Atlantica - 01.06.2006, Side 16

AT L A N T I CA 15
Medicine Man
IR: Having spent years in the wilderness
where nobody would take me on a tour,
it’s fantastic. You’re always aware of all
the other writers out there that don’t
get this treatment. It’s only a very few
writers who actually get to stay in nice
hotels, eat nice meals and get to go on
proper tours.
More and more authors pay their
own way. In the States it’s just terrible.
They’re like salesmen running around
the country with a bag full of books
going into bookshops saying, “Would
you like me to do an event for you?” I
mean it’s hellish. It’s not enough to just
write the book, now you’ve got to be a
salesman as well. In the good old days,
the publisher would sell your books.
DH: So it’s different now than from when
you started?
IR: Writers become writers – and this is
certainly true of me – because they are
happiest in isolation with a pad of paper
and a pen. They’re not happy going and
talking to complete strangers, or crowds
or audiences.
I’m finishing a book [The Naming of
the Dead, the penultimate Rebus novel
set during the G8 summit]. I’m writing
that book all alone, and suddenly you
have to be loquacious and verbose, and
having long dinners and meetings, and
then you get back into the office and
you get back into the book again and
you’re a hermit. There are not many
hermits who can suddenly go out and
be the life and soul of the party.
But it beats the hell out of working. a
“The books are getting more political as I get older.
Maybe that’s because I’m getting more political, or
maybe I’m just getting more angry about the fact that
the world is going to hell in a handcart.”
009 airmail Atlantica 406 .indd 15 23.6.2006 11:23:38