{"id":759,"date":"2011-11-16T00:29:51","date_gmt":"2011-11-16T00:29:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crimeculture.com\/wordpress\/?p=759"},"modified":"2016-06-22T17:29:04","modified_gmt":"2016-06-22T17:29:04","slug":"len-wanner-interviews-scottish-crime-writers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crimeculture.com\/?p=759","title":{"rendered":"Len Wanner interviews Scottish Crime Writers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Len Wanner,\u00a0Dead Sharp: Scottish Crime Writers on\u00a0Country and Craft<\/em>\u00a0(Two Ravens Press, 2011)<\/span><\/h3>\n

Review and Extracts<\/span><\/h4>\n

\"Dead<\/a><\/span>In these intelligent, perceptive, fascinating interviews, Len Wanner reveals both the diversity and the\u00a0shared concerns of contemporary Scottish crime fiction.\u00a0\u00a0His questions probe writers\u2019 creative processes\u00a0and their views of the genre. On the one hand he focuses in on personal aims, quirks, opinions and writing\u00a0habits; on the other, he broadens out to engage with such issues as the nature of noir, the turn towards dark\u00a0crime fiction, the political and moral issues raised by the genre, the Scottishness of Scottish crime fiction.
\n<\/span>
\nThe collection opens with an extended interview with \u201cthe King of Tartan\u00a0Noir\u201d, Ian Rankin, reflecting on the origins of the label (\u201cHah! \u2018Tartan Noir\u2019\u00a0is a term that I\u2019m confident I invented but I gave it to James Ellroy\u2026\u201d) and on\u00a0why it is so appropriate to the late twentieth-century emergence of some\u00a0distinctively Scottish variants of crime fiction:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0“Tartan Noir \u2013 well, there\u2019s no tradition of crime fiction in\u00a0<\/span>Scotland but there is a great tradition of quite dark, psychological, Gothic\u00a0<\/span>horror stories. Specifically in the \u201870s, I think in Glasgow, there was a move\u00a0<\/span>towards a kind of realistic school of writing about working class life, writing\u00a0<\/span>about hard men, writing about hard lives, and writing about urban experience.<\/span><\/p>\n

So it was a move away from the \u2018kaleyard\u2019, which was this romanticised view of\u00a0Scotland. I think crime fiction tapped into that very nicely, and because there\u00a0was no tradition of crime fiction in Scotland it meant a completely level\u00a0playing field. Nobody had to be worried about writing in a certain tradition,\u00a0and most of us weren\u2019t influenced by the English.”<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Len<\/a>
Len Wanner<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It is by no means a unified tradition, and Wanner astutely explores the\u00a0variety apparent in the work of his nine chosen writers: Ian Rankin, Stuart\u00a0MacBride, Karen Campbell, Neil Forsyth, Christopher Brookmyre, Paul Johnston,\u00a0Alice Thompson, Allan Guthrie and Louise Welsh.\u00a0 <\/span>As MacBride says, \u201c<\/span>Tartan Noir doesn\u2019t exist…You can\u2019t pick up a\u00a0\u2018Tartan Noir novel\u2019 and expect to get the same thing every time. They are just\u00a0going to be incredibly different\u201d (interview extracts in our featured review<\/a>).\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

With the author\u2019s permission, Crimeculture<\/span> is delighted to present extracts from three of Wanner\u2019s<\/span> interviews, which we hope will convey\u00a0<\/span>something of the liveliness and insightfulness of this excellent collection,\u00a0<\/span>available from Amazon<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0 <\/span>For extracts from numerous other\u00a0<\/span>reviews, see Len Wanner\u2019s<\/span> website, The Crime of it<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>All<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Stuart MacBride<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Stuart<\/a>
Stuart MacBride<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u2026Do foreign readers expect every Scottish writer to write like Ian\u00a0Rankin seeing as he\u2019s exported a certain notion of Scottishness<\/span>?<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

God bless him.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sure, why not. But does his success mean that the rest of Scottish crime\u00a0fiction is marketed according to the terms of \u2018Tartan Noir\u2019, whatever that may\u00a0be?<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Tartan Noir doesn\u2019t exist. It\u2019s a\u00a0very convenient umbrella under which to promote crime fiction that is written\u00a0in Scotland. It\u2019s another \u201cGod bless\u201d \u2013 this time James Ellroy<\/span> for coming up with it. Scottish crime fiction is\u00a0incredibly varied. You can\u2019t look at it and say it\u2019s all of a \u2018type\u2019, because\u00a0it\u2019s not. It\u2019s all over the genre. It\u2019s a huge spread from very gritty\u00a0hardboiled stuff like Ray Banks and Allan Guthrie to<\/span> much gentler styles of crime writing like Alexander McCall Smith and Aline<\/span> Templeton. You can\u2019t pick up a \u2018Tartan Noir novel\u2019\u00a0and expect to get the same thing every time. They are just going to be\u00a0incredibly different. But it\u2019s a wonderful marketing tool to sell the books\u00a0outside Scotland.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you read a novel that came without a cover, title or name, do you\u00a0think you might be able to recognise the writer if he or she were Scottish?<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Some writers yes, other writers\u00a0no.<\/span><\/p>\n

Why some?<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Well, there are some key parts of\u00a0the Scottish psyche… They\u2019re not universal, by any means, but there\u2019s quite a\u00a0black sense of humour that runs through a lot of Scottish life \u2013 possibly\u00a0to do with the weather. We have an extremely healthy disrespect for authority,\u00a0which probably comes down to our political nationhood over the past 40, 50, 60,\u00a070, 80, 90 or 100 years, possible longer. We are incredibly \u201cthrawn<\/span>\u201d as a culture. It\u2019s a Scottish word that means that\u00a0if you tell us to do something we will do exactly the opposite, given the\u00a0opportunity. That is how we are….<\/span><\/p>\n

Read more<\/a>…<\/span><\/p>\n


\n<\/span><\/p>\n


\n<\/span><\/em><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Len Wanner,\u00a0Dead Sharp: Scottish Crime Writers on\u00a0Country and Craft\u00a0(Two Ravens Press, 2011) Review and Extracts In these intelligent, perceptive, fascinating<\/p>\n

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