The inside story
Published:
AFTER writing a novel called Slammer, Orkney-born author Allan Guthrie is sure of one thing – he wouldn’t fare well in prison. Be it the seclusion, missing family or a con with something sharp from the kitchen, the award-winning writer doesn’t rate his chances.
“I’d do very badly inside,” said Guthrie, whose fifth title is out this month.
“The lack of privacy and the boredom would do me in pretty swiftly – if a sharpened pork chop to the heart didn’t get me first.”
The novel is Guthrie’s latest in a line of gritty crime tales and follows the fortunes of prison officer Nick Glass, a man not terribly well equipped for the job. He gets bullied by his colleagues, but things get worse when the inmates apply some pressure on him to carry out a “wee favour”.
Before long, Nick’s in the kind of mess that leaves him vulnerable and scared, and with nowhere to turn – except to his one friend, a con called Mafia, who happens to know a man with a gun.
“I had been intrigued by the idea of writing a prison novel for a long time,” said the 43-year-old author.
“I’m generally intrigued more by exploring abnormal psychology than by focusing on the puzzle-solving and police procedure you tend to find in a lot of detective fiction, and there’s plenty of abnormal psychology on display in prison.
“I also couldn’t resist the lure of the potential drama contained within a confined space. It’s great for building plots because there’s so much scope for conflict, which is the lifeblood of all good fiction, crime or otherwise.”
Guthrie grew up in Orkney’s capital, Kirkwall, before study took him to Aberdeen in the 1980s, a long way from the mean streets where he sets his novels. Research plays a significant part in his storytelling, but he insists that he draws the line somewhere short of breaking the law.
“When I started the book, I knew almost nothing about prison. I ended up probably knowing too much,” he said.
“I did more research for Slammer than any of my previous novels. I stopped short of getting myself arrested, but I learned what I could from various resources and tried to impart that information in as interesting a way as possible.”
Talking to a former prison officer proved a mine of information for the book, published by Edinburgh firm Polygon, which paid the highest advance in its history to the author.
“I got a wealth of great anecdotes from an ex-prison officer, and various stories he told me found their way into the novel,” said Guthrie.
“But one of my big bugbears is books that smack of research, so I tried to avoid that and left out a lot more than I’ve put in.
“I try to write in such a way that the reader is invited to interpret much of what happens. By that, I mean that they have to work out how to read a character or action on the basis of how that character behaves. That’s the kind of novel I find that I engage with, so that’s how I try to write.
“I would like my readers to interpret the book individually. My aim is to engage them in the story, but what they make of the story is up to them. I’m just delighted to have people read it.”
If the writer himself was to be “put away”, he knows what it would be for. And coming from the winner of the Theakston’s Crime Novel of the Year 2007 – for Two-Way Split – it’s not surprising.
“A bank heist,” he joked.
“Let’s face it, my luck’s got to run out sometime. I can’t keep defeating the odds and getting away with it time after time after time, can I?”
Guthrie feels part of the growing international noir fiction movement, though has an idea about why his own small island has produced such a wealth of writing talent over the years.
“It’s the clapshot,” he laughed.
“It is to Orcadian literature what spinach is to Popeye.”
From an early stage, education played a significant role in his development as a writer. He credits a former teacher with sparking his interest.
“At primary school in Kirkwall, my P5 teacher, Anita Grieve, allowed me to scribble away on my novel when my classmates had art periods,” he said.
“To this day I still can’t draw a stick man, but I always loved to write. My teacher was hugely encouraging and I completed my first novel that year during those art classes.”
And what does he think that teacher would make of his writing now?
“My first reaction is to think that she would be shocked and surprised. But, thinking back on it, that novel I was writing in her class was about a series of grisly murders. So maybe she wouldn’t be all that surprised after all.”
Guthrie came first to the crime genre as a reader – he spent 10 years as a bookseller with a high-street chain – but as a writer, he is interested in how crime fiction enables him to place characters in extreme situations and see how they behave.
“That’s always fascinating,” he said.
“With crime fiction, you get to push character and plot as far as they’ll go. Nick Glass, for example; I push the poor guy over the edge, and it’s a long, long way down.”
Based in Edinburgh for the last 20 years, he still contrasts his city home with his island upbringing.
“I came to Edinburgh for holidays as a kid and fell in love with it,” he said.
“Coming from Orkney, which is full of open spaces, I found most cities quite claustrophobic. But the simple fact that Edinburgh’s main drag only had shops on one side of the street allowed me to breathe, even when I couldn’t see the sea.
“I always had strong feelings about the city and wanted to move here when I grew up. I arrived when I was 20 and haven’t regretted a minute of the past 20-odd years.
“I still like to be able to see the sea, though. At home, my study looks out across the Forth to Fife. It’s a view I appreciate every day.”
Slammer is published by Polygon on March 19, priced £8.99.
Readers' Comments