When The Professor Got Stuck in the Snow is a shoe-in for funniest book of 2015. Mixing razor-sharp satire with old-fashioned farce, it tells the story of Professor Richard Dawkins and his faithful assistant Smee, who are forced to take shelter with a retired vicar and his wife when their mission to radicalise the Upper Bottom Women's Institute is thwarted by bad weather. There brilliant set pieces (Dawkins debating the ethics of acting as midwife to a pregnant cat, and being upstaged by CBeebies favourite Mr Tumble at the switching on of Lower Bottom's Christmas lights, and the Professor himself is brilliantly caricatured: self-important, foul-mouthed, domineering, obsessed with Deal or No Deal and his troupe of hangers-on ('Fry; Curtis; Moffat; Rusbridger, McEwan; all the alternative comedians; that ghastly little Irishman with the sunglasses who always turns up at funerals...'), but there is also a well-drawn supporting cast, no least the 'male secretary' Smee, a recent divorcee selected on the basis of his belligerent comments on The Guardian website.
It has taken a long time for The Prof to reach our bookshelves (Rhodes was forced to self-publish an initial run of 400 when the manuscript was turned down by lawsuit-fearing publishers), but it is well worth the wait. I spoke to Dan about satire, self-publishing. and his journey with The Professor.
- It took a long
time for Professor... to receive a mainstream release. Can you tell us about
how it came to be published by Aardvark?
Nobody else would have it. The only
publisher who expressed a firm interest was Scott Pack at The Friday Project.
The trouble was, The Friday Project was part of HarperCollins, and I have a bit
of previous with them - if you type my name into the HarperCollins computer it
sets off an alarm; portcullises come down, and they release a pack of German Shepherds. So that was never going to work. Fortunately Scott then left to set
up his own imprint - Aardvark Bureau - so we were able to work together at that
point. It was the end of a year in limbo.
- What did you learn from self-publishing
the initial print run? What was the hardest part of it, for you?
It was insanely time consuming. Miyuki
Books was only ever going to be a pop-up publishing house, so I knew there
would be a concentrated burst of activity and then it would all be over, so it
was just about manageable. I kept my ambitions modest and was fairly confident
we would be able to shift a print run of 400 without too much aggro. We didn't
get to a point where we were dealing with wholesalers or anything like that. It
was up and over in a few weeks, and left me in no doubt that writing and
publishing are not particularly compatible. All a writer wants, really, is to
be left alone to write, and all the admin and jiffy bags would be too much in
the long run. If you're fortunate enough not to have a day job, or if you can
afford to employ an assistant, it might be sustainable, but except perhaps for
occasional limited editions, I wouldn't recommend it if there are alternatives
available. But I'm pleased to have done it. It certainly got me out of the
stultifying rut I'd been in, publishingwise.
- Without naming names, do you think it
says anything about the modern publishing industry in general that so many
publishers were unwilling to take Professor on?
What a bunch of numpties. Seriously,
we had publishers saying they loved it, and it was one of the funniest books
they'd ever read, but that they weren't going to put it out. You've got to
wonder why they are in the job they are in. Sometimes Dawkins was published by
their parent company and they were worried he would throw his toys out of the
pram and take his books elsewhere; otherwise they thought he might take legal
action, which really was only ever an infinitesimal risk. It got to the point
where publishers were saying they wouldn't go near the book unless we had a
clearance note from him. I reluctantly wrote him a letter, asking for this, but
we never heard back. He truly is The Satirist's Friend. We'd only bothered
sending it out to people who we thought might have guts, but alas... The
conservatism and lack of rock 'n' roll spirit in book publishing is a
continuing tragedy. There are occasional flashes from the sidelines though, and
I do applaud the small presses who are trying to get interesting things going.
I know Paul Ewen had a similar response from mainstream publishers when Francis
Plug was doing the rounds, so kudos to Galley Beggar for taking that on.
- Was there a particular incident which
prompted you to write Professor? Or was it something which evolved over time?
I just thought he was very funny.
Anyone who is that angry all the time is automatically comical, and the way
he's turned himself from a highly regarded academic into a silly season
sideshow is such a strange, sad and often hilarious story. As a character he
really wrote himself - he's so pompous and such a know-all, he was just a gift.
He's like a great lost Dickensian character. I'd been mulling over the idea of
writing something about him for some time, but what really got me knuckling
down was this review on Amazon, which I see from the date came out just over a
week before I started writing the book. It's dripping with rage: http://www.amazon.com/review/RK8LQ93NP1YCI
- The writing is broader in style than
your previous work - there are even hints of Tom Sharpe in there - did it take
time to adapt? And was it particularly enjoyable to write?
I always think that my books will have
incredible popular appeal and be happily read by all and sundry. The evidence
suggests that I'm deluded in this, but my modus operandi hasn't really shifted
- I just sit down to write whatever's going on in my head. If it does have a
broader appeal, then that's wonderful - hopefully it'll become a portal to my
other books. I've had a few Tom Sharpe comparisons, and I'm happy about that.
Why not? The whole Science & Religion aspect is a distraction, really -
above all it's a load of silliness going on in the countryside.
- Do you think that satire still has the
ability to change the way that people look at the world? Or is there a sense of
preaching to the converted?
It's mainly preaching to the
converted, of course - I don't suppose anyone will change their opinion about
Dawkins one way or the other after reading this book - but having been raised
on Spitting Image and being a huge fan of Viz and Private Eye, it's hard to
imagine a world without it.
- What's your writing routine like? Do you
have a favourite space to write in? And does it have to be silent?
I've not written any fiction since I
finished the Prof on 9th January last year. Maybe if the Prof does well I'll
get some wind in my sails and get back to it. While I was writing the Prof I
was renting a share of an office above The Samaritans, and would go there for a
couple of hours in the afternoons after the day job, then continue in the
evenings once the kids were in bed. I loved that room and would have stayed
there forever if I could have afforded it. Background hubub I could cope with,
but amplified buskers would drive me into a Dawkinseque rage.
- Who are your favourite contemporary
writers?
Oof. Magnus Mills, Amelie Nothomb,
Paul Ewen, Rachel Trezise, Neil Forsyth, Ben Rice, Barry Yourgrau, Tama
Janowitz, etc etc..
- What are you working on next?
I'm working
on a top secret film project that I'm not allowed to talk about. But then who
isn't?
No comments:
Post a Comment