​THE WISE FRIEND: CHATTING WITH HORROR LEGEND RAMSEY CAMPBELL

​The Wise Friend: Chatting with horror legend Ramsey Campbell
Today we are delighted to give you a brand-new interview with horror legend Mr Ramsey Campbell. There are few, if any authors, who have given as much to the genre as Mr Campbell. His massive shadow and influence cloaks every aspect of modern horror fiction and in 2020, almost 45 years since his debut novel, he is in fine form with The Wise Friend, which this interview focuses upon.  

Considerable his status in the world of horror it is lovely to find Ramsey so accessible online and is incredibly friendly to fans and those curious in the macabre. There is a Facebook group called Books of Horror (of over 7000 members) which I just must mention which both Ramsey and I haunt. Although the odd interesting thread pops up it usually features dumb and very repetitive questions along the lines of “I’ve read Stephen King. What do I try next?” style of questions and those looking for writing tips or other recommendations. I always enjoy Ramsey’s, often amusing, comments on this page and sometimes ask myself “DO THESE PEOPLE NOT KNOW WHO THIS GUY IS?” He has much more patience for the page than I do and if he abandoned the page I would probably follow him!
 
The darkness in paintings by the likes of Hieronymus Bosch and William Blake makes art a perfect medium for horror fiction to nod to for inspiration. What is your take on this?

I think you’re right, though I’ve rarely taken directly from paintings. One exception is an image of an isolated streetlamp in The Doll Who Ate His Mother, which was my version of a favourite Magritte image – indeed, I wanted Liverpool University Press to use one of these Magrittes on the cover of Joshi’s monograph, but apparently the rights would have cost too much. I certainly feel affinities with some art – the psychedelic images in Walter Hopps’ anthology Visions remind me quite a bit of similar experiences of my own, which show up in tales such as “Above the World” and “The Voice of the Beach”. For that matter, there are book covers I love – for instance, I bought Best Horror Stories back in 1957 partly for the splendidly atmospheric cover by the gay New Zealand painter Felix Kelly, who had quite a feel for the uncanny. One artist I have collaborated with more than once is J. K. Potter, and very productive it was.

Apart from a brief flashback scene Patrick Torrington’s artist aunt Thelma is dead long before ‘A Wise Friend’ begins, nevertheless her presence dominates the novel, was the character based upon/inspired by any real artist(s) or anything genuine from the world of art?

No – to be honest, I invented her and her work and then went looking for actual figures who might have influenced her or were similar (though I did know of Leonora Carrington, not to mention folk like Osman Spare). It’s sometimes uncanny how that process can work – finding sources for a fictional character – though of course I could have been drawing subconsciously on them.

Much of the novel involves Patrick, his son Roy and the slightly odd Bella retracing the footsteps of Aunt Thelma and the potentially magical/mystical sites which inspired her work. This was from all around the Merseyside countryside, did you use genuine locations or places with dubious histories? You obviously use Liverpool a lot in your fiction….

I have to confess, that all the magical sites are my invention – a pity, since I wouldn’t mind visiting some of them. Perhaps I shall in dreams. New Brighton is as described, though, along with Liverpool and a bit of Manchester.

Thelma featured in one major flashback scene when teenage Patrick visited, was there any particular reason why there were no subsequent flashbacks or any thoughts to develop her character more fully? I thought this was a very strong sequence….

My instinct was to keep her relatively mysterious, a haunting memory and an enigma. I hope it works!

Patrick is not the most likable of characters and has the habit of antagonising and getting the backs up of the rest of his family. Often when the main character is unlikable it can put readers off a book, did you ever have any concern readers would struggle connecting with Patrick?

I must admit I never saw him that way. He’s just a human being, as flawed as the rest of us – certainly as the author. I do think his motives are sympathetic, even when he makes mistakes. Mind you, your question reminds me that early in my career as a novelist my old much-missed friend and agent Kirby McCauley commented that my characters were morally grey and compared them to those of the director Fritz Lang. I took this as a considerable compliment – he made quite a few great films.

‘The Wise Friend’ and some of your other very recent fiction I’ve read, such as ‘Thirteen Days at Sunset Beach’, features virtually no violence, blood, and few deaths; as you’ve got older (or mellowed) have you noticed your work moving away from the bloodier side of horror fiction? Not that I have ever seen your work as particularly bloodthirsty….

I’ve generally shown no more than necessary in terms of horror or violence, but that varies from tale to tale. The first novel where I consciously tried to avoid violence as unnecessary was Midnight Sun, and I think that has influenced my approach in some books since. I’ve certainly tended to concentrate on the uncanny and to do my best to reach for awe in some, and gore isn’t really relevant to that. On the other hand, we have a pretty grisly act of violence near the rend of Ghosts Know. It’s a matter of the requirements of the context, I believe.

Along with the recent ‘Thirteen Days at Sunset Beach’, both novels for a very long period tread a fine line on whether there is anything supernatural going on at all, you’ve used this tactic incredibly successfully over the years, is this your favourite type of ‘horror’ always laced with ambiguity?

It’s one of them, certainly. Perhaps multiplicity of meaning and interpretation is a larger preference that includes it. My absolute favourite would be the kind that aspires to awesomeness or cosmic terror – The Willows, The White People, The Colour out of Space lead my list. I keep making literary leaps at it and perhaps occasionally manage more than a feeble hop.

Both ‘The Wise Friend’ and ‘Thirteen Days at Sunset Beach’ involve family problems as an opportunity to create a supernatural story. When you were developing ‘The Wise Friend’ did you come up with the supernatural story independently and then build the family dynamics around the core idea?

I think these elements developed pretty well in parallel. In both books I began to see my way once I had some sense of the mina characters and their relationships, but that’s generally how it happens for me. In Thirteen Days the central couple came to visit my imagination almost as soon as the initial idea of Sunset Beach did, and I had pages of notes about both by the end of that first day (on Zakynthos, for the record).

I couldn’t help googling the character ‘Lumen Scientiae’ but came up blank…. His presence (and book) also lurk in the background of the story, was this inspired by anything historically genuine?

Lord, I hope not! I’d stay out of his environs if so, should we be able to locate them. On the other hand, there is indeed a witchcraft collection in Manchester Central Library, though I’ll swear I didn’t know that until I decided to set some scenes in that city and looked in their online catalogue to see what they had on the subject. I’m a great believer from experience in happy coincidences when it comes to writing. I should mention that the staff of the Manchester library archive in my tale bear no resemblance to the actual very helpful staff.

I noticed ‘The Wise Friend’ had a first-person narrative in which the entire story is seen from Patrick Torrington’s point of view. Was this to build in an unreliable narrator element into the plot or do you have any other spoiler-free thoughts you can share with us?

I have to admit that my choice of viewpoint or viewpoints in any tale, as well as person and tense, is wholly instinctive. 

I was recently chatting with a Twitter/reviewer friend who was just about to read ‘The Wise Friend’, which would be the first of your novels he had sampled. How good an introduction to your fiction do you see your latest effort?

Pretty good, I’d say. I hope so, anyway!

By day I work as a school librarian and because of my lifelong interest in horror fiction our fiction collection is superb, including yourself and the likes of Adam Nevill, Stephen King and Nick Cutter. To teens developing an interest in horror, of your fiction I usually recommend ‘The Grin of the Dark’, but a couple of years ago a kid (around 16) when he returned it commented that although he enjoyed the novel it gave him an unpleasant bad dream! Which of your novels would you recommend to a horror newbie or younger reader?

The Influence might be a candidate, which could almost (or maybe not even almost) be published as young adult fiction, do you think? [TONY ADDS: OKAY RAMSEY YOU’VE CONVINCED ME, BOUGHT FOR MY LIBRARY!]

I enjoyed the Spanish language version of ‘The Influence’ currently on Netflix, it was atmospheric and well-paced, retaining the spirit of your novel. What did you think of it?

Pretty powerful and disturbing, I thought.

Given the choice which of your other novels would you like to see filmed?

Maybe The Grin of the Dark by someone suitably unsettling. Or perhaps the trilogy for television?

From ‘idea to completion’ how long did ‘The Wise Friend’ take? How does this compare with some of your other recent projects?

Pretty well like all my novels for decades, it was about a year in the making. I’ll usually get the basic idea or ideas earlier than that, but the concerted process involves developing them and gathering material until I think I have enough to make a start on the writing – not a preconceived plot but a looser idea of the structure and the order of events, which will change in the process of writing. Once the first (always longhand) draft is done I’ll let it sit for a while and then reread it as a preamble to rewriting it on the computer. That version is printed out for reading and further revision, and at last it’s loose on the world – on my agent, at any rate.

In the last couple of years Flame Tree Press have made a major splash in the horror world and have published new work by yourself (‘Think Yourself Lucky’, ‘Thirteen Days at Sunset Beach’ and ‘The Wise Friend’) as well as ‘The Hungry Moon’ and ‘The Influence’ from your back-catalogue. With the rereleases, ‘The Influence’ was obviously picked up because of the film, why ‘The Hungry Moon’ in particular? Will Flame Tree be rereleasing other titles in future?

In fact, The Influence was scheduled before the film went into production, which suggests that some benevolent force may have been sat work (thank you, Daoloth?) It and The Hungry Moon were the publisher’s choices, and more indeed may be to come.

If you were to spot any author, alive or dead, reading one of your novels on the London Underground who would you like it to be?

Since I can dream, Graham Greene.

Ramsey, it has been a pleasure having you on Ginger Nuts of Horror. On a personal level, the opportunity to correspond with an author I have for read for over twenty years has been one of the genuine highlights of the years I have been reviewing and writing about horror fiction. The best of luck with ‘The Wise Friend’ and your future projects.  

Tony Jones

Be sure to tune in on Thursday when we have not one but two reviews for The Wise Friend from Tony Jones And Allen Stroud 

​THE WISE FRIEND by RAMSEY CAMPBELL

An absolute master of modern horror. And a damn fine writer at that - Guillermo del Toro

Patrick Torrington's aunt Thelma was a successful artist whose late work turned towards the occult. While staying with her in his teens he found evidence that she used to visit magical sites. As an adult he discovers her journal of her explorations, and his teenage son Roy becomes fascinated too. His experiences at the sites scare Patrick away from them, but Roy carries on the search, together with his new girlfriend. Can Patrick convince his son that his increasingly terrible suspicions are real, or will what they ve helped to rouse take a new hold on the world?

FLAME TREE PRESS is the new fiction imprint of Flame Tree Publishing. Launched in 2018 the list brings together brilliant new authors and the more established; the award winners, and exciting, original voices.

---