Robert Birnbaum’s Interview with Graham
Swift
Graham Swift was born in London, attended Cambridge
University and York University and is the author of seven novels, The
Sweet-Shop Owner, Shuttlecock, Waterland, Out of This World, Ever After, Last
Orders (which was awarded the Booker Prize in 1996), The Light Of Day
and a short story collection, Learning to Swim. His writing has won
numerous awards and has been translated into twenty-five languages. Graham Swift
is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and lives in
The Light of Day is a story of one day
in the life of George Webb, a middle aged, divorced, former police detective who
is now a private investigator. In this day we learn of George's childhood, his
marriage, his relationship with his daughter, his police career and his love
affair with a convicted and imprisoned murderess. Anthony Quinn in the New
York Times opines, "He [Swift] has become a master of word paring and
phrase-clipping and scene-whittling and the austerity of style feels like a
perfect fit with the voice of his laconic
detective."
The following is the excerpt of Robert Birnbaum’s (RB) interview with Graham Swift (GS) as for this story and his idea about literal writing.
……
GS:
Exactly. So before I could even sit down and pursue the next novel, find the
subject for it, a couple of years had gone by. And then at the other end, of
course, there is no reason that the public should be aware of this— I delivered
The Light of Day over a year ago. So a year has already gone by since the
finishing of that book. The real gap is four years or so, which is still a long
time, but it's about the time that it takes for me.
RB:
Why do you think it's a long time?
GS:
I don't actually think it's a long time. But I know that several people
would.
……
RB:
Do you feel any pressure from that?
GS:
No I don't. I don't set out to see how many books I am going to write. That's
not the object of the exercise. It takes as long as it takes. Another thing that
happens is you don't get it right the first time. You set out and stop and say,
"No, that's not right. I'll go back to the beginning." That uses up time. But
it's good time. That can be tough, but I think that one of the ways I have, dare
I say it, matured as a writer is in the process of saying to myself, "No that is
not good enough." And rejecting my own work and in some cases starting
again.
RB:
Any thoughts on how many people in the world look at their lives this
way?
GS:
[pause] I would guess not many.
RB:
I ask because given that I expect there is a shortfall in understanding who
lives their lives in this way.
GS:
That may be true too. I am talking to you on how it is. I don't expect that sort
of understanding. In the end I produce a novel and it is there for the public.
It is there for the reader and it's not part of the package that they should
know how it was for me as I wrote it…
……