OBS: For me, your secondary characters- particularly Hicks, Warren and the Sombrero guy- bring an almost otherworldly, fantastical feel to the story – what were your influences to create those characters?

Graham Parke: I think that’s life, really. I am often amazed by what life decides to do to me and how it circumvents any plans I’m making with terrifying ease. The things these characters do to Gomez, that’s how I feel most of the time; bewildered and wanting to pull someone on the sleeve to ask, “Okay, so, what was that all about?”

OBS: The way you keep the reader on their toes, trying to decipher what is reality and what is fantasy, is amazing – did you have a clear vision of how this story would end? Or were you dragged along for the ride as well?

Graham Parke: I had a vague idea when I started. I knew bits from the beginning, the middle, and the end. I wasn’t too sure how I would get from one to the other, though. And, as it turns out, what little I knew was wrong anyway.

As soon as the beginning of a tale gets more detail, you gain a better understanding of the middle. As soon as the middle gets more detail, you realize why the ending will never work. In any way, shape, or form. I’ve come to believe that the only real value in thinking you know where a story is headed, is the delusion that you have an ending to fall back on if the real one fails to reveal itself.

Read the entire interview on Open Book Society.


No Hope for Gomez!


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