- guardian.co.uk, Monday April 3 2000 16.20 BST
Tony Parsons: Hello, this is Tony Parsons and here I am at the Guardian, ready and willing to talk to you about my novel Man and Boy, or any other stuff you want to discuss. It's a rainy old day, isn't it? Is that coffee for me? Well, thank you. Shall we start?
Mnorth: In Man and Boy you look back nostalgically to the 'golden age' of traditional parenting and nuclear families. Do you believe, as the government seems to want to teach in schools, that there is an ideal family structure within which to bring up children?
TP: I am not sure if there's an ideal family structure for bringing up children - I think that one good parent is better than two medicore or two lousy parents , but it seems self-evident that two good parents are better than one...I feel that Man And Boy gives the love and respect due to the old nuclear family - the kind of family that I grew up in - while acknowledging that we have to invent new kinds of families for a different age...I know that not all the old nuclear families were happy and strong ...and I'm sure that if you were stuck in an abusive or boring marriage that was going to last for a lifetime, it must have been soul-destroying. But I really did come from a very happy, old-fashioned nuclear family , where man, woman and child were all fairly contented with their lot - and that's certainly reflected in Man And Boy, where Harry yearns for a more simple - and happier - past, while finally learning that we have to invent more fluid family structures for our own age - none of the families that I have lived in since leaving home have resembled the family I grew up in, and I think that's a fairly typical experience for anyone born after the War (World War Two, Falklands, Gulf War, any war). I don't think there's any less love and tenderness in our new kind of families, and I hope that Man And Boy acknowledges that too.
Greenday 234: Which authors inspire you? And (very different question) who do you think you're "like"?
TP: I get inspiration wherever I kind find it, although Tobias Wolff was my main man during the writing of Man And Boy because he writes so brilliantly about parents and children.. .and the funny thing is that I only discovered Tobias him because he is next to Tom Wolfe on the bookshelf and Mr Wolfe takes so long to bring his books out.
Shem 32: What do you say to accusations of Nick Hornby-ism?
TP: I haven't really been aware of any accusations of ripping off Nick Hornby, to be honest - I have been aware that the vast majority of reviews were very positive, but there were a few people who hated Man And Boy because - well, I don't know. I feel the people who slagged it off thought it was too emotional or whatever - but I wasn't aware that anyone thought it was lousy because it resembled Nick Hornby. I like Nick Hornby - he is a lovely man and a beautiful writer, but I feel we are writing different kinds of books. One big difference is that I became a father when I was very young, and that experience is certainly reflected in Man And Boy. In a lot of contemporary male fiction, men - even men who are well into their thirties - are not fathers. But my son has been central to my life for 20 years, and that will always be reflected in my stuff. That doesn't mean you have to base everything you write on your life - but you can't erase experience, and parenthood is very much a part of my life.
Nsalt: Have you been inspired or informed by any other writers on the subject of father/parenthood? Or is this a subject which you feel has been unduly neglected in literature?
TP: I do feel that fatherhood has been missing from male fiction - because so many men I know put it off until quite late in life... but that's fine for me and great for Man And Boy, and it's one of the reasons that people have gone for the book in such a big way.
Cresswn: I felt it unrealistic that the main character's wife, who placed so much emphasis on fidelity, should then go off with a married man. Although I accept that these contrasts do appear in life, her statement along the lines of "if you've done it once, you will do it a thousand times" seems to suggest that she would never trust such a partner.
Ever since I read the book it's something that has troubled me, and I had funnily enough hoped one day to bump into you to ask the question. Can you explain your thoughts on this ?
Other than that a great book, which I read in double-quick time.
TP: I know what you're saying about the character of Gina in Man And Boy - but I feel her extreme reaction to Harry's infidelity works. One strike and you're out - I had a girlfriend once who had a background very close to Gina's in the book - that is, her dad ran off to start up a new family when she was very small, and she certainly felt the same way as Gina -- that is, she wanted the man she loved to be better than that, to be better than the regular creep in the street. And when he wasn't - when I wasn't - she was hurt beyond belief, and like Gina in Man And Boy , felt more than betrayed - she felt as if she had been tricked. But anyway - thanks for loving the book, despite your reservations about Gina's attitude to infidelity.
jess75: Tony - greatly enjoyed Man and Boy. But kept wondering how much was rather closer to your own life than mere fiction. Could you enlighten?
TP: I'm glad you liked the book...with regards to how much is fiction and how much fact, I would draw your attention to a line in a Roddy Doyle book - "I could make it all up and it would still be true." I feel that there's an emotional truth to the book that is greater than any biographical truth - if the book had just been based on my life, it wouldn't have worked, you wouldn't have liked it, and it wouldn't be outselling Harry Potter - I tried to write a book that was not about my life, but about everybody's life - that sounds pretentious, but that's what I wanted to do.There are certainly things in the book that are almost exactly what happened to me - Harry's relationship to his father is very close to my relationship to my dad - but what happens with Harry and his son in Man And Boy is not what happened to my son and I in real life - he (my boy) has read Man And Boy, and is greatly amused by what I have stolen from real life - the child's obsession with Star Wars, his hatred of having his hair washed - but he sees it as a total work of fiction, because what happened in his life is nothing like what happens to the child in the book. His life was tougher.
rgsharp: hi. I thought your portrayal of bitterness - as in the woman-hating lawyer - was really good. Your hero turns out rather saintly - are we to infer that you agree with the traditional tenet that all things being equal, a child should live with its mother? Also wondered if you could comment on the rash of 'city girl' books (concerns: spritzers, shagging) versus the rash of 'male angst' books (concerns: leaving childhood behind, taking responsibility, committing to a monogamous relationship)?
TP: I don't really have any great take on the city girl books - the spritzer and shagging books - because I have only read them when someone paid me to on Late Review. I read Lisa Jewell's Ralph's Party - is that one of them? I suppose it is...I quite liked that one, although not as much as Tom Paulin did - I am against, in principle, fiction that tries to ingratiate itself with one particular market. I like it - love it - that women as well as men have bought Man And Boy.In fact, it's women who have made Man And Boy a bestseller, and almost all the letters I receive about the book come from women. So I think that anything that sets out to be a "city girl" book or "lad lit" or whatever, will never have a chance of outselling Bridget Jones, John Grisham and Stephen King - which is what Man And Boy is doing, praise the lord...I'm glad you liked the portrait of male bitterness as embodied in Man And Boy's divorce lawyer - I'm not sure I agree that Harry turns out saintly in Man And Boy - although I can understand how you would say that - but I feel that he is a man who learns to be a little bit better than he is at the start of the book - he learns to take care of the things and the people he loves, which is always a lesson worth learning...if I am honest, I would say that - yes, probably the children of divorced parents are usually happier with the mother than the father...but that's not always the case, and I have known some great single parents who were men - I think that we have to consider the possibility of children living with their dads after a divorce - soemtimes it is for the best. Man And Boy is not about the rights of men - it's a book about the rights of children. I think children are the people who get shafted in the modern world, not men or women...
KenDavro: when on late review, have you ever been tempted to tell craig brown to get a more dignified hair cut?
Morcheeba: On the subject, do you feel upstaged by Tom Paulin? Cos he's the one that most people I know watch it for.
TP: Thanks for your questions about Late Review, KenDavro and Morcheeba - no, I can't say it ever occured to me to tell Craig Brown to get his hair cut - I always thought it was great to have a few delightful eccentrics on the show, and the cut of Craig's jib always gave me a pang in the heart somehow...oh yes, I always felt upstaged by Tom Paulin on Late Review - he's great on TV , Tom, one of the greatest presences on the box we have ever seemed, balanced perfectly between common sense and complete madness - I'm a big fan of Tom Paulin, and envy the effect that he has on women when he flashes his big dreamy eyes. How could I fail to feel upstaged by Tom?
Mnorth: Man and Boy feels, in parts, as if it has been written with an eye on a future film adaptation (cf Hornby's Fever Pitch and High Fidelity). Is this the case, and who would you like to play Harry in a film version?
TP: I have sold Man And Boy to the BBC, where it will be a 2-part series, directed by Simon Curtis, who did that incredible adaption of David Copperfield at Christmas - naturally I always wanted to sell Man And Boy to film or TV, but when you are truly immersed in a book, those thoughts sort of go out the window - you're just too concentrated on getting the book right. As for television's Harry - it has to be Sean Bean, doesn't it? Sean Bean, Sean Bean, Sean Bean - I met him recently, and women seem to like him a lot.In fact, the only other heart throb of that magnitude I have ever met is Tom Paulin. But Tom doesn't have an Equity card...
drella23: If the Kinderbunker were to be rebuilt for a day, and you rejoined the staff of the NME, who would you interview/have on the cover/slag off?
TP: Thanks for your question about the good old days, drella23 - I think that if I rejoined the staff of the NME, the person I would most like to interview is my mum - because I didn't talk to her enough and appreciate her enough and listen to her enough when she was alive.
jrkennedy: Do you read the Guardian? Do you read Julie Burchill's column in Weekend?
TP: I must admit that I am only a sporadic reader of the Guardian...I do love Bel Littlejohn and Mark Lawson and the Media section on Monday, and I like Simon Hattenstone's interviews - in fact, there's a lot about the Guardian that I like, but I can't pretend that I buiy it every morning because I don't. Maybe I should switch over from the Indy. What do you think??
pintodesa: Tony, Harry's relationship with his father is very touching and thought-provoking. Again, how much of this was drawn from your own personal experience with your father?
TP: On paper, it's very close - my dad was a big war hero, a very tough man who was also very gentle - more gentle, in fact, than anyone I have ever met - my dad literally would not hurt a fly - if a lady bird wandered into out house , he would pick it up and carry it out to the garden - he was a tattooed greengrocer with the demeanour of a Buddhist monk - that's all very close to what Harry's dad is like in the book...But it's funny, because when I look at Man And BOy now, it does feel like Harry's dad and my dad are two very different men...it's like trying to paint someone's face from memory - you can never really get it right. Also, I've learned that you can't stop life happening to you. I mean, like Harry's dad in the book, my dad had terminal cancer - but that was 13 years ago. My dad died in 1987.Yet while I was writing Man And Boy, my mother was dying of cancer - she died on 23rd April 1999, almost exactly a year ago, and when I look at Man And Boy, I feel that I have invested a lot of my feelings about my mother into the character of Harry's dad. Does that make sense? A lot of the hospital scenes are very raw because that's what I was going through with my mother. I tried to make Harry's dad a replica of my dad - but the 13 years that had gone by since his death intervened, and made their mark.
sgcc2: why do you think it is that a lot of recent fiction is about how "difficult" it is to be "a man" or "a woman", when novels used to be about ambition and murder and adultery ... why this descent into the mundane?
TP: Why is so much fiction now about how "difficult" it is to be a man or woman? I guess it's because unhappiness is inherently dramatic in a way that happiness is not - and also our gender identities are up for grabs in a way that they haven't been for most of the last century - I would certainly rather read a book about someone's relationship with their parents, children, partner or how we balance the need to build a home with the urge to seek out new partners ....all that good modern stuff...I would rather read all that than some crash-bang-wallop novel - that's what mundane for me. What I like about Elmore Leonard novels, for example, are the dialogue, the characterisation, the plot lines - but Elmore is a genius, and most people who write books featuring guns are not.
ejsuth What do you understand by the term 'new man', and are you one?
TP: Hello ejsuth - yes, "New Man" is an interesting one, isn't it? I never really bought it, because I feel that real people don't fit into pigeon holes. It is undeniable that men have changed - for example, my father could never have brought me up alone, if he had split from my mother. It just wouldn't have happened. But now a man bringing up his kids alone is nothing very special. I always felt that the reason I get so much stick from all the 70s feminists - Joan Smith, Linda Grant, Lisa Jardine, all that lot - is because I disappointed them, because in many ways I was what the new, feminist-approved man should be - capable of bringing up a small child alone, capable of putting my child before anything else in this world - but at the same time I looked a bit of a lad. Do you know what I mean? Here comes a new breed of man - and yet he still likes football, martial arts and women. I was alone with my son from the summer of 1984 - if anyone should have been a New Man, it was me. And yet I never was - because the New Man doesn't exist. Yet men have changed and will continue to change - trite labels will only obscure that fact. Thanks for your question...
pintodesa Do you think your own life story would make a good book, and if so how much of it has already been included in Man and Boy?
TP: Dear pintodesa - hello to you too - I think that maybe one day my life would fit into a book - it would be very different from Man And Boy, which takes place over the course of a year - but I would like to do it when I was ready to fall off my perch, and I would like to do it with a lot of generosity and love - something like David Niven's memoirs. I wouldn't do it to get even with people or reveal the sordid truth etc etc. There's no need. My life is all the revenge I ever need. So - one day, darling....
Meatloaf I played football with Steven Wells of NME yesterday. Has he always been that annoying?
TP: Dear Meatloaf, Thanks for your question about Steven Wells and the NME - I don't really remember him, to be honest, so I can't tell you if he has changed. I don't think he was there at the same time as me. I remember Nick Kent and Charles Shaar Murray, and I remember my little heart beating with excitement inside my leather jacket at being in the same office as these guys - I remember them very clearly, because I loved their writing so much, so it was a great honour to be around them and share the odd Tizer. But it's going back a long way - almost a quarter of a century...so I don't remember that much.
KenDavro were you this polite when you were interviewing punk bands, or did you have to come across a bit hard?
TP: Dear KenDavro - thanks for your question. Well, I was brought up to be polite to everyone I meet, and I try to honour that - I certainly never had to pretend to be hard with punk bands, because I knew for certain that I was infinitely harder than all of them - I could afford to be polite, because if it came to a scrap, they would have been mincemeat. Especially that Sid Vicious , who only ever hit women and junkies. See, I grew up around a genuine hard man- my dad. So art school counterfeits never made me go ooh-ahh. I was polite to them - just as I am polite to everyone - unless I am given a reason to be impolite. But I don't go around trying to make enemies.You have to choose to be my enemy. Otherwise, I am full of love and good will...
ollywicken what's your next book about?
TP: Dear ollywicken - hello. I think the next book will be more of the same - more stories of sex, love and death. More stories of parents and children - more 3-hankie, 3-generation conflict, although the focus is going to be national identity more than masculine identity...but it's going to have Man And Boy in its shadow, and that makes me nervous - not because I fear that the next book will be less successful, but just because you don't want to disappoint anyone. I am aware that people love Man And Boy - not everyone, of course, because that would be impossible. But the people who like it seem to like it a lot. That's what a writer dreams of, naturally, but there's always the nagging fear that this could be it - the high point of your career. I certainly feel that it will be really difficult to top Man And Boy - in terms of sales, critical response, the lot. So I am writing the next book wanting it and needing it to be accepted by the people who love Man And Boy. That's not easy - there are two ways you can go.You can write something completely different - as Alex Garland did with The Tesseract after The Beach, or you can write essentially the same thing - as Richard Curtis did with Notting Hill after Four Weddings And A Funeral. Neither of those options are completely satisfactory - so I am looking for The Third Way : a book that the people who love Man And Boy will love, but something that stands in its own right.
ollywicken Red sports car fantasy. Petite blonde wife. Child's injury provoking a change of attitude from the father. Love for father unspoken until his death....all well-trodden ground, surely. For me, the most interesting development was Harry's realisation that his trying to be a New Dad was just another form of selfishness - designed to make himself feel good rather than actually help his son. Yet you used this only as a plot twist. I was surprised you didn't explore this further. Why not? Why did you hurry past it?
TP: Dear ollywicken, I know what you mean about Harry realising that his attitude to fatherhood is essentially selfish rather than selfless - but I didn't feel I needed to explore the issue further than I did, because I always wanted Man And Boy to carry its implications lightly. I didn't want to lecture because I felt there's no need. It's not about being a New Dad - it's about learning the difference between real love and some lesser form of love. It's about knowing - really knowing - that love is selfless. If you love someone for what's in it for you, that's not the real thing. You've got the red sports car bit right - but Gina is not petite!! Gina is a big girl, man!! Reread your Man And Boy, because if you think Gina is petite, you are missing the author's message!! I can appreciate that you think Harry's midlife crisis symptoms are cliches - red sports car, young researcher, awareness of parental mortality , etc - but that's what life is like, isn't it?? Men don't reach 30, 40 or 50 and dream of getting a Volvo estate - do they?? What I like about Harry is that he is always aware when he is doing something - lusting after an MGF, having a one night stand with someone from work - that many other lost souls have done before him.
pintodesa Never mind about Sean Bean playing Harry. Who would play you in 'Tony Parsons: the movie'?
TP: Hello again, Pintodesa...thanks for the question about who would play me in the TV movie of my life - have you seen Rogue Trader?? Ewan Macgegor does a really good Essex accent - he's right on the money. Okay, he's a bit uglier than me, but I think this tradition of authors always being played by actors who are infinitely better looking than they are is becoming a bit trite. Also, it would really impress my son if I could introduce him to the actor who plays the young Obi-Wan Kenobi. So it has to be Ewan Macgregor - who I wouldn't mind for Harry in the BBC adaption of Man And Boy, if Sean Bean is unavailable...
Morcheeba I read something about how you now do martial arts and your hands are lethal weapons. Who would get the treatment if you could get away with it?
TP: Dear Morcheeba, No my hands are not lethal weapons...I do Kung Fu but I am still a very small Grasshopper...I have a teacher, David Courtney Jones, whose hands are quite possible lethal weapons. Certainly his feet are - he kicked me across a room once, and it was almost a pleasure to be on the end of a kick like that - almost a pleasure, but not quite. I think the more you do martial arts, the more you realise your limitations - maybe it's a lot like learning a language - you soon learn that there's an entire universe beyond the plume de ma tante. So I am very humble about my fighting ability.I like to think that my mind is a lethal weapon...
Meatloaf How many people have actually read this Man and Boy thing? (quick show of hands)
TP: Dear Meatloaf, I don't know how mnay people have read Man And Boy - the book is selling around 11,000 paperbacks a week, but it has only been out for a little under a month. The hardback did 25,000 , which is pretty good, but of course a sold book doesn't mean one eader - I'm always surprised how many people have read Man And Boy. I guess that's when you know you have a bestseller. Certainly the book is doing good business - it is currently number two in the Bookseller list of bestsellers, with only Catherine Cookson (curse her!) above it. In the Sunday Times list yesterday, it was at number 4 behind Cookson, Lyn Andrews (another romantic novelist who sells by the bucket in supermarkets) and The Beach film tie-in - number four in the Sunday Times is down one place from last week, but with sales remaining steady. So it's exciting - having a bestseller is something that I can heartily recommend - you wake up in the middle of the night thinking, yes!! I'm on top of Jeffrey Archer!! Something only a few thousand people have ever been able to say...
TP: Okay, it's 4.35 and time for me to go - thanks for your questions, and thank you for buying Man And Boy - this whole thing has been much more fun than I expected. Thank you and goodbye, Love, Tony Parsons xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
