{"id":172,"date":"2007-09-09T18:03:28","date_gmt":"2007-09-09T23:03:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/?p=172"},"modified":"2012-02-25T22:25:32","modified_gmt":"2012-02-26T03:25:32","slug":"bss-138-rupert-thomson-ii-part-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/bss-138-rupert-thomson-ii-part-two\/","title":{"rendered":"Rupert Thomson II, Part Two (BSS #138)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Rupert Thomson is most recently the author of <i>Death of a Murderer<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/09\/rupertthomson.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"rupertthomson\" width=\"450\" align=\"center\" \/><\/p>\n<div class=\"powerpress_player\" id=\"powerpress_player_379\"><!--[if lt IE 9]><script>document.createElement('audio');<\/script><![endif]-->\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-172-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo138.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo138.mp3\">http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo138.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_links_mp3\">Listen: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo138.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_pinw\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Play in new window\" onclick=\"return powerpress_pinw('http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/?powerpress_pinw=172-podcast');\" rel=\"nofollow\">Play in new window<\/a> | <a href=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo138.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_d\" title=\"Download\" rel=\"nofollow\" download=\"segundo138.mp3\">Download<\/a> (Running Time: 44:08 &#8212; 40.4MB)<\/p>\n[This is the second of an in-depth, two-part conversation with Rupert Thomson, conducted over the course of two days.  The first part, which can be heard in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/?p=171\">Show #137<\/a>, details primarily with <i>Death of a Murderer<\/i>.  The second part extends into his career.  Many thanks to Mr. Thomson for being extremely generous with his time for this conversation.]\n<p><b>Condition of Mr. Segundo:<\/b> Sketchily repentant about past prevarications.<\/p>\n<p><b>Author:<\/b> <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Rupert_Thomson\">Rupert Thomson<\/a><\/p>\n<p><b>Subjects Discussed:<\/b> Transitory bridges, noir symbols, being called &#8220;David Lynch in print,&#8221; bland roadside motels, on <i>Death<\/i> being labeled as a &#8220;crime thriller,&#8221; writing novels with seemingly preposterous premises, James Hyne&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/bostonreview.net\/BR31.2\/hynes.html\">description<\/a> of &#8220;the tension between distancing and empathy,&#8221; reading 47 novels for a prize, Martin Amis&#8217;s fiction vs. nonfiction, writing without judgment, car accidents, visceral motivation, Thomson&#8217;s nightmares, morphing from an intuitive animal, relying upon <i>The Five Gates of Hell<\/i> for a forthcoming memoir, manifestations of imagination, <i>Death of a Murderer<\/i>&#8216;s theatrical qualities, first-person vs. third-person, the richer prose and poetry of <I>The Book of Revelation<\/i>, individuals vs. social constructs, the convalescence theme within Thomson&#8217;s work, subconscious motifs throughout Thomson&#8217;s work, the Orwell Estuary, on unexpectedly slipping in future book titles into books, Richard Yates&#8217;s book titles, Billy&#8217;s parents and family structure, prostitutes in the gray area, moral redemption, and Thomson&#8217;s favorite sentence in <i>The Book of Revelation<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p><b>EXCERPT FROM SHOW:<\/B><\/p>\n<p><b>Correspondent:<\/b> This was reviewed in the <i>New York Times<\/i> by mystery columnist Marilyn Stasio.<\/p>\n<p><b>Thomson:<\/b> Yeah. Famous one, is she?  I mean, apparently.  Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><b>Correspondent:<\/b> I have my issues with her, but nonetheless.  But when she actually &#8212; when they decided to review this book &#8212; yours &#8212; the first part of the sentence was &#8220;Although not in any conventional way a genre novel&#8230;&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><b>Thomson:<\/b>  I.e., shouldn&#8217;t be in this column at all.  (<i>laughs<\/i>)<\/p>\n<p><b>Correspondent:<\/b> Exactly.  So the question is: Is there a certain danger, I guess, in dwelling upon a subject like Myra Hindley, because people are going to go ahead and label it?  &#8220;Oh, well, this must be a true crime!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><b>Thomson:<\/b> I just hadn&#8217;t imagined they were going to do that.  I really hadn&#8217;t.  And sometimes in the past, I could understand why.  They&#8217;ve tried it all the way along with me at certain points.  I mean, with <i>The Insult<\/i>, for instance, they tried to sell that as a thriller in the UK.  Anyone who wants a thriller is going to be kind of disappointed by <i>The Insult<\/i>, because it doesn&#8217;t deliver in the kind of obvious ways that thriller writers do.  In fact, right from page one of that book, you&#8217;re going off in a completely different direction to the one you&#8217;d normally go in the thriller.  And the thriller &#8212; having a guy shot in a car park, practically in line one of the novel &#8212; normally, you&#8217;d then find out what that crime was about, you know.  And of course, this goes completely the other way.  And equally, with <i>Soft<\/i>, that was put in crime sections sometimes.  I mean, I didn&#8217;t really understand.  It&#8217;s like if you put Peter Carey&#8217;s <i>True History of the Kelly Gang<\/i> in the crime section.  Because that&#8217;s got crime in it.  I mean, Ned Kelly was a criminal.  So there&#8217;s no more reason for a book about Myra Hindley to be put in the crime section than there is for one about Ned Kelly.<\/p>\n<div class=\"powerpress_player\" id=\"powerpress_player_380\"><audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-172-2\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo138.mp3?_=2\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo138.mp3\">http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo138.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_links_mp3\">Listen: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo138.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_pinw\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Play in new window\" onclick=\"return powerpress_pinw('http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/?powerpress_pinw=172-podcast');\" rel=\"nofollow\">Play in new window<\/a> | <a href=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo138.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_d\" title=\"Download\" rel=\"nofollow\" download=\"segundo138.mp3\">Download<\/a> (Running Time: 44:08 &#8212; 40.4MB)<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rupert Thomson is most recently the author of Death of a Murderer. [This is the second of an in-depth, two-part conversation with Rupert Thomson, conducted over the course of two days. The first part, which can be heard in Show #137, details primarily with Death of a Murderer. The second part extends into his career. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n<div class=\"powerpress_player\" id=\"powerpress_player_381\"><audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-172-3\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo138.mp3?_=3\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo138.mp3\">http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo138.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_links_mp3\">Listen: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo138.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_pinw\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Play in new window\" onclick=\"return powerpress_pinw('http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/?powerpress_pinw=172-podcast');\" rel=\"nofollow\">Play in new window<\/a> | <a href=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo138.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_d\" title=\"Download\" rel=\"nofollow\" download=\"segundo138.mp3\">Download<\/a> (Running Time: 44:08 &#8212; 40.4MB)<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1084],"tags":[16,73,9,10,72],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2454,"href":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172\/revisions\/2454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}