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BIO
Born in the Kingdom of Fife in 1960, Ian Rankin graduated from the University of Edinburgh and has since been employed as grape-picker, swineherd, taxman, alcohol researcher, hi-fi journalist and punk musician. His first Rebus novel, KNOTS & CROSSES, was published in 1987 and the Rebus books have now been translated into 22 languages and are increasingly popular in the USA.
Ian Rankin has been elected a Hawthornden Fellow, and is a past winner of the prestigious Chandler-Fulbright Award, as well two CWA short-story 'Daggers' and the 1997 CWA Macallan Gold Dagger for Fiction for BLACK & BLUE, which was also shortlisted for the Mystery Writers of America 'Edgar' award for best novel. DEAD SOULS, the tenth novel in the series, was shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger in 1999.
BLACK & BLUE, THE HANGING GARDEN, DEAD SOULS and MORTAL CAUSES have been televised on ITV, starring John Hannah as Inspector Rebus. His 3-part documentary series on the subject of evil was broadcast on Channel 4 in December 2002.
An Alumnus of the Year at Edinburgh University, he has also been awarded two honorary doctorates, one from the University of Abertay Dundee and one, more recently, from the University of St Andrews. He was awarded the OBE in the Queen's Golden Jubilee Birthday Honours List in June 2002 and is now the UK's number one best-selling crime writer.
Ian Rankin lives in Edinburgh with his wife and two sons.
© Copyright 2007, Ian Rankin. All rights reserved.
PAST INTERVIEW
November
17, 2000
Touted as the "king of tartan noir," by crime fiction writer James
Ellroy, author Ian Rankin is moving up the ranks of mystery, both
in his home of Edinburgh, Scotland and internationally. Bookreporter.com
Writer Ann Bruns is a huge fan of the Inspector Rebus series that
has made Rankin famous and was thrilled to read his latest, SET
IN DARKNESS. In this interview, find out the future fate of his
aging character, what the tourist industry of Edinburgh has to say
about his fiction, what originally drew him to noir, and much more.
TBR: Your literary credits are impressive, ranging from two Golden
Daggers to the prestigious Chandler-Fulbright Award. In 1999 your
novels comprised 8 of the top 10 Scottish bestsellers. Does this
put a certain amount of pressure on you to continue writing your
popular Rebus series or does your incredible success in crime fiction
open the door for you to return to spy novels and thrillers or try
new Mysterys?
IR: You ask whether my success
with the Rebus books is a limiting factor, or does it open doors.Well,
both, I suppose! I mean, having established a successful series,
one that pays the bills, it's hard to start looking elsewhere.And
my St. Martin's Presss would love me to keep writing nothing but Rebus books.
But I do have other ideas for books, and Rebus does live in real
time (i.e., he's getting old), so eventually, like it or not, we're
all going to have to confront Rebus's demise...and I just hope readers
are open-minded enough to accept any books I write thereafter!
TBR: John Rebus was introduced to readers in KNOTS AND CROSSES,
the first novel that featured this Scottish detective. Did you create
the unusual name "Rebus" as an analogy for the puzzle-solving nature
of mysteries, or did it evolve from another source altogether?
IR: I was a student of English
Literature when I wrote the first Rebus book, KNOTS AND CROSSES,
and I was studying deconstruction, semiotics, etc. A rebus is a
picture puzzle, and it seemed to click. After all, we already had
Inspector Morse (a type of code), and in the first book Rebus was
being sent picture puzzles to solve... so I made him Rebus, thinking
it was only for one book (I never intended turning him into a series)
so it didn't matter if I gave him a strange name. Recently, I bumped
into a guy called Rebus in my local pub. He lives in Rankin Drive
in Edinburgh. Truth is always stranger than fiction...
TBR: In SET IN DARKNESS, Rebus doggedly pursues the three investigations
with the assumption they are all linked in some way. His coworkers
and superiors are skeptical of this theory, to say the least. Are
his instincts that finely tuned, or is there an obstinate streak
in Rebus that compels him to take an independent direction?
IR: Rebus is obstinate, obdurate
even. But he's also a good detective(this makes him a bad social
human being, by the way). He sees the connectivity of life, a connectivity
I seem to witness every day. If cases are linked, he'll spot those
links. Then again, sometimes he sees connections where none exist...he's
far from perfect.
TBR: You've described Edinburgh as "the invisible city, hiding
its true feelings and intentions...You could visit the place and
come away with little sense of having understood what drove it."
Is this inscrutable quality echoing the character of John Rebus
himself? Why do you feel readers find Rebus such an engaging character?
IR: Rebus, like Edinburgh, hides
a good parcel of himself from the people around him. He keeps his
emotions hidden. Yes, he's like the city in this respect. He's
as complex as his surroundings. Maybe that's why readers like him.
Each book peels another layer of the onion; we get closer to his
heart and soul...yet never quite reach it. And we never quite come
to a full understanding of Edinburgh.
TBR: Scottish politics has a history nearly as volatile as Ireland's,
and plays an integral role in your underlying story as well as the
personal lives of the characters. Now that devolution has been achieved,
will the Scottish be as passionate about their politics as they
have been in the past?
IR: Devolution is just the start.
For 300 years we were ruled by London. It'll take a while for the
Scottish parliament to find its feet. Meantime, the nationalists
will be striving towards independence. The story isn't over; the
story's just begun.
TBR: Several of your books have a basis in real life events.
For SET IN DARKNESS, was there any actual event that sparked the
idea for the twenty-year-old body found in Queensbury House?
IR: Yes, I was on a plane somewhere
between New York and Philly, and reading the inflight magazine and
I came across a 'walking tour of Edinburgh.' It included a description
of an act of cannibalism in 1707, occurring in Queensberry House,
which is where the new parliament will eventually be based. I didn't
know anything about this, so I went home and got myself a tour of
the building. And the day I was there, they discovered the original
fireplace where a servant was roasted on a spit. That gave me my
starting point...
TBR: Derek Linford would seem to be a thoroughly unlikable character,
and yet there's a sense that Rebus almost feels sorry for him ---
is even protective of him at times. Is this a contradiction in the
normally impersonal Rebus? Is Linford likely to be a recurring character
like Siobahn Clarke?
IR: Derek Linford represents
the yuppie as cop. He's part of a new breed: they're humourless
professionals with an eye to the main chance. They're best behind
a desk, while Rebus is happiest out on the street. Linford will
continue to be a thorn in Rebus's side for a while yet.
TBR: Rebus is now 52 and, at one point, he examines his feelings
on retiring from law enforcement. Is the end of the Inspector Rebus
series approaching or will he remain ageless like Robert Parker's
Spenser?
IR: Edinburgh cops have to retire
at 60. Rebus is 52. He's got a few books left in him, but they're
not limitless.
TBR: James Ellroy has described you as the "king of tartan noir,"
and SET IN DARKNESS is unquestionably grim and gritty. Yet like
many of the traditional mysteries writers, you've often alluded
to the gore without being excessively graphic about it. Do you feel
the public has had their fill of gratuitous violence as a plot device?
IR: I don't think you need to
be graphic.In fact, I feel graphic violence is both lazy and salacious.You
can allude to horror without sticking people's noses in it.If it's
necessary to the plot, however, I would not shirk from having Rebus
confront the darkest deepest horror. It happens to cops sometime
in their life.
TBR: Unlike London or Paris, Edinburgh is fairly small community
and you've generally depicted it with a rather gotham-like ambiance.
Are people ever tempted to stop you on the street and complain about
the unflattering image?
IR: Actually people in Edinburgh
don't seem to mind my dark depiction of the place. With the exception
of the tourist board...and even they're coming round! There's now
a Rebus walking-tour you can take, accompanied by a professional
guide.
TBR: Your writing delves deeply into the psyche of the characters
--- emotional, thought-provoking passages ---which illustrate the
darkest recesses of the soul. Is it this type of character study
that drew you into writing noir fiction in the first place?
IR: I always wanted to write
about our deepest passions, fears and longings. I've always been
attracted to darkness, to the traits of personality we don't allow
into the light. I always wanted to write noir. And Edinburgh seemed
the perfect setting. With Rebus, we have a typical Jekyll and Hyde
personality who has elements of the dark and the light within him
simultaneously.
TBR: From childhood through your teen years you wrote everything
from comic books to poetry. By the time you became a full time novelist,
you'd won several literary prizes for your poetry and short stories.
Did you know at the time that those would become the building blocks
for a life-long profession?
IR: I always knew I wanted to
write, wanted to be a writer. Early on I accomplished some small-scale
successes, in getting poems published, or winning short story prizes.
But full-time success has been a long time coming...it's 14 years
since my first book came out; I started making reasonable money
from my work maybe three years ago. That's a long apprenticeship.
TBR: SET IN DARKNESS contains quite a number of references to
songs and music groups. Your biographical material mentions writing
song lyrics and even briefly becoming a vocalist for a punk band.
Is there a latent musician inside Ian Rankin, the author?
IR: I would love to be the singer
in a rock band; probably Rebus would, too. The music in the books
reflects Rebus's taste and my own, and also acts as a kind of shorthand,
telling us about characters and situations.
TBR: A TV version of BLACK AND BLUE is set to air in the United
Kingdom. I understand you visited the set and met your characters
in the flesh --- so to speak. Was that a strange experience?
IR: It was weird meeting 'John
Rebus' on the TV set--- he was so much younger and more handsome
than my notion of Rebus! He's played by John Hannah, an actor you
may know from Four Weddings and a Funeral, Sliding Doors and The
Mummy. He's actually very good...even better in the second Rebus
film than the first...
TBR: You are currently working on a 3-part cop drama for BBC-TV.
Many authors state emphatically that the headaches of writing for
movies or television just aren't worth it. Is this your first experience
in this medium? Is it as gratifying as writing novels?
IR: I'm trying to write a 3-part
drama for the BBC and it's tearing me apart. I'm not used to doing
so many rewrites; I'm not used to so much interference. With my
books, I write them, tweak them, send them to the St. Martin's Presss as
completed artifacts. With TV, everyone wants to tweak my story
before it's written. It's synopsis after synopsis, draft after
draft...it wears you down.
TBR: What writers have inspired you along the way?
IR: Writers I love: Ellroy,
Larry Block, Robert Louis Stevenson, Muriel Spark, Anthony Burgess,
Chandler... Have they influenced me? Probably.
TBR: We frequently ask authors what advice they would give to
beginning writers, and the great majority have emphasized one of
two things: read a lot, or write a lot. Do you feel either of those
is more essential than the other? Do you have any other suggestions
that you feel are paramount to becoming a skillful writer?
IR: To become a writer, you
have to have faith in yourself and in your work.You'll face rejections
(my first novel has never been published), and the biggest hurdle
you'll ever overcome is when you show your work to a stranger.
Writers' groups are good because there, at least, the strangers
have all been through what you're going through (unlike the vast
majority of editors and agents). Yes, you should also read a lot.
You'll copy your favourites, which will help you find your own 'voice'
eventually. If there's a voice to be found...
TBR: Do you have any other books or projects currently in the
works aside from the television drama?
IR: I'm currently writing 2
short stories...about to start scripting a TV series on modern methods
of detection (documentary)... I start the next Rebus novel in December.
I have a contract for a book a year, and it takes 10 months to write
each one...not a lot of room there for anything else!!
Thank you for taking the time to answer some questions. Hopefully,
one of these days Inspector Rebus will come to American television
in addition to our bookshelves!
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