 | Although his latest novel, Lights Out in Wonderland, has been out and about for about six months now, DBC Pierre is interviewed by Laura Barnett for The Guardian. It's only a short piece, but newspapers seem to be becoming more and more reluctant to make such pieces available on their websites. |
What got you started?
Anger. I was unemployed, and had just spent a day feeling overwhelmingly disenchanted. In anger, I wrote a sentence and then a paragraph and then a page. And then I just kept going.
What was your big breakthrough?
The mind and person and spirit of the literary agent Clare Conville. I found her after 12 rejections, and she absolutely understood what I was trying to do.
Which writers do you most admire?
Gore Vidal - he was my first exposure to free-form writing. And Thomas Mann, for the utter and absolute beauty of his writing.
What's the greatest threat to literature?
Profit. Markets pull away from quality and head for the quick, easy and low. As more people are interested in Katie Price than Ernest Hemingway, the market will naturally exponentiate in her direction.
