Guest Post: Richard Godwin Writes About Obsession and Identity

Richard Godwin is a fascinating British crime writer who, like me, has a background as a poet. He also has a blog on his website (link at the bottom of the post) on which he holds the most thoughtful and reflective conversations with other writers. He has a great new novel, One Lost Summer, out now, and I'm pleased to have him with us talking about obsession and identity.

ONE LOST SUMMER AND IDENTITY.

           

One Lost Summer is in many ways a novel about identity and lies. It is about the lies people tell themselves to survive and the extent to which they may remain unknown in a person’s character and by those closest to them. It is about desire and obsession and it is about summer and the secrets your neighbour carefully hides from you while he or she keeps up a facade.

This is a brief synopsis of the novel:  

 Rex Allen loves star quality in women. He moves into a new house in a heat wave with few possessions apart from two photographs of his dead daughter. His next door neighbour, beautiful Evangeline Glass invites him over to one of her many summer parties, where he meets her friends and possessive husband Harry. Rex feels he knows Evangeline intimately. He starts to spy on her and becomes convinced she is someone other than who she pretends to be. When he discovers she has a lover, he blackmails her into playing a game of identity that ends in disaster.

One Lost Summer is attracting some great reviews. Reviewers are commenting on its tight suspense and haunted feeling, as well as the intense drama that plays itself out between Rex and Evangeline and the breathtaking ending. The narrative contains many surprises, not least those that come from Rex’s past. But there are also the surprising revelations that occur in his meetings with Evangeline, who he lures to his house once a week for two hours to act out the part of Coral, a woman who remains a mystery until the end. She may be nothing more than a figment of Rex’s imagination or she may be Evangeline’s alter ego.

The central characters are altered by the sequence of events one torrid summer. One of the things I wanted to explore when I wrote One Lost Summer was the extent to which the irrational governs peoples’ lives. And obsession is a key theme in the novel. It is there in Rex, the first person narrator of the novel, as this passage shows:

“Obsession is not a modern disease. Its roots lie deep inside humanity and may be the reason we’re here. You don’t know you’re obsessed until you can’t move, until all you see is   the one thing. By then the tendrils have wrapped themselves around your unsuspecting heart. They’re delicate at first in their unfolding, touching you in the dark, like the soft caress of a lover at dawn. Then you know they’re squeezing the blood out of you. And you realise you will have to hack them away, and with them some living beating part of yourself to be free.

I held the camera and captured her image again and again that intoxicated summer when music filled the gardens of Broadlands Avenue, and Evangeline was high forever.

 Stars have a rare quality, an ability to take away the smallness most men feel. They’re more corrupt than us, but the corruption is better hidden, and their appeal is a lie, the biggest drug you will ever know.

            Evangeline was a complete balance of all the qualities famous stars have. She knew she was a rare flame.

            All that summer I watched her. I caught her laughing, smiling, looking away from Harry, alone, contemplating her day. I took her with shopping bags on the empty drive next door, and I filmed her sunbathing by the pool, her body tanned and glowing in the unnatural sun that seemed to set that time apart. For she seemed to exist outside time. And I captured her and made her mine.

I spent my evenings with a glass of Montrachet chilling my tongue as I sipped her image from the Plasma screen in my living room. I fed on her. The X bridged the space between us. I zoomed in on her, caressing her skin with the lens. I entered her world like a hummingbird penetrating a flower, my heart beating like rapid wings. She existed in my watchfulness and awoke my desire. When I wasn’t filming her, time was static. There were no clocks in The Telescope. I felt erased when I wasn’t watching her image. My house had no past and no future.

I tidied away unpacked boxes, placing them in cupboards. I never used most of the rooms, existing in solitude, with only the films I took. And I felt more and more that I was part of a plot, and my only defence against it was the camera, as if Evangeline and Harry knew things that they were keeping from me and the X would find them out. I felt chilled, as if some lost piece of knowledge was frozen inside me. Sometimes at night as the Glenfarclas wore off I could hear icebergs breaking in the distance, and then the notes of Fleetwood Mac’s “The Chain” would stab at my brain like shards of glass against a nerve.”

BIO.

Richard Godwin is the author of critically acclaimed novels Apostle Rising and Mr. Glamour.  One Lost Summer is his third novel. It is a Noir story of fractured identity and ruined nostalgia. He is also a published poet and a produced playwright. His stories have been published in over 29 anthologies, among them his anthology of stories, Piquant: Tales Of The Mustard Man. 

Apostle Rising is a dark work of fiction exploring the blurred line between law and lawlessness and the motivations that lead men to kill. Mr. Glamour is about a world of wealthy, beautiful people who can buy anything, except safety from the killer in their midst.

Richard Godwin was born in London and obtained a BA and MA in English and American Literature from King's College London, where he also lectured. You can find out more about him at his website www.richardgodwin.net , where you can also read his Chin Wags At The Slaughterhouse, his highly popular and unusual interviews with other authors. 

One Lost Summer is available at all good retailers and online at

Amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/One-Lost-Summer-Richard-Godwin/dp/0956711340/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1369835549&sr=1-1&keywords=one+lost+summer+by+richard+godwin

Amazon.co.uk http://www.amazon.co.uk/One-Lost-Summer-Richard-Godwin/dp/0956711340/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1369835613&sr=8-1&keywords=One+Lost+Summer

The Book Depository http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/One-Lost-Summer-Richard-Godwin/9780956711342

Waterstones

http://www.waterstones.com/waterstonesweb/products/richard+godwin/one+lost+summer/9826513/

 

 

You can find out more about Richard Godwin at his website: http://www.richardgodwin.net/

Follow him on Twitter https://twitter.com/stanzazone

Updates & a Poem for National Poetry Month

Now, a poem for National Poetry Month--"Fire Is the Oldest Wild Thing"

FIRE IS THE OLDEST WILD THING

But watch the candles burn,
tamed and housebroken,
blossom-yellow flames shading into 
autumn’s orange and the open sky’s 
blue like festive streamers above the birthday cake.

In silence and solitude, however, 
you can see that the bright flickering 
colors surround and enclose a dark core 
at the point of burn, igniting 
the twisted wick’s transformation 
from fiber to fire. 
At the heart of every dancing flame, 
a piece of cold midnight.

Most people never see. 
They pass through accepting 
what flickers on the surface. 
You must observe intently 
to see and know 
the black seed of holocaust
in each gay dance of domesticated flame .

Published in Heart’s Migration (Tia Chucha Press, 2009)


And updates on Every Last Secret, as it's about to launch into the world. 

An interview for a weekly public radio show on KCUR-FM. 

A podcast of an interview for an online magazine, Author Magazine.  

Kirkus reviews Every Last Secret. 

Interview with British dark crime writer, Richard Godwin.

Literary Mystery Novelists—Richard Godwin

Richard Godwin is a British poet, fiction writer, and playwright.  His dark crime short stories and poetry have appeared in many magazines, such as A Twist of Noir, Crime Factory, and Needle Magazine of Noir, and anthologies, such as Back in 5 Minutes and Lyrotica. His play The Cure-All has been produced on the London stage. His first crime novel, Apostle Rising, was published in 2011, and this extremely dark psychological thriller has been lauded for its tight, complex plot, vivid characterization, and disturbing yet lyrical prose. A compelling police procedural and psychological thriller about a psychopathic serial killer who crucifies politicians and prostitutes, Apostle Rising pits police detectives Frank Castle and Jacki Stone against this evil while their own lives unravel around them—and in Castle’s case, his sanity perhaps. 

Godwin is a writer with great promise, and readers of his first novel will eagerly await his second, Mr. Glamour, due out from Black Jackal Books in April. Here are links to purchase his book.

Black Jackal Books      Amazon     Barnes & Noble

Richard Godwin is the author of crime novel Apostle Rising, in which a serial killer is crucifying politicians and recreating the murder scenes of an original case. The novel has received great reviews http://www.richardgodwin.net/media It has just sold foreign rights to the largest publisher in Hungary. He is widely published in many magazines and anthologies and also writes horror and Bizarro as well as literary fiction and poetry. You can find out more about him here http://richardgodwin.net. His Chin Wags At The Slaughterhouse are popular and penetrating interviews he conducts with other authors at his Blog http://www.richardgodwin.net/blog. His second crime novel Mr. Glamour will be published in April of 2012 by Black Jackal Books as a paperback. It can be pre ordered from Black Jackal Books and Amazon in March.

What was your inspiration for Apostle Rising? Had you always wanted to be a writer?

Apostle Rising was born out of my interest with the intersection between crime and horror. I believe that real horror exists in the things humans do to one another. I was also interested in identity and what that means. I wrote it in a style that alternates between what has been called my dark poetry and crime, which reviewers quickly said was unusual and effective. It received excellent reviews. It is also about the corrosive effect of evil on those who come into contact with it. It has just sold foreign rights to one of the largest publishers in Europe.

I wanted to be a writer since I was a teenager.

How would you describe Apostle Rising to someone who has not read it?

A beautifully written, layered novel about why humans do the things they do. It has the biggest surprise in it; no one guessed the ending.

What's your writing process? What is a typical writing day like for you? Do you keep to a set schedule? What are your writing habits?

I write every day. I see it like practicing my tennis serve.

What projects, literary or otherwise, are occupying you at the moment?

My second novel, Mr. Glamour, is being published by Black Jackal Books as a paperback this April. It is a mystery novel about a dark intruder in a Glamorous world. I also have many stories going into anthologies, among them “Tales of the Mustard Man” with Pulp Metal Magazine as an E Book. The Mustard Man is a character with a series of stores based on him. There are some new ones in this, and it will be out in the next few weeks.

Who were your literary influences growing up? Are there any authors (living or dead) that you would name as influences?

The main two would be Dostoyevsky and Dickens. There are many others, too many to mention.

Do you belong to a critique group of other authors. Do you find it helpful? In what ways?

No.

What is your advice to aspiring writers? How important is it for a young writer to be a reader? What would you recommend they read?

Write every day and read. When you are reading, try to see how writers achieve their effects.

What is the most surprising thing you’ve learned in your writing career? What has been the hardest part about being a writer?

I am rarely surprised. I love writing, so it is not hard. It is a process, and the beautiful thing about it is you keep learning—there is no ceiling.