Verbal Magazine

Wild Boy

Astral travelling, shape shifting, image imprinting, rescuing fallen angels, creating monsters out of clay, these and many more spiritual, esoteric and strange phenomena are just some of the themes explored in the works of David Almond. 

With a penchant for creating eccentric characters on the edge of society, Almond doesn’t rely on fantasy, sci-fi or horror but takes everyday characters, in everyday settings (Felling, where he grew up), and throws in a little spice – something to make the reader stand up and ask ‘what if’?

Inspired by Hemingway, T. Lobsang Rampa and Raymond Carver, Almond always wanted to write. Dismissed as a waster in school (one of his teachers tried to prevent him getting a place at the University of East Anglia, were he did a degree in English and American literature). He describes his teachers’ attitude towards him as opposing forces, something to work against, a catalyst that spurred him on to write. Almond taught for many years and when his first short stories were published, he took the courageous move of giving up his job and selling his home in order to write full time. He describes his leap of faith as something that felt right. During this time he went to live in a commune based in a dilapidated mansion in a beautiful part of Norfolk. ‘It was a commune trying to establish a group to rebuild the house. It was mainly artists and writers, who were there for different reasons, who worked three days a week on the house and four days a week writing. In the end the house was rebuilt and the old Victorian gardens were re-established. It was lovely. Being drawn to a place like that was reflected in my work, especially meeting characters on the fringe of society.’ For his mother and close friends his inspirational move made sense, they felt it was something he always had to do.

His conviction saw him writing for 15 years before ‘his overnight success’ in Skellig, which later took wings and was transformed into a variety of different media (theatre, an opera, plus a film, starring Tim Roth). ‘People said it was wonderful writing, how could I do it? I had been doing it for 15 years, writing short stories and getting pieces published for magazines. In all that time, I had been working so hard at the words and the paragraphs, and really honing my skills. What happens then, it’s really like practising football, you find yourself doing things, and think, how did I do this it is easy. And, of course, it’s not, it is something that happens over time, but you learn as well how to fix. Like the story I finished yesterday (a short story, ‘The Undertaker’s Wife’ for The Sunday Times), it took loads of fixing, but I was confident that I could fix it, and I knew how to balance things and move things throughout.’

Almond also worked as an editor for a fiction magazine (Panurge) and his editorial experience is visible in his work. As well as his ability to stand back from his work and to ‘fix’ it. His writing is succinct, yet holds very complex ideas, themes and issues. He currently has two editors (with Hodder and Walker), and enjoys being edited and working with them. He describes his experience as an editor. ‘I found there were certain things about writing that I just didn’t accept. I learned a lot about me… It helped me see how good writing works, it works through nouns and verbs, and I kept telling myself that’s how it is – nouns and verbs.’

Almond is the antithesis of a controlling author; he has great faith and belief in the people who have shown an interest in his work, and have worked on his books to transform them into other media (directors, script writers, illustrators). He describes the process as being someone else’s vision. He has such trust in a shared understanding that he did not meet or discuss one of his books with the illustrator until the book launch (The Savage, illustrated by David McKean). ‘Each time there has been an adaptation or development. With people you trust, you have to sit back and say, yes it’s becoming a different form… Then it becomes someone else’s vision – it is not yours, you don’t possess it. They are not going to destroy the book. The book is still there, whatever happens – the book is still there. And then, hopefully, there is this wonderful new work of art, which people can come to. So, I feel that way about all the adaptations… I’ve learnt so much about my story telling and different ways of telling stories and different media. It is an organic thing and that’s how stories work.’

Almond’s protagonists could often be described as loners or standing out from the crowd. Though they appear to be solipsistic in their nature (as often teenagers are), it is quite the contrary with some of his protagonists. They seem to be very aware of other people and their feelings – almost hyper sensitive in their empathy (Joe Maloney in Secret Heart, Liam in Jackdaw Summer, Michael in Skellig), but also quick to react and strike out. ‘When I was writing Clay and Jackdaw Summer the boys were on the edge of violence the whole time. I remember one of the things about becoming a teenage boy is that sometimes you get so angry, sometimes you want to become violent. Also the tenderness between boys… Also on the same spectrum is violence – it is like flipping a coin.’

A lot of Almond’s protagonists are at the age were parents begin to be less hands on, but he shows that often with freedom comes uncertainty, and some of his characters long for their parents to intervene when things begin to get out of control or are unsettling. The parents in Almond’s books, especially Jackdaw Summer, are strong characters with their own issues. Liam’s parents are very developed in the story, and though they appear to have a somewhat periphery role they are actually quite central. Did Liam’s father remind him of himself? ‘Absolutely, especially in earlier versions of the story, he reminded me much more of myself, so I distanced it slightly… The parents needed to be strong characters, it wasn’t just a novel about kids being wild in the countryside, it is also about relationships between older people and younger people, and with the older people. It’s like ever since I have begun writing children’s books the parents have always been important to me. The family as a unit, the family dynamic is very important to me.’

As well as writing short stories for adults (he gets a lot of commissions from the BBC, as well as writing for The Sunday Times), Almond is also putting a play together and has just finished writing a book called Thirteenth Fish, which he describes as ‘quite a barmy thing’. Skellig fans will be also glad to know that he is writing a book about Mina from Skellig. He describes Mina as being like a guru to him, and often asks himself: ‘What would Mina do?’

‘I’d always resisted doing anything about Skellig, but Mina’s is one of those characters, she is the main character that has stayed with me for all these years, she is so strong. And she has always seemed such a powerful feature in my consciousness, ever since I began to write about her. In Skellig, she has these notebooks and sketch books, I’m writing these notebooks. It’s funny, as soon as I started to write them, Mina started coming out.’

David Almond is twice winner of the Whitbread Children’s Book Award. His novels have also won the Smarties Award (Silver and Gold). He has been shortlisted for the Costa Children’s Book award, the Guardian award and twice for the Carnegie Medal.
The award-winning writer was in Dublin speaking at the Children’s Books Ireland Conference 2009 entitled ‘Challenge and Change in Children’s Books’ Summer School. His latest book Jackdaw Summer is out in paperback now.

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