as much an e\pert on the Spanish psyche as I am on the lemale one.' .-\nd. ol course. w ritng about someone hour a loreign land allows Warner to play around and e\p|ore the mores ol language. ‘You start making these small changes; there's a bit where someone is sick and in Spanish when you're sick. they say that you've returned everything. 'l'hat's quite nice. I have a very bad stumbling. bar—Spanish but where I know something will have an L‘l‘lcc‘t. I‘ll tlsc‘ lt.‘
llis Spanish may be stumbling but Warner's literary career has been in lull gallop mode e\ er since a pen landed in his palm. Born into a non- bookish lainily. he recalls that sleeve notes tojaI/ records were all he got to read around the hotel his parents owned in “barn. Yet he does cherish one seminal memory ol his lather. a heavy—drinking Yorkshireman. reading a highly censored version til l’etct‘ Benchley ~s pulp shocker .ltllt'\ to him on one ol those Spanish breaks in the mid-7()s.
Warner lound himsell lalling towards w riting (while hungrily devouring Sartre. ('aintis and Ballard). almost as a way ol avoiding the more male demands ol his peers. though he did work in the macho worlds ol train driver. bouncer. barman and. um. _ia// bass guitarist. bel'oi'e
jacking it all in to be a lull-time author. l.umped in with his pal Irvine Welsh as a rave writer ol
the 'chemical generation' lor his contributions to the (TIT/(ll't’ll ii/QI/hioii lx’iii'ers and Diver) li’isi'iiils anthologies and the clubby elements in .I/(H'l‘t'l'll (‘ii/hii' and These Demented [um/s. Warner has proceeded to show that no pigeonhole is really big enough to shackle his diverse talents.
In The Iliirms (ii/i ('iii'ijv Me In llt’tll't'll. Manolo insists that the telling ol his stories (‘ripping yarns' Warner dubs them) is akin to spreading an inlection. 'As a writer. you‘re trying to poke a little pin into your readers head and make something stick. Here. I was trying to avoid everything that the novel is linished with: the "study ol a Spaniard" in that l‘)th century scientilic way. In this post-Beckett world. it's about language and its inadequacies. l-‘or rue. I didn’t want to get into an HIV novel: I wasn‘t scared ol it but it could have turned into that very quickly. It was more about a man reflecting on his lile.‘
linough ol men. how about the animals'.’ Some budgies are slaughtered in The Mini ll'hii Wills and in his new one. dogs. elephants and snakes get it lirmly in the neck. ‘l‘m very keen on
animals.~ he insists. 'We Used to have lots ol
budgerigars which we had to donate to a local old people‘s home as we were travelling so much. And my wile does prolessionally attach cats to hersell at lrequent intervals.‘
You have to be carelul because you don‘t want to jtist screw a reaction out ol the reader by' chopping something oll an animal but I think there‘s a sense ol' outrage at the cruelty ol the world which might get missed in my work. There’s a scene. which is autobiographical. where people are filming a dog that had been crushed in the road. I don't lind that amasing. l tind it horrilic.‘
And as long as Alan Warner continues to poke around our heads with his haunting literary imagery. we should all continue to be amused.
The Worms Can Carry Me to Heaven is published by Jonathan Cape on Thu 4 May.
ALAN WARNER
Alan Warner isn‘t the only Scottish literary heavyweight bringing us precious words in 2006. Here are some of our other top authors preparing to be even bigger this season.
I Christopher Brookmyre
A Tale Etched in Blood and Hard Black Pencil A school reunion goes a bit sour when bodies of former pupils start piling up. Little, Brown,
95 May.
I Louise Welsh
The Bullet Trick Glasgow. Berlin and tondon are the locales for this tale of a coniuior whose past catches tip With him when he dathes in the dark side of hurlesgue. Canongale. 20 Jul.
I Andrew O’Hagan Be Near Me Class. religion, art and politics all clash in a tale of an English priest who takes over a small Scottish parish. Faber; 77ALIJ.
As'ettrw O'HAQAN Bl Myst: ME
I Denise Mina
The Dead Hour the second in the Paddy Meehan series has the aspiring hack being paid to keep quiet about a brutal death. But when another corpse is fished from the river. can she stay schtum’? Bantam, 6 Jul.
I James Robertson The Testament of Gideon Mack The story of a faithless minister who spends three days trapped underground and claims to have supped wrth the devn. Hamish Hamilton, 7 Jun.
I Irvine Welsh
The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs An enwronmental health ofticer goes on a Journey from Auld Reekie to San Fran in this adventure about food. sex and celebrity. Jonathan Cape. 3 Aug.
I Jackie Kay Wish I Was Here Another set of short Stories with the emphasis on love. loss. Jealousy and infidelity. Picador,
2 Jun.
‘1 Ma, 200‘, THE LIST 23
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