That Jon Richter just doesn't give a finger
But the prolific dark fiction author did agree to a quick off-the-cuff interview
AS a self-confessed author of dark and disturbing fiction, you might assume Jon Richter to be somewhat 'mean and moody' in his persona.
Anything but; he certainly won't give potential readers the finger.
Indeed, not once did Jon part with a single bloodied extremity from his collection of digits; some may well consider that mean, but he certainly wasn't moody about it.
“I'm sorry, I can't give you a severed finger,” he'd say.
That proved an immortal utterance, heard time and again throughout the duration of last month's Tales on Trent book signing event, held at the King's Hall in Stoke-on-Trent.
The line was all part of the banter; he made it look so easy.
“I have always had an extrovert, energetic personality,” he said, later that day. “I think that is actually a bit of a childhood construct to cope with bullying in the playground.
“You know how everyone kind of finds their own solutions? I think mine was to be energetic all the time. Once something's been you for long enough, well – that's just me now.
“I am – as you can tell from this interview – a gobby gobshite [he says, with a laugh]; just talk happily for England. So I don't mind being in these sorts of circumstances with the general public.”
It's certainly something that many authors – even grizzled old hands – struggle with, but in Jon's case – that energetic extroversion aside – it probably helps that he's got a bit of stagecraft behind him too. As he explained, he used to act on stage in his teenage years, and he's also done a bit of TV work, so he's no stranger to an audience.
In that sense, engaging with the book-loving public who stopped by his stall is something he finds “relatively comfortable”.
Not so old haunts
In any case, you might think Jon is an old hand at this sort of thing; not so.
In fact, he's a newbie to the festival scene. This is only the second time he's ventured into the public arena of a literary event. Still, you might say it was familiar ground, as he made his debut at last year's Tales on Trent event.
Naturally, Jon was a little nervous (unless it was a cunning literary device). As he commented on Tome of an Obscure Scribbler, ahead of this year's gathering:
“[I]t was with some trepidation that I tiptoed into the venue, sliding behind my sparsely decorated stall, as I glanced in awe at the gaudily-bedecked and alluring stands that surrounded me ... how would I compete with such marketing masters?”
Indeed, as he went on: “Would I be chewed up and spat out by the discerning public, or by the cut-throat tactics of my rival authors? Would I commit some horrendous blunder of writerly etiquette and find myself tossed out into the cold streets of Stoke?”
Hmm, maybe that explains the fingers, but in all seriousness, he needn't have worried: he found his first foray into the events scene “absolutely fantastic”, and the experience of meeting writers and readers and fiction enthusiasts proved a “flippin' joy”. It seems fair to say he caught the bug; coming back for more was a no-brainer.
“I'd never been to one of these book signing events, where everyone has got a stall, where you sell your words, and you meet a load of nice people,” he said. “You meet all your readers – and it's just fantastic.
“You meet a load of great people, and it's just a really lovely day. Flies by. I had a great time doing it last year, and was lucky enough to be invited back, so I thought: yeah, definitely going to come again.”
Jon is originally from Wigan, in Lancashire, but these days lives and works in London, far from his Northern homeland. Quite the trek, then, for a one day event in this West Midlands city of Stoke-on-Trent.
Obviously, he must feel that the event is not only enjoyable, but worth the effort of the journey. It's hard work lugging books around, after all. So what does he think – newcomer to the scene that he is – of such literature festivals? It's about meeting people and making those human connections.
“As a writer, we're blessed with some really enthusiastic readers,” he said. “You know, the people who buy the stuff, read the stuff, enjoy the stuff. That's why we write it, so that people enjoy it, and then hopefully we get a little feedback that makes us feel good about ourselves.
“Hopefully for readers, they get to meet people they already like, or discover new writers they've maybe never heard of before; so, there's a lot of value.
“As an author, [Tales on Trent] is a place you can sell books at, but it's not really about that, I think. It's more about the networking. I've met people at these events that I've gone on to be friends with. It is lovely to meet readers face to face, rather than through Amazon reviews, or even on Facebook.
“So, really, it's rewarding – quite an exhausting day, though, by the end of it. Too much coffee!”
Meat and bones
Now we've torn away a little skin and gristle, let's get down to the meat and bones of what makes Jon the author tick.
Jon, of course, writes dark and disturbing fiction; not necessarily horror, although there's plenty of that. Science fiction, thrillers, a bit of fantasy, these are all part of the mix, but it's the chills and the macabre that bind them.
Watership Down gets some credit for helping to inspire Jon' affinity – affliction? – for disturbing fiction, although obviously there's more to it than that.
If you're scratching your head wondering how a fluffy tale of bunny rabbits might inspire a turn to the dark side, then you've clearly not paid attention to the 1972 Richard Adams novel – nor indeed witnessed the 1978 animated movie adaptation.
“One of the darkest films ever made; inexplicably a U certificate aimed at children,” the 40-year-old author observed. They just don't make kids' movies like they used to, evidently.
“It's more what I grew up with,” Jon adds, mulling over the cultural influences that eventually drew him into a love of dark fiction. “It wasn't as if my parents were letting me watch 18-certificate horror movies – they very specifically didn't allow that – but at a young age there were other avenues through which the darkness crept in.”
We've already mentioned what might be described as the bunny equivalent of Heart of Darkness, but video games were another gateway for the young Jon, as of course was literature itself.
“I knew the graphics weren't up to much – the ZX Spectrum in the '80s – but there were still some quite dark thematic stuff,” he said.
“When I was at school, if you're quite an advanced reader at a young age, you've just finished all the kids books in the library, they put you on the adult books. Before you know it, you're into fantasy. Fantasy often has violence and gore.
“If you add all that up, you get to a point where at quite a young age, things that are dark, sinister, disturbing, violent, gory – they seem really cool, and anything that isn't just seems a bit lame and dull, you know what I mean?”
Come over to the dark side
Worryingly, yes? The dark side does have it's attractions, why else do we become its aficionados (of the fiction, we hasten to add, not any of the far-too-many real world horrors)?
Jon, it may be no surprise to learn, remains a keen gamer, and of course these continue to serve as an influence on him as an author, along with other mediums – books, film, the usual.
“In my case, it is a bit of a mish mash of all sorts of stuff,” he said. Like I was very very very into the Silent Hill video games in the late '90s, early '00s … It's just anything that's got a really powerful, haunting, this-is-something-new, never-experienced before.
“[In terms of] writers, I was always a massive Iain Banks fan. Again, it's not that it's necessarily disturbing; it's more just haunting, and weird, and different. I quite like Kazuo Ishiguro, any one who is kind of prepared to go for it with a bit of a bonkers idea. I value originality and innovation, really, more than anything, I guess.”
Jon clearly loves writing, and admits he's written for “as long as I can remember”, all the way back to his early school days. It got him noticed, even then, which you might say left its mark.
“Embarrassingly, [the teacher would] read it out in front of the class, and then I'd invariably get beaten up in the playground afterwards as a result,” he joked (we hope).
“So I've always had this kind of relationship, where you love the fiction, and you want to try and recreate it; or recreate the feeling you got from it. And always been sort of complimented and praised for your efforts, that's just carried on into adulthood, really.”
Press <ENTER> to restart
Adulthood throws up its hurdles and expectations, of course, and if there's one regret Jon has about his writing, it's that he let being a grown up get in the way for a while.
“I just didn't write for 10 years because I'd got a grown up job as an accountant,” he said. “I hit 30 , and I thought if I don't force myself to write something, I'm just never going to write again.”
Determined, Jon wrote some short stories, eventually moving up to a novel, which he said he was “lucky enough” to have picked up by a publisher. He hasn't looked back.
“Thankfully, I'm now 10 books in to a writing career,” he added,”so I'm glad I was able to resurrect [the writing].”
The why we write isn't always easy to pin down, if that's fair to say; it's different for every author. The answer doubtless emerges piecemeal over time, in the endless retelling of whatever internal narratives we tell ourselves – as much as we tell others – as we seek to make sense of our aspirations and compulsions.
So what is with Jon that fires him up for the word-smithing?
Fire up the fingers
“I find it uniquely inspiring when you've written something … and you kind of get this reflection of the feeling that you're trying to create for the reader,” he said. “And then you can add to that, when you've managed to have been lucky enough to have sold a few books and got some reviews.
“It's all well and good when your mum tells you your book's good, or your friends tell you your book is good, [but] when it's a complete stranger – five star review, I loved this – that is a unique and great feeling. So it kind of motivates you to keep going.”
Every little piece of acknowledgement and motivation is gold dust for the author, of course. After all, it can be a solitary and disheartening endeavour.
“I am not massively commercially mainstream successful,” Jon said, half serious, half amused at what's he's saying, or at least so it seemed. “I'm not troubling any bestseller lists.”
He thinks of himself as something of a “writer's writer”, he adds: a lot of other scribes “think my stuff is good” – but those Top Ten slots continue to elude him. If it's any consolation, he's not alone on that one.
“It can be a little demoralising at times,” he admitted. “Sometimes you do think to yourself: I don't make loads of money out of this, should I just be focusing on a more lucrative career?”
He answers that question as ever in jovial spirit, but with a determined defiance of the literary Fates, too.
“But I don't want to – because I like writing,” he said. “I'll carry on doing it forever, I suspect. And you never know, maybe that elusive Top Ten bestseller will be yet to come. We'll see.”
That's the spirit.
As for those fingers, well, given Jon's penchant for the dark and the disturbing, it's kind of tempting to imagine them the digits of critics who had the temerity to besmirch his works.
Picture a dark cellar. Under the weak light of a single naked bulb, a trembling critic sits gagged and tied to a chair, eyes wide and pleading. A certain author emerges from the gloom, a determined expression on his face, a pair of bolt cutters held ready... cut.
Back to reality; rest assured, those detached digits were but latex props. Nothing sinister about them at all, really. Er...
Take a look at Jon’s books on his website: www.jon-richter.com
MC