Neil Gaiman is the rock star of writing. Writing what you may ask. Writing practically anything.
He is unusually prolific, writing fantasy, spooky fairytales, science fiction, and apocalyptic romps, in the form of novels, comics, picture books, short stories, poems, and screenplays for film and television (in May he made Doctor Who’s cybermen scarier and he has an HBO show in the works), as well as maintaining his blog, tweeting to 1.8 million followers and tumblr- ing, and, occasionally, with indie musician wife Amanda Palmer, writing and performing songs.
Described by The New Yorker as “Kid Goth” and The Times as “the most famous writer you’ve never heard of”, Gaiman is 52 and English-pale with wild black-and- grey hair (he wrote a terrific rhyming picturebook called Crazy Hair, which must surely be based on his own curly mop).
He is the guy who, with British fantasy writer Terry Pratchett, wrote about “an Angel who did not so much Fall as Saunter Vaguely Downwards” in his first novel, Good Omens, in 1990. Yet, his long- awaited new book, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, is the first since 2005’s Anansi Boys to be written for adult consumption.
He has said of The Ocean at the End of the Lane: “I think it’s probably my best book, which is why I am very nervous about it, which is why I really want to do whatever I can to make sure that as many people as possible read it”.
He began writing the story of his childhood for his wife. “I’m very proud of it, this thing I wrote for Amanda, and Amanda loves it,” he says.
Palmer, who first hit the spotlight in indie band The Dresden Dolls, will perform in Wellington in September.
“Normally I don’t write books by accident. I’m very methodical. Normally I go, ‘Right, I’m going to write a book. It will be called American Gods and it will be a bit like a brick, it will be huge’. And then I’ll write and can often spend two years writing that book.”
He was trying to tell his wife something about himself and where he came from with the fable-like tale.
“She was in Melbourne for four months rehearsing a band and recording an album and I missed her,” he says.
“I took this half-remembered fragment of anecdote that my father once told me and I thought it was an interesting place to start, set in a landscape I grew up in, with a dude who looks a lot like me . . . And then it just kept going. It was kind of like driving down a narrow road late at night, in the fog, in a car, where you can only see a little bit ahead of where you are.”
Gaiman says one of the reasons his relationship with Palmer works is “I’m willing to let her go”.
“I’m always happy to see her, but there’s been no attempt by either of us to say ‘We’re going to be a proper married couple where we live in the same place all the time and all our attention goes to the other one’ or that kind of thing.
“Years before she met me, Amanda spent most of her time dating lead singers of bands, which she did less because they were lead singers of bands and more because she kept expecting she would find one who thought like she did. And that one kept not turning up. One of the things we bonded on, when we first met, even though I was a writer and she was a rock star, we had very similar foundations and incredibly similar relationships with our fans.”
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As he was writing the final draft of The Ocean at the End of the Lane , he would read the book to his wife in bed each night until she fell asleep.
Among his current projects is a prequel to his cult Sandman comic books, or rather, the next chapter.
“I’m not sure how anyone can describe it as a prequel. It’s a story that takes place just before The Sandman No 1, which occurred in 1916, although because Sandman dates from 10,000 years ago and the last one was set literally billions of years ago, near the start of the universe, so for the prequel of Sandman you probably have to go before the Big Bang.
“This is just an untold story that was implied in the comics, so I’m telling that story.”
He’s also finishing things: HBO needs the final draft of the pilot script of American Gods, and then there’s a bunch of stuff for next year, including a book of myths from around the world. “I’ve never retold other people’s stories before. That is proving incredibly terrifying, but I’m loving it. You find what’s important to you in the myths and then you tell that story as cleanly and as beautifully and as vastly as you can.”
Gaiman has visited Wellington twice – once as guest of honour at a sci-fi convention and then the New Zealand International Arts Festival in 2010, where he spent several hours after his talk patiently signing autographs for many fans.
“I’ve enjoyed both of my trips to New Zealand. Last time I was there, the wonderful people at Weta found out I was there and had me come over and I got this amazing Weta tour, at the end of which they gave me a Dalek, just making me theirs for life. Weta owns my soul.”
The Ocean at the End of the Lane (Hachette, $36.99). Amanda Palmer and The Grand Theft Orchestra play Wellington’s San Francisco Bath House on September 4 and Auckland’s Kings Arms on September 6.
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