Mark Bowles’ Shelf Life
MARK BOWLES grew up between Bradford and Leeds, and went on to study English at Liverpool and Oxford Universities. He currently lives in Brockley with his wife and two small children.
How and where are you?
I’m in Brockley, south east London, where I live with my wife and two sons. We’re just near Hilly Fields, with a panoramic view over London and beyond. I’m well, if busy, buoyed by up to now favourable reviews of the book; and more so by the responses of friends and fellow writers.
What are you reading at the moment?
As always, a few things at once. For work (teaching) I’m reading Ted Hughes’s Tales from Ovid. The language is beautiful: purged of introspection, everything is externalised in action and story. I’ve just started Small Things Like These, given to me by a fellow writer at a conference in Brussels, which has a different but equally beautiful spareness.
And, of course, watching or listening to, or otherwise consuming?
A friend of ours is in Slow Horses, so we’ve been watching that, he plays a largely silent troubled figure but his story is just waiting to be detonated...
What did you read as a child?
I read a lot of Enid Blyton, probably everything she wrote; and many ghost stories, including a collection of Poe I either found in the house or borrowed from the library. I remember being read to, particularly Treasure Island – a book that deeply disturbed me, particularly “black spot” and all it signified or suggested.
I suppose technically I was a child, 16, when a teacher called Webbo (presumably Webster but I forget) introduced me to Samuel Beckett; and with astonishment, joy and an awareness of entering completely new territory (and a dictionary) I read the great post-war trilogy. A series of books that changed me irreversibly. These books dug a tunnel to an elsewhere that seemed like home.
Which books and/or writers have inspired and influenced you, and what have you learnt from them?
I have read, I think, less than most people who write, or rather a fewer number of authors, but those few have entered my veins as well my brain and they will always be with me: Beckett, Kafka and Proust. From Proust, there is a way of attending to the minutiae of experience, with new and more delicate antennae, whilst at the same time filtering all this through the finest philosophical intelligence. From Beckett, a fidelity to one’s own way of being, no matter how meagre, how impoverished. And from Kafka, the knowledge that there was, after all another like me.
What’s the worst review you’ve ever received?
As this is my first novel, I’ve fortunately not received any bad reviews yet. No doubt it’s only a matter of time, but I feel fortified and prepared by some of the touching feedback I’ve had so far from friends and other readers.
Tell us a little about your creative process.
My “creative process” invariably starts from individual episodes rather than an overall plan. The themes and the story emerge gradually from the episodes. Usually, it all begins with a voice, with its rhythms and turns of phrase. I write in a notebook and then type it up. I’ve always loved the miracle of thoughts and feelings in my head being ‘secreted’ onto the white page. Then there’s lots and lots of editing, experimentation etc until it clicks into place.
How has your experience of the publishing industry been?
I’m fortunate to have found a great publisher relatively quickly. A publisher that genuinely loves the books they produce and books in general
What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?
It sounds cliched but: be true to your own peculiar way of being. Attune yourself to it. Don’t renounce it. Don’t try and justify it before some random self-appointed committee.
What are you working on right now?
I’ve completed a second novel called, provisionally, “How do people stay the same?” And yes, its about how or in what sense we’re the same person over time.