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| photo by Linwood Barclay |
1. Linwood Barclay, a long biography.. What would you like that your readers know about you ?
L.: I was born in the United States, but my parents moved to Canada just before I turned four. I ran a cottage resort and trailer park in my late teens, and when I was 22 got my first newspaper job. In 1981 I joined Canada’s largest newspapers, The Toronto Star, where I worked until 2007. The last 14 years I was there I was the paper’s humour columnist.
2.Frequently in your novels you tell about daily life scenes. The relationships with the neighbours, between parents and children. I’ve been particularly attracted by a phrase that you mention in “No time for goodbye”, that says: “ How much we are strangers one to the other and how few we know about the people that is close to us”.Are we really in this way ? Do you think that we live in a society where you really don’t know the people close to you ? What’s your opinion about the reason of this ?What does your children think about this ?
L.: I think people often keep secrets from those closet to them because they’re the people who would be most hurt by the truth.
3. After the advent of the technological era and internet, now we can communicate to the other side of the world and collect a crazy amount of information. Do you think that communication and information has been useful to know better people around us ? Or maybe it has moved us away each other ?
L.: We’re more connected than ever before with people, but sometimes I think we prefer these new ways of keeping in touch to actually seeing someone in person.
4.How much the authors that normally you read has influenced your writing style?
L.: I don’t think authors I read now influence my style as much as those I read when I was young. Ross Macdonald, who wrote the Lew Archer series of detective novels, probably influenced me more than another single writer.
5. How much is important in your novels the psychological aspect and how much the surprise effect ?
L.: They’re both very important, although I am more aware of building in the twists and surprises. The psychological stuff just happens, I think.
6. In the novels that you have published, which one has required the greater effort in its writing and why ?
L.: The Accident. It went through several rewrites. I think it’s my best book to come out so far, but it took a lot of work to get it there.
7.When do you write and where ? Describe your typical day.
L.: I write at home, in my study, surrounded by toys and books and drawings of 1950s automobiles that my late father made. He was a commercial artist. When I am writing a book I am in the study by around 9 and work till about 5, with plenty of breaks, including some Nintendo Wii golf.
8. You often have been our guest in Italy for your books presentation, together with other big authors like Lansdale, Willocks, Ellroy. With which definition you would describe the American publishing respect the Italian one ? The publishing process is the same or it is different ?
L.: I must confess that I don’t know enough about the Italian publishing process to say how similar, or different, it is from the American one. I’m just pleased that Italian readers are enjoying my books.
9. Which suggestions you would give to an emerging writer ?
L.: Read a lot. Write a lot. You learn a great deal from doing both. And don’t give up, don’t let criticism get you down for long. It can be a very long road to gettino published, but you have to stick with it.
10.Which projects do you have for the future?
L.: “360”, my next book, is finished. I’m now starting to plot out the book that will come out after that.
I thank you very much, Linwood, for your time and kindness, and I look forward the next book and, I hope, the next interview!
