There are also brief personal tributes to John Elliott by Quentin S. Crisp, here and here.

An audio interview with him, conducted by Quentin S. Crisp and recorded by Joe Campbell, may be listened to and downloaded at SoundCloud here:

Chômu interview #2: John Elliott

It is a privilege today to be able to present our readers an interview with a writer who has given the world of writing something of great originality and value whilst remaining, perhaps enigmatically, a little off the radar. Please enjoy the following interview with John Elliott.

Chômu Press: There was a slight gap between your first novel (Another Example of Indulgence) and your second (Dying to Read). Are there reasons for this that you feel like sharing?

John Elliott: Slight gap is an understatement. Basically, my commitment to work and my alcohol consumption—socially that is—out of it eroded writing time. I’m also a slow writer even in the best of sessions.

CP: You are a jazz enthusiast; has this influenced your writing in any way?

JE: Yes. Along with books and the movies it has been a constant source of inspiration to me. A veritable ocean to dip into. In a purely personal way when I sit down to write—apply bum to seat as PG Wodehouse advised—I say to myself, ‘Let’s play a little bebop.’ It’s the idea of improvisation and the more remote possibility of transcendence that leads me on. Musicians talk about playing inside and outside at the same time. I translate that as creating surface but also trying to convey something below and beyond it. In other words, getting the combination of words, phrases and themes to achieve several levels.

CP: Did you have any particular impetus for writing Dying to Read?

JE: Yeah. I wanted to write something lighthearted with the aforementioned Mr Wodehouse and more especially Raymond Queneau as my guides. I’d recently read his A Harsh Winter (Un Rude Hiver) which I loved. As a youngster I consumed a lot of detection fiction so that attracted me as a background and genre. Once the characters appeared my fondness for them propelled me onwards. Making people laugh in the writing group I belong to was also a boon and a spur.

CP: What are you working on at the moment?

JE: A novel called Fake Book, which is a jazz term. It’s largely set in Glasgow at the time of the dismantling of the Berlin Wall and is a love story. I’m a sucker for lost causes.

CP: Do you have any book recommendations for our readers?

JE: I recently greatly enjoyed Pereira Maintains by Antonio Tabucchi. I’d encourage everyone to read Witold Gombrowicz, Cosmos—Pornografia—Ferdydurke. Thomas Bernhard whose mordant wit and scathing denunciations I love. His technique is brilliantly shown off in The Loser, The Lime Works and Extinction. Robert Walser, greatly admired by Kafka, is worth exploring.

October is upon us. It’s time to walk bleak city streets, with our coat collars turned up against the chill and gritty wind, to find the yellow-lit window of a barely inhabited cafe, somehow dazzling in the soft blue of the evening, to step inside, remove one’s gloves, order a coffee (or similar beverage) and lose oneself in an existential mystery novel exploring the labyrinth of human identity. Fortunately, Human Pages, by John Elliott, has just been released. The story weaves its web around and within Chance Company, a pre-internet Second Life, which gives its clients the opportunity to take a holiday in prefabricated identities. One such client, Agnes Darshel, makes use of her assumed identity in her search for an errant father. And as the tagline says, “What begins as a masquerade becomes Russian roulette. This may be a game of chance, but the dice, like the guns, are loaded, and someone is marked to lose.” Pick up a copy of Human Pages here, or read on for further information:

Human Pages is a matryoshka doll of a novel, where style and characters nest one inside the next inside the next, the latter being occasionally revived with brandy and the former at once displaying and twisting the traditions of such masterpieces as The Waves and The Saragossa Manuscript.

- Brendan Connell

For those of you who missed it the first time around, the following is an audio interview with John Elliott, in which he talks about Human Pages, about his second novel (Dying to Read, also published by Chômu Press), about Philip K. Dick, H.P. Lovecraft, Georges Perec, and much more:

John Elliott Interview by chomuradioarchive

At this link you can also view a YouTube interview with Quentin S. Crisp in which he talks about (amongst other things) John Elliott’s work. Details of this month’s prize draw follow:

Prize Draw for uniquely inscribed copy of Human Pages

The prize this month, naturally, is a uniquely inscribed copy of Human Pages. Here are the rules here for anyone unfamiliar with them: To be entered for this draw, please sign up here to our mailing list (or using the ‘Free updates’ widget on our home page) and send an e-mail with the subject heading ‘Why are there things in the world?’ (not forgetting the question mark) to info at chomupress dot com. If you are already on our mailing list, of course there is no need to sign up again – simply send an e-mail with the ‘Why are there things in the world?’ subject heading to the address mentioned. Only one entry allowed per person. Deadline for draw, the 1st of November.

Those on our mailing list can also expect exclusive interviews from Chômu authors. The next interview will be with D.F. Lewis, author of Nemonymous Night.