Well, WhitLit 2014 drew to a close on Sunday ending with a public talk with JGS at the Horsebridge in Whitstable. It was very well-attended, the atmosphere congenial, the audience appreciative and the conversation (hopefully) informative and entertaining. There were certainly plenty of laughs during the hour or so that we chatted; John is a relaxed and natural entertainer with a wicked sense of humour.
In between the laughs there was, I think, a casual drilling down to what makes John tick as a crime writer: what or who are his inspirations, how he made the transition from acting into writing novels, what the themes of his work are (forgiveness, redemption, truth and lies, love and loss, how people deal with grief and crisis etc) and how he fashions his fast, bloody and complex hard-boiled crime thrillers (the twisting plots he keeps all in his head, and beer is kept in a fridge in his writing hut in the garden). Elmore Leonard's novels are, of course, a huge influence on him, but also Dickens and Cormac McCarthy.
We discussed the various levels of violence in his own novels, the reasons for it, and how he tries to balance this by injecting pathos into the relationships of his protagonists, male and female. There is, he agreed, a subtle shift in the emotional core of his second novel, Blood Whispers, perhaps aided by having a strong central female character. His writing is 'hard-boiled' in style, but there could be a soft centre.
I enjoyed reading his very filmic novels (Seventy Times Seven and Blood Whispers) and was not surprised to discover that he is a fan of Tarentino and that he would love to see either or both of his books turned into films. There was even a hint that "Jack" (Nicholson) has a copy of one of his books.
In the meantime, John will be promoting Blood Whispers at a number of crime festivals around the UK including Bristol and Edinburgh later in the year, and is already working on a third novel. We were privileged in having a preview of Blood Whispers in Whitstable at the weekend, as the book is not officially out until early June.
John Gordon Sinclair has come a long way since Bill Forsyth's 1981 film, Gregory's Girl, not least living in Surrey with his wife and two daughters. He still acts now and then, and will probably be appearing in the West End again later this year, but as he said during our talk, novel-writing is his love and passion now, and I wish him all the very best with everything he goes on to write. This, as it might turn out, is not only crime novels. Somebody in the audience asked if he ever considered writing for children, and he suggested he had ideas for a book aimed at young adults; something his own children might get to read as they begin to grow up.
It was a pleasure spending time with John, not only on stage, but in the green room beforehand. From my conversations and observations on the night I came to the conclusion that John's passion for writing is driven by an instinctive interest in people, the problems our world can throw at them and how they may be overcome. These are the things that make him tick.
On reflection, JGS makes everything look quite effortless, be it acting or writing, but I suspect he puts a great deal of thought and work into all that he does, be that acting in musicals, writing crime thrillers or fitting a new bathroom. He is pretty handy at DIY apparently, and is a fully qualified electrican.
I hope the evening sparked new ideas for any would-be crime writers in the audience, and that WhitLit goes from strength to strength after its inaugural year!
AFM
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