Interview with Richard Napier
by Mark Thwaite
Richard Napier has been a compulsive anagrammatist since his mother introduced him to the Daily Telegraph crossword at a young age. He lives in Surrey and has worked in the media for over 20 years. My Gonads Roar is his first book.
Mark Thwaite: What first gave you the idea for My Gonads Roar?
Richard Napier: I was on holiday in the south of France with a particularly tough Daily Telegraph crossword. One of the enigmatic clues that day got me thinking and the idea of creating an alternative world using anagrams as a base appealed to me, especially given that there is an element of truth hidden within many people’s names. All I change is the order of the letters; the new identity is already there just waiting to be unveiled. What I didn’t want to do, however, is just write a book that complied a list of anagrams. While some anagrams can indeed be funny in their own right, I wanted to write a comedy book that comments on the resulting outcome and creates an alternative, somewhat surreal world. Many of the anagrams in the book are even funnier once you’ve read the blurb about them.
MT: Your anagrams rearrange the names of the celebrities. As well as having lots of fun, are you trying to highlight the absurdity of celebrity culture?
RN: Absolutely, it would have been rude not to. There is tremendous satire to be had with those that maybe try too hard and appear on as many reality shows as possible just to try and maintain their ‘celebrity’ status. We currently have ex S Club Seven member Rachel Stevens on Strictly Come Dancing and one wouldn’t rule out the possibility of her teaming up with a couple of old band mates along with the boys from Blue to form a new band. Mix up the letters Rachel Stevens Blue and you get The Real S Club Seven! Of course, habitual celebrities such as Jordan, Lisa Scott-Lee, Abi Titmuss and Gareth Gates all come in for a bit of stick.
MT: When did your first start doing anagrams? Is it an obsession!?
RN: It’s certainly an addiction -- as soon as I meet someone, I’ll create an alternative existence for him or her. I think I was 8 when my mum introduced me to cryptic clues and I just loved them. Then through school I had great fun realising schoolmaster was an anagram of the classroom -- and I longed to have a German teacher called Mr Egan. I realised that my addiction stopped just short of being an obsession when I went to the doctors with a pain in my ears. I couldn’t bring myself to tell him that I had this nasty ringing sound in my arse.
MT: How long did it take you to write your book Richard?
RN: A year and a half. Sadly not everyone has a name you can anagrammatise that easily, so you have to go through a lot of Mikjah Plytsads, before you can celebrate a gem like Only Cars Jerk Me for automobile fanatic Jeremy Clarkson. Although that doesn’t stop people continually asking me to do their name, even though they’ll be called Jim Judge or something -- the letter "j" is always a tough one, hence why I like the Clarkson one so much.
MT: How do you write? Longhand or directly onto a computer, straight off or with lots and lots of editing?
RN: Very sadly, I sit with reams of paper and write letters in a circle, it helps you see alternative names in the best way. Once I have an anagram I’m happy with, I’ll get out the laptop and begin the challenge of creating humour out of the new name or title.
MT: Would it be wrong to ask if you could do me!? What anagram can you make of me, book-obsessed Mark Thwaite!?
RN: There you go there’s always someone... The best anagrams are those that are pertinent, rude or just bizarre and sometimes you can get lucky and go to one of several excellent websites, which will generate hundreds of different variations of your name and one may stand out. But it really helps if you know the person that you are dealing with and to be as creative as possible. So if for example you, Mark, didn’t have a dry sense of humour, we could say Mark Thwaite, a.k.a Wet Mirth, which is mildly amusing, but not fantastic. With a bit of research though, I discover that you have a new blog and live South of Manchester. So:
Mark Thwaite bookdepsoitory.co.uk = A Web Rookie. A Mouthy Stockport Kid.
Rather splendid as it even uses the two dots from the web site address.
MT: What do you do when you are not writing or doing crosswords?
RN: I watch my eldest son play in his band; I coach my youngest son’s football team and watch my daughter wear a lot of pink.
MT: Did you have an idea in your mind of your "ideal" reader? Did you write specifically for them?
RN: I think it’s impossible to write something like this for a typical reader. Readers of the lads’ mags, I would imagine, will love Ross Kemp starring in a film about a broken sausage called Pork Mess or Amy Winehouse asking the press Why U So Meanie? But there will be a different type of person who appreciates that Audrey Niffenegger (The Time Traveller's Wife) translates as Iffy Underage Genre or believe Yann Martell’s Life of Pi was A Mental Yarn. So I hope the book has a very broad appeal. Interestingly, those who have had a sneak preview have all picked different chapters as their favourite.
MT: What are you working on now Richard?
RN: Book 2, which will be published by Faber next autumn.
MT: Who is your favourite writer? What is/are your favourite book(s)?
RN: Parts of Ben Elton's observational humour I really like and Stephen Fry is brilliantly funny. Favourite book of recent times is David Peace’s The Damned United.
MT: Do you have any tips for the aspiring writer!?
RN: Uniqueness was everything for me. The agents I initially approached all received a bespoke letter with their individual anagram name. I was lucky enough to have Laetitia Rutherford at Toby Eady Associates to address as The Ultra Fair Editor. Jamie Coleman at the agency picked up on it, loved the concept, added some great ideas and everything snowballed. So if there’s any way at all (and yes it is very difficult) of making your submission stand out, it can only be a good thing.
MT: Do you have a favourite celebrity name anagram?
RN: I guess it will always be difficult to beat Virginia Bottomley admitting I’m an evil Tory bigot, but I would love the new Arctic Monkeys album to be called Sticky Romance or Linwood Barclay to write a book about Darnell from Big Brother entitled Cowardly Albino. These are the things that keep me awake at night.
MT: What is the best anagram you can make from your own name?
RN: A bit of poetic license needed, but as a horny young commission based salesman, I could have been A Rich Randi Rep.
MT: Anything else you would like to say?
On.
(If your readers don’t get that one Mark, maybe buying the book’s a bad idea…)
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