Katy Massey at Hull Noir #KatyMassey #AllUsSinners #HullNoir

On Wednesday 20 March Katy Massey https://katymassey.com/ @TangledRoots1 was the guest of Hull Noir https://www.hullnoir.com/ @HullNoir to talk about her debut crime novel All us Sinners and her writing career in general. Host for the evening and the man asking the questions was local crime author Nick Triplow @nicktriplow a co-creator of Hull Noir.

In reviews I generally refer to writers as ‘the author’ but as we have met and even gone to the pub together, I will take the liberty of referring to her as the more intimate Katy.

The event, including a Q&A session ran for an hour but there follows a flavour of what was discussed.

Katy Massey in conversation with Nick Triplow

Background

The novel selects some from aspects of Katy’s life. Her mother worked in the sex industry, running a successful brothel in Leeds during the 1980s. Katy wanted to write about the women who worked there, they are not the stereotypes portrayed in fiction. They are just ordinary people, women working hard for their families under difficult circumstances. Putting forward the case for discrete, safe, well-run brothels which would have been important as the time the novel is set.

The novel is set in 1977 in a Leeds that is living under the shadow cast by The Yorkshire Ripper. He (like Jack the Ripper) when mentioned within stories, tends to drown out everything within the narrative, whereas she wants to reflect the terror felt by women at the time. Wanting to bring something unique to the story, an angle not pursued by other writers, where his existence is felt in the North, but he hasn’t reached the level of national infamy he was to achieve. He is a character in the novel though.

Characters

Maureen believes she is in control and very is street smart, but not as much as she thinks. The intention was to show that the harder the front a people show the outside world, the more vulnerable they are when this façade is taken away. The hard front is the result of what people have done to Maureen, but the vulnerable woman beneath is more likeable. She is a woman of complicated relationships with those around her. Mick is a policeman, around 10 years older, has known Maureen for years and is quite paternal. She sees him as a protector, but he is tempted, seeing her as a woman. A transactional relationship and one ‘across the tracks’.

Katy is deliberately looking to give a voice to characters whose story is not often told, people who are marginalised. She knows the world she is writing about, so can bring that authenticity to the storytelling. Also wanting to acknowledge that since the time the novel in which the novel is set, life has moved on, but all women remain vulnerable and deep down, attitudes have hardly changed.

Too many crime novels open with a naked or near naked prostitute, who has been murdered and never gets an opportunity to speak. In All us Sinners the story begins with the jeopardy, an attacked prostitute but one who gets to speak to the reader and can tell her story.

Setting

Nick commented on how incredibly evocative the novel is of the time and place in which it is set. How important was the relationship of Maureen, her city and specifically her neighbourhood? Katy said it was quite important that she had known nothing else, but Mick has great experience, with him bringing a much broader world view to the story. Mick’s life has been forged by religion, legitimate society and service to the community, yet Maureen had a hard dragged up existence selling what she has left to sell. There’s a sense of being trapped in Leeds, which is all she knows. Nick says this made it wonderfully claustrophobic, with the storyline leaving Leeds only twice.

Katy said for her it was important to create a sense of a community, this being part of race politics. Katy grew up mixed race, in a diverse part of Leeds and yet, she felt that she didn’t read enough books that reflect the mixing pot she experienced. Yes, there are black and Asian voices in literature, but they tend to concentrate on their section of the wider society. Whereas she wanted to give a more soap opera feel to the community, with the epicentre of community life being in Jamaican Linford’s café, he being a man with fingers in many pies.

The technical aspects of writing

As a debut novelist how conscious was she of finding her own unique voice, distinct from her work as a journalist and her memoir? Not a conscious effort at all! She just let the story guide her on tone and style as she learned to write a novel. Not being steeped in a crime writing background or having read much of the genre, she didn’t realise she was writing a crime novel, there was no specific intent from the outset. It was her editor who guided her on the technical aspects of writing within the genre.

Writing as a journalist is very different to writing a novel. Its more focussed with shorter sentences which are easy to comprehend.

Memoir

Are We Home Yet came about because of the feeling that she was burning out. Katy managed to get funding to do a MA at Sunderland and the study brought a sense of reawakening and so refreshed, her thoughts moved on to doing a PhD. The PhD thesis then became the basis for the memoir with little change. It took 11 years between writing and publishing, partly down to timing as the bottom had fallen out of the ‘misery memoir’ market. Then in 2020 she saw an opportunity, a publisher (Jacaranda Books) asking for submissions wanting to publish 20 pieces by writers of colour in that year. It was accepted and with the Windrush Generation fresh in everyone’s minds the timing was perfect.

All us Sinners can be purchased via the publisher’s website here

Are we Home Yet can be purchased direct from the publisher here

The author

Katy Massey was a journalist for many years before studying for an MA and PhD in Creative Writing. Her memoir, Are We Home Yet? was published in 2020 and praised by Bernardine Evaristo as ‘a gem’. It was shortlisted for the Jhalak Prize and the Portico Prize. In addition, her fiction and nonfiction work has been widely anthologised, including Common People edited by Kit de Waal, The Place for Me, and speculative collection Glimpse. All Us Sinners is her first novel, an unusual take on the crime genre featuring Maureen, a tough but tender-hearted brothel-keeper in 1970s Leeds. She is unexpectedly drawn into investigating the killing of a friend’s son, events which take place against the disturbing backdrop of the Yorkshire Ripper’s murder spree.

Source: Publisher’s website

Getting Carter #NickTriplow #GettingCarter

Ted Lewis and the birth of British Noir

By Nick Triplow https://nicktriplow.blogspot.com/

Published by No Exit Press https://noexit.co.uk/index1.php?imprint=1

301 pages ISBN 9781843448822

I borrowed my copy from Hull Central Library using their ‘click and collect’ service which is operating during the Covid 19 lockdown.  Many thanks to them for keeping the service going and remember folks support your local library.

From the blurb

Get Carter are two words to bring a smile of fond recollection to all British Film lovers of a certain age.

This cinema classic was based on a book called Jack’s Return Home, and many commentators agree contemporary British crime writing began with that novel.  The influence of both book and film is strong to this day, reflected in the work of David Peace, Jake Arnott and a host of contemporary crime & noir authors.  But what of the man who wrote this seminal work?

Synopsis

The book covers the relatively short life of Ted Lewis from his childhood in Barton to his return and subsequent early death there at the age of 42. 

The first third of the book covers his childhood and largely unhappy school experiences in Barton, his care-free bohemian days at art school in Hull to his move to working in advertising and illustrating in London.

The final two thirds then cover his writing career, its early successes, its later disappointments, and his final great work.  It also covers his descent into alcoholism and the consequent disintegration of his marriage and subsequent relationships right up to his death.

My thoughts

First, I must point out that I’m not a huge fan of biographies and autobiographies in general.  I think this is mainly down the modern phenomenon of stardom which is not earned.  Sportsmen, actors, singers and (worst of all) reality TV stars memoirs at the tender age of 25?  Give me a break, that rubbish is for Christmas presents for people who you don’t really like.  Firstly, you have to have someone with an interesting life, if not well lived then with plenty of incident to mull over.  No one can say that Ted Lewis’ short life was not interesting.

The second big problem I have is that of impartiality.  Approved biographies are often little more that puff pieces to massage the ego, burnish the image and keep the pounds coming in for the star, with the writer only doing well with massive sales.  Then there is the other side of the coin the poisonous assassination job on the subject which might raise the odd eyebrow but lacks any fair perspective.  In Getting Carter Nick Triplow was done a fantastic job in steering a course perfectly between the two.  Clearly the writer in Nick very much admires the work of Lewis, and there certainly is much to be admired, and is on a mission to earn him the recognition which is sadly missing.  This is no hero worship piece though; Lewis was a man with many faults something which is not shied away from.

Although Lewis was born in Manchester he moved to Barton at an early age, went to school there and then finished his education in Hull, which should be sufficient to make in ‘local’ in most eyes and certainly a man of Humberside.  Just as it took an outsider in Larkin to express the oddities of Hull in poetry, perhaps it needed an outsider in Nick Triplow (a Londoner) to tell Lewis’ story the way it should be told.

The fact that Nick has managed to put together such a work is remarkable in itself.  Lewis wrote in long hand in school-style exercise book, kept no known journal and had such a chaotic lifestyle the little by his hand still exists, there was no bequest to the local university for scholarly study.  Indeed, if there were how much would be legible would be open to question and it would likely be beer stained and smell of smoke due to his habit of writing sat at the bar.  Even his school records have been lost in the local government reorganisations.

Personal interviews were also difficult.  Lewis was a man who burnt many bridges, who seemed to want to be liked by people and then go out of his way to alienate them.  Some in Barton regard him as an embarrassment and the fact that despite him the usual author’s disclaimer he leant heavily on the places and the people he knew in his work would make many wary of opening up.  Despite this Nick Triplow has manged to produce a work that still feels as if it comes from the people who knew him.

Myself I have only read three of Lewis’ works; Jack’s return home (which Get Carter was based) about 40 years ago, GBH his final work which I read last year and Plender which I read last month thanks to Hull Noir.

After reading Getting Carter I can place much of Lewis’ life within these works.  In Plender the childhood flashbacks have a strong resonance with Lewis’ own childhood in Barton, and though Barton and Hull are not mentioned they are clearly the locations of the novel.  Jack’s Return Home is based in Scunthorpe, a town he knew well, only being relocated to Newcastle in the film version because the Director knew it better.  GBH is possibly his masterpiece but it is dark, the darkest of all fiction with a decent into madness and paranoia with alcoholism which mirrored his own sad demise.

Reading Plender back in March I was taken by how tight the prose was, Lewis never seeming to waste a single word.  This I thought must be down to a succession of edits paring the language down with each pass.  However, Triplow makes it clear that that this is not how Lewis worked.  He passed his longhand notebooks over to be typed without correction and then only made minimal changes.  This led to some errors making into print but in his mind kept the writing fresh and genuine.  I cannot imagine any of the creative writing courses offered today recommending this way of working.

Nick paints a rounded and artistic man in his youth skilled artist, a virtuoso pianist, and a promising writer during his Art school days.  He could be charming and clearly had a lot going for him and much to offer the world, but already flaws were evident.

After the days of austerity and rationing the late 1950s into the 1960s saw increased affluence and hedonism especially for the grammar school children who through higher education could escape the humdrum grind so brilliantly described by the ‘kitchen sink’ dramatists.  This saw the rise of the heroic drunk it the arts world, some survived it mainly by going tea total whereas others functioned for many years whilst others died young.  Those actors and musicians who did survive have some brilliant stories for their biographies but sadly so many wasted their best years.  That Lewis became a regular in the Coach and Horses in Soho’s Greek Street comes as no surprise, the lack of mention of what was the pub’s most famous drunk Jeffrey Bernard must surely be down to their paths not crossing.  A night out with Lewis, Bernard and Oliver Reed would surely be enlightening and potentially lethal.

It is in his relationship with women that is the difficult trait of Lewis that I find hard to grapple with.  He was clearly a charming, if a little shy, man who was attractive to women and clearly found them attractive too.  His treatment of them seemed to range from badly to downright appalling with many steps in between, even taking advantage of the care of his doting mother on his return to Barton.  From the book it is difficult to ascertain what exactly caused the self-destructive tendency which ended his relationships but clearly alcohol and the paranoia it led to be a recurring part.

There is a small selection of photographs included with the text, most showing the happy days of his youth.  For me, the two most telling are placed one above the other and are taken 10 years apart.  One shows Lewis on the set of Get Carter, trendily dressed in suede jacket and desert boots with a cigarette in his mouth and a portable typewriter on his knees.  Here he looks happy and carefree, a man enjoying life and on a high.  The other shows him sat at his desk in Barton in a clearly a staged shot for a local journalist.  His face is puffy and has lost its youth, his expression careworn and melancholic, a man defeated by his own actions and the passing of time.

Was Lewis the godfather of Brit Noir?  I’m no expert and clearly there were other writers with that claim, but Nick Triplow certainly puts a compelling case for him to be considered one of the main protagonists.  If you are a crime fiction fan then this is an enlightening book on the life of fine writer.

Plender

By Ted Lewis

Published by No Exit Press noexit.co.uk

284 Pages ISBN 9780857302816

Plender is the Hull Noir 2021 festival read. My review copy was kindly provided by the publisher for the reading group session.

Hull Noir hullnoir.com @HullNoir

From the blurb

When, at a bar he uses to set up marks, Plender spots Knott with a girl way too young to be his wife he decides to follow the pair and see what happens.  What follows is an edge-of-your-seat trip into a nightmare story that manages to be both incredibly creepy and eerily profound.

Synopsis

 Peter Knott is a photographer with a grubby secret; Brian Plender is a private investigator with a penchant for blackmail and extortion.  These old schoolfriends cross paths 17 years later with disastrous consequences.

Knott’s career is based largely on work for his father in law’s catalogue and so he must keep his ailing marriage going. Plender has ambitions on advancement within the criminal organisation. He still harbours a grudge over childhood humiliations and once he inserts himself into Knott’s life things quickly spiral out of Knott’s control.

My thoughts

Classic Brit Noir which stands up well 50 years later. The author Ted Lewis being one of the writers to kick start the genre but who has been overlooked for too long.

The references to trolley buses, trilby hats and Gannex overcoats which clearly date the book are easily passed over; the temptation for modern writers setting a book so far in the past would be to make more of them to show how well they had researched the period.  The one stand-out thing that marks the passing of time, though, is the amount of drink driving taking place even though the legal limit was introduced back in 1967.

The story covers the seedier aspects of the criminal underworld post the ‘swinging sixties.’  There is no glamour here, men are set up using contact advertisements, the compromising photographs with women or transvestites taken without their knowledge, are then used for blackmail.

The story narrative switches between the two main characters and they tell it in the first person, including their flashbacks to their schooldays.  The prose is tight, unencumbered with excesses, moving the story briskly along. Lewis creates a real sense of urgency shortening sentences, paragraphs and the chapter exchanges from Plender to Knott as things spiral out of control. The plot is simple and relatively thin, but the mastery of its telling makes it a compelling read.

Knott is described as being almost like a hero of one of Poe’s stories and it is a very apt description as every decision he makes lead to more unintended consequences which he can only make worse by more action.  Paranoia ensues, although not to the visceral level of GBH, Lewis’ final novel before his early death at 42 through alcohol related causes, as Knott moves zombie-like to his fate.  Plans fall apart for both men and there is a final plot twist to encounter.

Neither of the main characters can be described as either the ‘hero’ or the ‘villain’ of the story as they are both fairly unpleasant characters.  This adds to the realism of the story blackmail is indeed a dirty business which sullies both parties to the transaction.

It may be 50 years old, but it is magnificent in its simplicity and remains essential reading.