Comics’ Books - S01, E07 - Transcript
GUEST: BEN BAILEY SMITH
HOST: LUCY DANSER
LUCY DANSER: Just a quick note to say that if any of this sounds a bit technically dodgy, for example like it’s perhaps been recorded remotely during lockdown, well, it has been. On with the show.
[MUSIC]
LD: Hello and welcome to Comics’ Books. I’m Lucy Danser and for many years I’ve worked as a producer alongside a number of excellent comedians. I’m also a book obsessive who’s always asking friends and strangers alike what they’re reading. So, I thought I’d bring my two passions together and find out, what do funny people read? I am so excited to welcome today’s fantastic guest. He’s one of my favourite artists. He’s a rapper, comedian, actor, writer, radio presenter, voiceover ar...he does a lot of stuff. He started his music career touring with DJ Mark Ronson and more recently you might have seen him in a variety of TV and film roles including David Brent: Life on the Road, Law and Order and Miranda. Or you might have caught his comedy on Live at the Apollo or Russell Howard’s Good News. It’s Ben Smith!
BEN BAILEY SMITH: Hey, how’s it going?
LD: Good how are you doing?
BBS: Im very well thank you.
LD: How’ve you been finding this elongated lockdown period?
BBS: Yeah, I’m enjoying it a little bit too much.
LD: Oh yeah?
BBS: Yeah, I’m one of those people that’s fearful about the world returning to the way it was before.
LD: Same.
BBS: So if I’m looking forward to anything it is whatever the new normal or abnormal is gonna be. I really as a Londoner I really just sort of started to enjoy how everything slowed down and how it felt like living in a massive village. So I, I’m kind of fearful as a pretty reclusive person anyway, I’m kind of fearful of the world returning to the madness that it was before. So we’ll see what happens.
LD: Have you been working and stuff?
BBS: I have, that is the other thing. I’ve actually been working my arse off. I’ve been very fortunate you know with a lot of voice work that can be done remotely but I’ve also been screenwriting. Development in TV and film hasn’t stopped. If anything it’s got a bit more intense because now producers and commissioners are actually reading shit rather than pretending to read it.
[LAUGHTER]
BBS: But the main thing is I’ve, I’m 50,000 words into a novel of my own. So/
LD: /Wonderful.
BBS: Yeah, it comes out in Bloomsbury in April next year.
LD: That’s exciting. Do you, can we have any kinda tips about what it’s about?
BBS: Only that it’s about, for young adults, older kids, and it’s an out and out comedy with heart. It’s kind of, yeah, it’s kind of like your classic fun for all the family movie in a book!
LD: Perfect. That sounds perfect.
BBS: Yeah.
LD: I have read, I read one of your, I don’t know what you call it, a book. I am Bear.
BBS: OK yeah, that stuff’s like for toddlers.
LD: Oh no I know.
BBS: That’s a whole different world. We can talk about the ins and outs and the themes and the theology I slipped into there for the next hour. Those 32 pages.
LD: You know what, I feel like that’s a podcast all of its own.
BBS: Yeah, for real.
[LAUGHTER]
LD: Have you been doing lots of reading in lockdown or are you working too hard?
BBS: Yeah I have. I haven’t been reading nearly enough fiction. I think I finished a thriller just before lockdown and then I started on this huge, like 900 page study of the business of hip hop. Um, from the seventies up until now. It’s an absolute beast. Finished that a couple of weeks ago and moved onto Sapiens. Which everybody’s read.
LD: I haven’t read it, it’s on my bookshelf but I hear it’s amazing.
BBS: It is, it’s one of those books that is like, it’s a bit like a drunk guy in a bar who is like hankering for a fight. It’s that kind of book. It’s super provocative, he’s poking you in the chest going “uh, uh, what do you think of this? Yeah I know you thought this before you idiot. No!” It’s like that. But it’s not accidental. He’s really trying to make you hold up a mirror and go “What am I, what’s my true history? And what can I feel proud of?” So it’s pretty provocative!
[LAUGHTER]
LD: When you see a non-fiction book that’s that thick I think people worry that it might be a bit dry. That’s a lot to/
BBS: /Yeah so you’ve got to do something with it right?
LD: Yeah.
BBS: I mean the hip hop one was easy because I had so much base knowledge of the subject you know. But also I think, I think there’s an element of human beings wherein we’re not hunter gatherers anymore and I think without hunter gathering now a lot of us, we just sort of hunt and gather facts instead!
LD: Perfect.
BBS: So you know, I think that’s why I go through these non fiction phases. It’s like I’m fiending for some new knowledge instead of a fresh antelope.
[LAUGHTER]
LD: That’s such a perfect way of putting it. You know I always used to just love fiction because it was an escape from the world.
BBS: Oh same same.
LD: I never thought about sort of exploring the world further and then my sister did a science degree and started me reading books, sort of about neuroscience and it just blew my mind. I thought “oh there is so much we don’t know about, just about ourselves”.
BBS: Yeah. But isn’t it interesting that the writing is still key? Like the quality of writing is still absolutely key. so you could have written that 900 page book about the business of hip hop but if you had a dry purely factual tone, no opinion, a lack of respect for your interviewees and whatnot, it would just be a slog, such a slog to get through so you know you’ve still got to have that deft touch, that ear for dialogue even, you know. If you’re interviewing people just picking the best bits and weaving them into your own conclusions and set ups and what not.
LD: I think you’ve just put your finger on it, I think I always assumed that it wouldn’t be about the writing.
BBS: Yeah it really is.
LD: I think the first one I read was um, have you read Moonwalking with Einstein?
BBS: No.
LD: It’s a book about this science journalist who went to learn about the memory championships and he was just doing a short article for American Scientist and he said, “Oh well obviously you’ve got to have a special brain to be able to, you know remember so many things for the memory championships” and they said, “No anyone can do it” and he wrote this entire book about his attempt to become a memory champion.
BBS: Oh I love that.
LD: But it was like a thriller, you know, it had such a-
BBS: Well there you go, there you go. And there’s, I think the reason this Sapiens book’s been so successful is that it does, it reads a bit like a thriller, an epic thriller. ‘Cos there’s tons of murder and blood and guts and violence and jealousy. And of course all these huge questions, the biggest questions that we all have. Similarly I read a book as research for my novel that, a large chunk of my book is about etymology and words and the power of them, especially amongst you know, young people, teenagers. I read a book by a book by Mark Forsyth called The Etymologicon which is like this circular study of the origins of words and it is an absolute riot. Like you were saying about that Einstein book being like a thriller, this book on etymology by Forsyth is like a laugh out loud comedy. I mean it’s brilliant, he’ll just link all these different words that sound similar but have different origins. Oh it’s fascinating if you’re a geek with words like I am but also just laugh out loud funny.
LD: Did you always read a lot? I mean are your family readers?
BBS: Uh, you know what, my Mum became a big reader later in her life. But me and Zadie and my younger brother Luke yeah, we were encouraged massively to read just off the strength of bedtime stories to begin with. How much we enjoyed those. But Zadie was like, she was just an animal with books. She just devoured them at a pace that was freakish. By the time she was seven or eight we knew that she was not normal! She wasn’t like a normal child ‘cos she was reading like huge books like Little Women and devouring these books in days and then hours you know. She could speed read at a really early age and then she was attempting to write her own novel by aged 12 when we got her a typewriter. You know, we knew she was a weirdo! But that, I basically got her hand me downs you know so the usual stuff that you’d read at seven or eight. I was into Dahl and stuff like that. But what really got me into reading was all her Judy Blumes. She threw all her Judy Blumes at me and I thought they were just girl books you know. I think that was all because of, I kept seeing this one cover in her room that said, Are You There God It’s Me Margaret which just always annoyed me as a title. I thought Oh God that’s some girly book with girls moaning about being girls!
[LAUGHTER]
BBS: And look it’s written by a girl as well. I was like, I have no interest. And I picked up Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, that was the first one and I was just, like I’ve never read a book that fast. I was like, I loved it and the kid was my age you know and he had this annoying little brother. And I could just relate to everything. And it was set in New York City which seemed really romantic to me. So I just started reading all of those and I don’t think I’ve ever been without a book since.
[MUSIC]
LD: So this was maybe the first time that I have not read a single book on someone’s list.
BBS: You’ve got a treat coming your way because there’s some belters on here.
LD: Right well, Don’t worry, I’ve read two.
BBS: OK, wow.
LD: I read two before I spoke to you now.
BBS: Well done.
LD: So let’s start with Fox 8 which was the extra one you added and I’m so glad you did.
BBS: Yeah I felt like I needed a children’s book on there. And, I mean children’s book sort of undersells Fox 8 by George Saunders.
LD: Yeah.
BBS: It’s a remarkable special almost religious experience of a book In fact that is the link to a lot of the books on my list. They’re sort of, they put me in a whole other space, like a religious experience might. And Fox 8 is, it’s the story of a fox, fox number 8 of his little clan and it’s from his point of view. So it’s a first person story of a fox! And simple as that sounds and Dr Seussy as it sounds it’s actually this meandering ponder on existence and life, the world, the environment, and everything. What it means to be alive. Like it’s, it’s probably the most profound children's book I’ve ever read
LD: Yeah I wasn’t even sure it was a kids’ book if I’m honest with you.
BBS: Yeah it’s like, it works for kids. My kids loved it but it’s a kids book like I guess Stand By Me is a kids film. My kids love Stand By Me but it also has, you know, a dead body. It’s based on a book called The Body by Stephen King, you know. So yeah, it’s not strictly speaking a kids book but if you got intelligent kids and you want them to continue being intelligent I couldn’t recommend Fox 8 higher but what did you think?
LD: Oh my, I mean I cried.
BBS: It’s beautiful right?
LD: And I didn’t see it coming, with the funny spelling and the little jokes about what he sees through the window and the kind of tongue in cheek musings on what humans are doing from a fox’s point of view.
BBS: That’s a really good point, the humour, I should have mentioned. It is really really funny and he apologises, the fox, at the start for his poor writing! So it’s littered with purposeful spelling mistakes which makes it really endearing and really charming and like you said there’s this emotional gut punch that yeah, it could bring a tear to the eye and that’s the power of reading and writing. It’ll change the course of your day.
LD: I think yeah, you’re right as well. It will be lovely for kids but I could give it to my Grandma and it will probably have the same impact on her as it would on a ten year old.
BBS: Yeah that’s a good shout. I’d say if anyone is struggling for gift ideas it’s such a nice little package. It’s small, a little hardback and a lovely cover. It’s a lovely little gift and it’s testament to the genius of George Saunders because like you say that’s this tricksy simplicity to it and then wham it’s one of the most profound complex things you’ve read all year all of a sudden. And that, you have to say, is great writing.
LD: When did you read it?
BBS: About a year ago. I’d just moved house and there was a lot of turmoil and my sister said, “Just stop what you’re doing and read this book and then make sure everyone in your family reads it”. And I was like “argh!” You know, when Zadie says to read something for me, as such a slow reader it’s like okay I’ll get back to you in six weeks with my opinion.
[LAUGHTER]
BBS: And then, you know, she gave me the copy and I just sat and read it in one sitting. And then I literally, I did, I said, “Everybody put the boxes down, read this book get a cup of tea, get a drink and just read this and then we’ll get back to, you know, unpacking and all the madness” and everybody in my family is a Fox 8 convert.
LD: Aw.
[MUSIC]
LD: So the other book I read from your list was French Exit.
BBS: Ah! Hilarious!
LD: It’s so funny. But again kind of you know, thought provoking at the end.
BBS: Yeah all the books on this list are. French Exit by the incredible Patrick DeWitt is one of my favourite authors but French Exit is, I’d say on the surface it’s a comedy about old lady who, after a tragedy, decides to just totally twitch her life and move from her sort of socialite upper class life in Manhattan to a sort of strange artistic existence in Paris. It’s basically an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm. She is like a female Larry David who’s just gone, “Well you know what i’m old now, death’s around the corner so fuck everybody!”
[LAUGHTER]
BBS: And she’s just so rude and hilarious.
LD: So mean.
BBS: I love the way that nothing on earth is more offensive to her than someone being boring or saying something tedious.
[LAUGHTER]
BBS: She’s like, if you’ve got small talk for her she’s just so disgusted.
LD: She doesn’t care about making something super awkward either does she?
BBS: No. It’s beautiful. I mean what she calls, she’s got this sort of long suffering son who is, he’s a bit of a dick anyway, but what she calls the woman he has a dalliance with on the ship is one of the most laugh out loud lines I think I’ve ever read. I won’t spoil it for those who are going to read it. Again this is quite a short read so I recommend it for anybody who doesn't want to get too bogged down with anything.
LD: Yeah it felt like something you could sit outside in the sun with it and/
BBS: /Yeah.
LD: And it felt, most of it felt very easy. It does become darker.
BBS: And quite sad.
LD: And sad. So there were people I thought about it for at the beginning of reading and by the end I thought maybe they really would have been in it for the kind of period drama-esque vibe.
BBS: Yeah, I bought a copy for my sister and I gave my copy to my wife and recommended it to a few people but I had to say, I’ve had to add a caveat everytime I lent it out or given it as a gift. I have to say, “There is a moment, with no spoilers, where you might just baulk and go well that’s fucking ridiculous, sorry I’m out.”
[LAUGHTER]
BBS: “But just just bear, just bear with it! Bear with it.”
LD: I know exactly the moment you’re talking about
BBS: There is a moment in this book that, you’ve got every right of just walking away because it makes no sense. But that is the beauty of DeWitt for me. Like, his confidence in going, “Meh, like I’m gonna throw this in there and you know if you’re riding with me, ride with me.” You know! For me I was just like, you know what, I have no problem with that. It’s absolutely batshit mental to put that in there but I’m gonna roll with it, I’m fine. And I think that’s an achievement as well.
LD: You put that perfectly. I had no idea how to mention that without, you know, ruining it.
BBS: And what is it? It’s like two thirds of the way in, or three quarters of the way through the book?
LD: Oh yeah yeah yeah. You’re well in/
BBS: /So you’re totally fine with everything that’s happening and then this thing happens and you’re like okay, right. OK.
LD: It does make sense of a lot of stuff that I thought was weird writing earlier on.
BBS: Yeah. There’s a kookiness to it isn’t there that’s quite endearing.
LD: Yeah it’s really nice, it’s really really nice. Um, you had a real range of stuff that you read.
BBS: Yeah.
LD: You don’t have a genre or a type really do you?
BBS: No. I mean I love, my holiday book is probably like a thriller like a lot of people. I like a big dumb whodunnit or a thriller but those aren’t the books that really move me. They just sort of get me, they get me through the day kind of thing! It’s like, do you know what I mean? Like if you’re in a nightclub you probably will just have a crap rum with Coca Cola that comes out of the tap and enjoy it. With ice and a slice of lemon .
LD: Yeah.
BBS: But if it’s up to you you’re gonna have a really good cocktail like a negroni in the sun with some angostura bitters and the twist of orange zest. You know. If you can.
LD: It’s too early for this cocktail chat.
[LAUGHTER]
BBS: So really the books that stay with me are the ones that really, really move me and surprise me. not in the way of a whodunnit “Oh My God I can’t believe it was them”. Not in terms of plot, in terms of character, in terms of concepts in terms of philosophies in terms of theory and, you know, something that smacks of the human condition and that’s all the books on my list that have a huge, something huge to say about the human condition. And what it is to be human. You know French Exit has it. French Exit, probably the underlying thing in there is what do we do, how do we analyse our lives when death is imminent you know. Fox 8, as we’ve already discussed, you know it’s got, there’s a profound question about life, the universe and everything. Which brings us quite nicely to the other three. Train Dreams is a very short novella by a guy called Dennis Johnson and it is reading it is a transcendent experience. It’s about a young guy in the early days of America, so specifically the time when they’re laying down railway. He’s a labourer and he lives this isolated existence and it’s really the musings of somebody, what I think is fascinating about it, it’s the musings of someone most of us won’t come into contact with. Ever. So in that same way that sometimes you put yourself out of your comfort zone and you meet someone who normally wouldn’t be in your circle. And I think that’s one of the beautiful things a great character study can do in a book and what Johnson has done with Train Dreams is created this sort of tragic and kind of surreal story about a man that you’ll never meet.But the simplicity of the man’s language and the surface simplicity of his experiences being isolated, you really relate to what’s human in him. It’s, like I say it’s a very short book, so I don’t wanna give too much away but the backdrop also, if you’re interested, is like pure Americana. You know that feeling of, the most powerful country in the world in its infancy. Those important days of working out what it is to even be an American. Because you know not only is this man a very young man, America is a very young character in the book as well. In short it’s a journey within the mind and then obviously it’s a journey within the soul of a man, a young man, and the young soul of america as well and how the two are sort of intrinsically linked. I can’t remember, I think it was another Zadie recommendation to be honest, in fact I’m certain it was.
LD: She seems like the font of all great book recommendations.
BBS: I mean she can go on for not days but years about books And I have to say I can’t keep up with the recommendations that she has. And a lot of the stuff she reads is just too complex for me sometimes you know. So this is one from her that I think, similar to DeWitt, you’d be surprised how accessible it is. And yet just how beautifully profound it is. It’s accessible like DeWitt but it’s profound like Saunders and it is for me one of the most underrated books of the 20th Century.
LD: Tell me about Pryor Convictions.
BBS: Pryor Convictions is, for someone like me, for an agnostic, it’s the closest I have ever come to having a Bible you know. This book’s been with me for longer than any of the other books on my list. I’ve been reading it and re-reading it since, I don’t know, probably since I was at university but maybe even before that. It’s an autobiography. I like autobiographies because even when they’re bullshitting you that’s interesting. Do you know what I mean? It’s like why are you choosing to say these things about yourself?
LD: Yeah.
BBS: Pryor Convictions is the autobiography of Richard Pryor. For me, the undisputed greatest comedian to ever have lived but also one of the most troubled comedians to have ever lived. The reason I say it’s like a BIble is it’s how not to live your life He’s constantly showing you with no pride, no desire to hide the mistakes he’s made or the people that he’s hurt, he’s just saying look this is what happened and I must be a fucking psychopath I don’t know. And the raw brutal honesty of it makes you realise he’s not a psychopath, he’s not even a sociopath, he’s just an incredibly sensitive, traumatised child, you know. He’s a storyteller second to none. I don’t mean that in terms of the writing. He’s not, he’s not Dennis Johnson. He’s not George Saunders. He’s a joke writer. But he’s as great a storyteller as any of those because, you know, I know novelists and one thing they can’t do is sit or stand in front of actual human beings and tell stories. They can’t do it. They’d rather be locked away in a dungeon explaining it to you in black and white.
LD: Yeah.
BBS: Whereas Richard was somebody who lived for those moments. Lived for the opportunity to have a large number of people in a space so he could say, “Guess what the fuck just happened to me, you’re not going to believe this”. It’s the most honest thing I think I’ve ever read by anybody. You know. There’s just no hiding at all. It’s absolutely riveting and even as I’m talking about it I think I’m gonna have to re-read it again! It became something that I was known for for a while as a young man because it went out of print for years.
LD: Yes.
BBS: And so I was the only one who had a copy in any sort of large radius and I leant it to everybody I could and kept tabs on it. One time I got it back and it had three tiny holes like pinpricks going through about seventy or eighty pages.
LD: What!
BBS: I was like, how has that happened!? So, I’ve still got the copy somewhere. I don’t know, it’s absolutely battered and dog-eared and everybody who’s read it has just gone wow. Yeah in short Pryor Convictions will make you, if you didn’t already, love the man and just feel for him and want to nurture him and give him the love that was so brutally taken away from him as a child. You know. And if you’re missing love as a child the danger of what you can become in your adult life is very very real. Some people become homicidal maniacs. Some people become drug addicts. Alcoholics. And some become comedians.
LD: Yes.
BBS: And performers or artists. Because it’s just this search for something that is missing, this void, you know. And the void is one of love. And it’s all he was ever searching for and there’s something so uniting in that concept. And yeah aside all of that stuff it is hilarious. Absolutely hilarious. There’s a moment where his wife leaves him for the millionth time and he gets a gun.
LD: Oh!
BBS: And he’s like, you know his first thought is, “If she can’t be with me I’m gonna kill her. I’m gonna kill her.” And then of course he can’t kill her, he just watches her leave and then he thinks, “You can leave me but you’re not leaving in that car. I’m gonna kill the car!”
[LAUGHTER]
BBS: So he shoots the car! He shoots all the tyres out. It’s an amazing moment. And it’s full of stories like that.
LD: I hope he knew how affecting the book was because obviously for this podcast called Comics’ Books I’ve asked a lot of comedians about their favourite books and I can’t tell you how many times this comes up on a comedians list.
BBS: What, this book?
LD: Yeah.
BBS: Right okay yeah it‘ll mean a lot to a lot of comedians yeah I’m sure because a lot of us comics as well there’s something in our past, not as extreme as Richard Pryor’s, maybe some of us I don’t know but I don’t wanna cast aspersions on other comedians. But for the vast majority of us there’s something lacking. You know. Missing some kind of validation from our youth or even if it’s just a perceived slight that we have, something unfulfilled you know. As young people. These are our superhero origin stories you know. I’ve not met a comedian who was like yeah and everything was just so great that I thought let me make it better by being a famous comedian. I’ve just never heard that origin story you know. But yeah, I thought I better have something related to comedy. French Exit is a comedy but I thought something behind the sort of dark underbelly of comedy might be good.
LD: It’s also, you know I worked in comedy for a long time, and it was brought up a lot and it was sort of other people’s sort of comedy bible in a way.
BBS: But you’ve not read it?
LD: No! So I bought it but I have not read it yet. I tried to buy it in the bookshop when I went to buy French Exit and they still thought it was out of print.
BBS: Yeah it came back in print. I don’t know how many copies they made so that’s probably the big question. But it was out of print for a long, long time yeah.
LD: I ended up going the amazon route which is where they had it with the foreword by Tig Notaro.
BBS: Oh wow okay. I mean mine is the old copy so it doesn’t have Tig’s intro but that’s cool I’d like to read that.
LD: She’s one of my favourite comedians so I feel like as soon as I saw that I thought oh yeah- actually i might like this. I haven’t watched a lot of Richard Pryor, of his comedy, so I feel like maybe that’s a bit of an education.
BBS: Well that has to change.
LD: Yeah okay I’ll start now.
BBS: ‘Cos he’s the greatest there’s literally no one better.
LD: So I’ve heard.
BBS: Think of your very very favourite comedian and cherish that thought and then understand that Richard Pryor shits all over whoever that person is.
[LAUGHTER]
LD: It seems like everything in your life really has come back down to a love of words. Because you started with rap didn’t you?
BBS: Yeah, yes. And my book, despite what people might think when it comes out, is not about me. It’s not about me at all, it’s a completely imagined set of characters but the thing that I share with the lead character is he’s obsessed with words, like he’s obsessed with them and he can’t accept, there’s loads of things that he cannot accept. He can't accept people not understanding irony. He loves the fact that people don’t know what etymology means, you know, his peers don’t know what that word means. And it’s the word that describes the meaning of words and he loves the irony of that and the fact that there’s a word that he knows that other people don’t know. You know, he’s that kind of guy. He’s the kind of guy who ponders about the word wonder. And wonders if you can wonder and ponder. And then, he’ll chuckle to himself as he’s pondering and wondering he’ll be wandering around but wandering with an a rather than an o. You know he’s that kind of kid. So that stuff is all me but outside of that is, you know, it’s a totally imagined world. But the book is about words to some extent and it’s why I was reading Mark Forsyth’s book on etymology because I wanted to write a comedy that was partly about words, the power of words, the strength of them. What you can use them for, how they can save your life and how they can destroy your life as well if they’re misused. So a lot of it is about words and I say that explicitly in one of the early chapters. And it celebrates reading as well which is a big sort of deal for me. I’m not hiding the fact with this book that most of the heroes are black or mixed race and I’m not hiding the fact that I would love to encourage young Black boys to read more! Because we’re the ones along with White working class boys who are just slipping through the gap and not reading enough. You know.
LD: Yeah.
BBS: Don’t seem to have the same problem with girls from all sorts of different backgrounds. Black girls, White girls, Asian girls. They seem to be reading for longer and we’re losing Black boys from all backgrounds and White working class boys. So you know that is a world that I come from, I come from a Black and White working class background so that’s a world I wanna celebrate and I don’t wanna be this anomaly because that’s what I feel like I am. I feel like, still to this day, I’m one of the few people from that background that’s doing what I’m doing. So that needs to change and it needs to change first off with inspiration and I hope that this book being a comedy, being funny it will hide the bigger things that I’m trying to do with it you know. Which is the boring stuff, getting kids to read books! Regularly!
LD: Why do you think those boys aren’t reading? Do you think it’s a lack of representation or it’s that reading isn’t cool or it’s hard?
BBS: Yeah Ii think it’s a bit of the latter. I’m not a big believer in like, you know,I heard a Black female cricketer talking on the radio yesterday about how there’s not enough Black women playing cricket and, you know, there needs to be so many more, so many more and I just thought, “Well I totally agree but at the same time is that something of interest to young Black women?” Do you know what I mean?
LD: Yeah.
BBS: So you can talk about representation but you know. I mean my mum is a Black woman, was a young, a very young Black woman at one pint. At which stage she was obsessed with cricket. She didn’t wanna play it. She just wanted to watch it like a lot of Jamaicans. Jamaican’s love cricket you know. And I thought actually this is an interesting debate that needs to be had because the answer can’t just be “Well they need to see more black women playing cricket” you know. There’s a level of interest on a cultural level that might need addressing as well.
LD: Yeah.
BBS: Like I used to always think, like I’m a football obsessive, and I used to think you never really see Black goalkeepers. You see a few more nowadays but not many. And when I was a kid, none. But you always saw Black strikers. You know. I’m a Crystal Palace fan. I grew up watching Ian Wright and Mark Bright up front for Palace. Half our team was Black. Especially the attacking half and when I thought about the culture that I was living in, amongst other Black working class boys, every black working class boy that I knew wanted to score goals. They didn’t wanna stand between the posts trying to save goals. They wanted to score goals. Do you see what I’m saying? So it’s like you can talk about representation, you can say, “Oh football’s racist because there’s no Black goalkeepers but hang on I agree I’m sure that is some of that, I’m sure there’s something institutional or systemic going on but also does a Black boy wanna be a goalkeeper? Ask the black boy before saying, this is what needs to change”. So I just think it’s an interesting argument. Not saying I have the answer.
LD: Yeah
BBS: But to bring it back to books. I’m just trying to make something that I think will be fun for a Black working class boy to read. Rather than hammering this thing “You’ve got to read, you should be doing this, you’re slipping through the gap”. I’m just doing something that I think will be fun for them.
LD: Well, yeah.
BBS: And I’m at a stage at my career where I’ve spent ten years plus in show business now and I got my start working for CBBC, creating content for young Black boys you know. And it’s built a relationship with the actual people. So I’m always loath to get into these debates about representation, diversity and what not. Because I think, “What are you doing on a grassroots level?” Because I’m actually talking to the kids themselves. And I’m fortunate enough, even though I’m a crusty old man now, they still listen to me. You know, they still listen to me. They’re like, “You’re the guy who made the 4 o’clock club, you’re the guy who did this funny rap, you’re the guy who did the tea rap you’re the guy”, you know. And it gives me this little window of opportunity to go yeah I am the guy and here’s another thing I think is cool. Like, reading! [LAUGHTER] Check this out!
LD: I think you’ve absolutely nailed it though because I think sometimes when I talk about books, even from just the way I sound, I just sound like, “Oh I’ve learned how to read books and I really like it” and I don’t always know if I know how to make it sound fun. You know I can make it fun when I read to people/
BBS: Of course, yeah.
LD: But I don’t know how to tell people you should like reading without maybe just sounding like someone who [unclear 00:36:42] books
BBS: Totally and there’s no shame in that acknowledgement. In fact I think it’s a display of humility. I remember I got a call from Mariella Frostrup, her of the amazingly sexy voice. Which is always a nice call to get! But she called me a few years back and she was like, “Look I’ve got this charity and I’m trying, basically the idea is we’re battling sexism but I’m not talking to girls, I’m talking to boys. You know, teenage boys”. And she’s like, “Look I’ll be real with you, this is my heart, this is my passion, I love doing it, I really believe in it but when I talk to them they’re not listening”. And she asked me to come and talk on her behalf. And I was just like, “Yeah cool you know what I’m down”. Because that just shows a humility, it shows that she’s thinking beyond..and this way predates any Black Lives Matter stuff and white guilt and all of that stuff. She just thought “This is the right way of doing this” you know. “This is gonna be a more effective way of making an inroad into a group that I have nothing in common with but I would like to reach”. And I respected that.
LD: [Unclear 00:37:59] some sort of an aim of a way forward but I’d be really interested to know, you know, who buys your book and who reads your book.
BBS: Yeah I can’t wait to see what happens with that.
LD: It’ll be interesting.
BBS: And I think my promotion of it is gonna play a big part of that. Because I will be in control of that alongside Bloomsbury so that it doesn’t become just a big Hay Festival celebration of white wealthiness. You know?
LD: Yep, super important.
BBS: As much as I love Hay, you know I really do.
LD: I’ve never been. I was gonna go this year!
BBS: It’s so cosy and white and nice little astroturfs and mocktails and all of that. I just think the game needs shaking up and I could be the man to do it.
LD: I hope so. I think so
[MUSIC]
LD: I’ve been enjoying this but it is time for the Mobsters Lament.
BBS: Mobsters Lament is, by Ray Celestine I should say, fantastic Ray Celestine, probably one of my favourite thriller writers and to call him a thriller writer actually that doesn’t give him enough credit. He’s not a thriller writer, he’s an incredible creator of worlds and drama. And his speciality is kind of, slightly noirish but incredibly soulful recreations of Black culture of the past. So The Mobsters Lament is actually part three of a series. I haven’t read the fourth one yet, I don’t know if it’s even out yet. But yes, so I started with one that a lot of people will know which is The Axeman’s Jazz. And these books, they switch cities and decades effortlessly. The research that this guy must have done as a British guy on these American cities is absolutely phenomenal. So we jump from Chicago, New Orleans, I think Axeman’s Jazz was New Orleans and then Chicago in the second one. Mobsters Lament we’re in New York. And it’s a good 35 years from the first book. And the books follow this young mixed race Private Investigator who is up against all sorts. Her name’s Ida and she’s a really incredible hero. I have to say, I can’t wait for these books to be made into movies if they’re decent movies. And the backdrop is always whatever the black music is of that era and it’s mainly Jazz and Blues. And her, there’s an awesome brave reach in these books which is that, I mean they’re pure fiction right, set against very real backdrops but there’s a huge reach in this book, in the whole series of these books which is that Ida’s best friend from childhood is Louis Armstrong. So Louis Armstrong is like a peripheral character in all three of the novels which is an incredibly sort of ballsy thing to do you know, to have a fictional world, fictional characters and then one real, very real person who is one of the characters. And I have to say, you know, in lesser hands that would, it really wouldn’t work man, you’d find it either cringey or very kind of, oh Louis Armstrong and now he’s playing the trumpet. You know! He just doesn’t do that! He’s a really endearing, engaging character in the book. Like I say he’s peripheral but there is a lot of stuff about him and his friendship with Ida and he pops up at really important times and Ray just does it effortlessly. I mean, or it feels effortless I’m sure it isn’t. Why I chose The Mobsters Lament out of the three, I’m not sure. I think it was probably because I found it the most entertaining of the three. The most accessible. But I should stress to anyone that hasn’t got into Celestine’s work, you should start from the beginning. If you haven’t read The Axeman’s Jazz and the second one, the name of which has gone right out of my brain but will come back to me, there’s going to be a lot of stuff in The Mobsters Lament that doesn’t hit home in the way that it should. Plus it’s incredibly epic right, so in Mobsters Lament Ida’s an old lady and in the first one she’s a sprightly 21/22 year old. So it is important to read the other two. But The Mobsters Lament, it doubles also as a great gangster book, so if you like gangster stuff you know, old school mafia stuff, there’s lots of that in there as well. And the titular mobster is one of those tormented souls who has done a lot of horrible stuff for a lot of horrible gangsters but is also trying to protect his niece and is trying to think of a Carlito’s Way style exit from the game, keeping his sanity and his niece intact. So you’ve got a sort of ticking clock element to it that the other two books don’t have that keeps it really exciting and then you’ve got Ida’s journey coming to an end. And obviously if you’ve read all three books you’ve spent a lifetime with this character so there’s that real emotional pull of her story as well. Plus, Louis Armstrong!
[LAUGHTER]
BBS: Which equals a really sort of rip roaring entertaining ride.
LD: I feel like you’ve really just sorted my Dad’s birthday present for me.
BBS: It’s a great series those books. It really is.
LD: Just music and gangsters, he’s/
BBS: /Music, Gangsters.
LD: Louis. He’s, yeah.
BBS: America! It’s great.
[MUSIC]
BBS: So yeah the last one I think is fitting. Stoner. By John Williams. It’s a good one to end on because there’s no book like this. It ties in with all my other picks in that it says something profound about the human condition. But I’ve never read a book like this. So we started talking about Fox 8 which tricks you into thinking it’s one thing and then actually next thing you know you’re a mess. You’re a flood of tears and snot. This is very similar but over a much longer period. In a much quieter way. It’s, I mean on the front cover you’ll see when you see it in the shops, the sticker on the front says The best novel you’ve never read. And I think that’s a great way of describing it because nobody’s heard of this book. It was recommended to me by a friend of mine. He’s a big reader and I often get recommendations from him. We go back and forth and he said, “You’ve got to read this, you’ve got to read this”. And when he sent me the name of it I assumed it was going to be some kind of William Burroughs thing and it was going to be this thing about some drug addled dude from the sixties or something like that. No, Stoner’s just the man’s surname, the main character’s surname. And he is a college professor. He’s also strangely, growing up on a farm, he’s also a well trained farmhand. It’s, the reason I say I’ve never read a book like it before is, it creeps up on you bit by bit and you don’t know why you’re reading it, it just, like that set up, it’s got the most boring set up you’ve heard. It’s the life of a man who, from a farm, who becomes a teacher basically. So it sort of sets it up by saying, I’m going to tell you a really long story about a really interesting guy who no one cares about. And sure enough his life sort of muddles along and yet I don’t think I’ve ever read a book that says more about what it is to be alive than Stoner. And to think about what your life means. Because the lack of meaning in his life is the meaning you know. That’s how deep this novel is. It’s so important to read this book like, I can’t stress it enough. Even though as you start it you’ll be thinking, “What? I just have no interest in any of this!” It’s special. Like Colum McCann says, it deserves the status of literary classic, it really should be up there. And I think it was Williams’ lack of engagement with it, having written it, his desire to move onto something different. He didn’t necessarily believe in it at the time. So therefore it didn’t really get promoted. It wasn’t really that well known. And it’s had, I think it’s Vintage Classics brought it back out with Random House, and it’s had a sort of resurgence over the past twenty years but you know, I was listening to an interview with Phillip Pullman and he was saying that he writes his books with a pen. If you can believe that.
LD: Oh my gosh.
BBS: He actually writes his books.
LD: I couldn't imagine.
BBS: And let’s all just have a moment of silence for whoever the fuck is putting that into print. Typing that up.
[LAUGHTER]
BBS: I mean/
LD: /Oh God.
BBS: But the reason he said, the reason he gave was that maybe everything’s important you know. He said, “How often do we type something on our computers and then go that’s bollocks, delete it and move on. Even within the sentence.You put the structure of a sentence in one way and you go no no no delete delete delete. This is the structure of the sentence. Well how do you know for sure that this structure is better than that structure? You might think you do based on narrative theory and everything you know from studying literature but maybe the instinctive way that you did it before was right, or better in some way or more indicative of what you were feeling at that time.” So he just puts a line through it. And he said it’s countless the amount of times he’s come back and looked at things and gone “Ooh that’s actually a great idea for a totally different story” or “I can slot that into this”. You know, because he’s got it and he feels the passion in the handwriting. And I thought that is fascinating but also it just goes to show that, you know, maybe what you wrote and in this case of John Williams’ definitely what you wrote, was better than what you thought it was! And therefore Stoner is a classic and an absolute must read.
LD: Wow. I don’t think I can say anything nicer than that. That’s really thought provoking and I have to admit I have picked up that book numerous times in Waterstones and put it down because it sounded quite dull.
BBS: Yeah, sounds dulls right. Sounds drab.
LD: It does!
BBS: And the opening page like I say is almost an admission. This book’s gonna be quite boring. It’s about a boring guy! And then you realise, “Oh My God it’s about me” and everything changes.
LD: Wow. Thank you so much for talking to me today Ben. About all these lovely books. I really feel like I’ve got a whole new reading list.
BBS: Good.
LD: We’re trying to shine a light on independent bookshops at the moment.
BBS: Oh yeah.
LD: Did you have a local that you wanted to recommend?
BBS: Yeah. I’ll give you both my locals because I’ve just moved. I’ve just moved from East London to West London. So my old local was the second hand bookshop on Church Street Stoke Newington which is called Church Street Bookshop originally! And ah man there’s so many gems in there, for pennies, so you know get in there and just stock up. And over here, Queens Park Books is a place that has been around since, I mean I grew up not too far away so I’d go in there as a child and I will be going back in there this week as a man, making sure they’ve got my books in there!
LD: You grew up in Willesden didn’t you?
BBS: Yeah.
LD: Yes, so did I.
BBS: Oh really?
LD: Yeah and Queen’s Park is now my local as well!
BBS: OK so it probably already has a shout out.
LD: Oh yeah, yeah.
BBS: You know, I actually miss Kilburn Bookshop, I’m sad that that went. But yeah you know, anything that’s within touching distance of Willesden we should definitely recommend. I very rarely meet people from Willesden.
LD: I know! Do you know what? You know the reason I knew this was because very many many years ago when White Teeth came out, my Mum met your Mum in a doctor’s waiting room.
BBS: Right, okay!
LD: And your Mum was reading White Teeth but I don’t know if she was actually reading it, she was just sort of holding it open.
BBS: She was probably just showing it off. Knowing my Mum she would have just been showing it off.
LD: And my Mum said, “Oh that’s a very good book, I recommend it”. And your Mum went, “Well my daughter wrote it!”
BBS: My daughter wrote that!
[LAUGHTER]
BBS: She’s got a shelf in her living room which has White Teeth in like every language.
LD: That’s so cute! Aw! Well! I might see you in Queen’s Park bookshop then.
BBS: Yeah most definitely.
LD: Thank you so much for doing the time to do this.
BBS: Alright take care.
[MUSIC]
LD: Thank you. Thank you for listening to today’s episode of Comics’ Books. I hope you enjoyed it. In the show notes you’ll be able to find full listings of all the books we mentioned as well as links to our featured independent bookshop. Have a great week reading, laughing and then reading some more.