Hero worship

No More Heroes is the third outing for Fife-born author Ray Banks's protagonist Cal Innes. Hailed as one of the brightest new stars on the UK crime fiction scene Banks spoke to Tony Black for Pulp Pusher.

Tony Black: Whatever happened to all the heroes?

Ray Banks: All the Shakespearoes? I believe they watched their Rome burn.

What titles did you reject before settling on No More Heroes?

None. NO MORE HEROES was the only title I had in mind. And I would've fought tooth and nail to keep it.

Who are your literary heroes?

Charles Willeford, Ted Lewis and Chester Himes are all guys I revisit on a very regular basis. And out of those living, I'm in awe of the noir triumvirate: Daniel Woodrell, James Sallis and Ken Bruen. Out of genre, Fante and Bukowski loom large, as does Ken Kesey and Hubert Selby. I could go on and on, though.

I always enjoy the humour in your work, are you a laugh-a-minute kind of guy or, like most comedians, a dour git?

I don't know. I like to think I can be pretty funny, but then doesn't everyone? I mean, we all think we've got good taste and a sense humour, don't we? As for how I am most of the time, I doubt I'm a laugh-a-minute kind of guy. I have a tendency towards immense dissatisfaction with everything I do, and that can manifest itself as moodiness.

How did you come by the name for your character, Cal Innes?

I asked my missus to come up with a name for a PI. She picked that one. Turns out the guy's an artist, so now it looks like I've pulled a Michael Connelly. I swear, though, that we didn't know anything about the guy at the time.

Is there any Ray Banks in Cal Innes?

Less and less with each book. We've got the same sense of humour, obviously, but I'm neither as self-destructive nor as perpetually intoxicated.

At one point in No More Heroes Cal ponders on what happened to the orange-yellow plastic on old Lucozade bottles … do you get nostalgic for anything?

Nah, nostalgia's not as much fun as it used to be.

(Thank you, I'm here all week ...)

You were born in Fife (Scotland), I believe.

I was born in Fife, but I don't remember much about it other than it was grey and windy. Moved around quite a bit when I was a kid.

Is the old maxim for writers 'leave home' good advice to your mind, then?

Absolutely. Leave home, learn stuff, have as many jobs as you can while you're young enough to live on nowt. Don't own a television. Read as if every book is your last, and write the same way.

You have had a lot of short fiction published, do you prefer the shorter form to the novel?

Both have pros and cons. Novels pay better, but take longer. Shorts are mostly freebies, but have that almost instant gratification thing going for them. They also allow for experimentation.

Do you think it's getting harder and harder for new writers now?

God, you make it sound as if I've been doing this for decades.

Okay, it's hard to get published - and it should be hard, there should be graft involved - but I don't think it's necessarily harder since I started. There are more and more opportunities to learn the craft by subbing to ezines that edit. I understand that some writers might think they're wasting their time doing that, but I can only speak for myself in that it did me the world of good, not only learning how to write, but also how to take edits.

As for the publishing climate - yes, publishers aren't in the business of nuturing authors anymore, they're not overly keen on breaking what they might see as a working formula, and it's true that there are so many ways for a book to fail, but this is hardly a new turn of events. What might make things harder is the wealth of conflicting advice out there, mostly from people whose qualifications are suspect to say the least.

But overall, not that much has changed. Write the book, revise the book, sub the book. Repeat as required.

I spoke to your buddy Al Guthrie and he claims to have got where he has more on application than talent, where do you see yourself on the talent/graft spectrum?

Probably about the same, though you should probably throw timing into that equation. If I hadn't met my wife (who essentially got me writing for publication in the first place) at the right time, if I hadn't met Allan Guthrie (who acquired and edited my first book) at the right time, if my agent hadn't approached me at the right time ... I kind of dread looking back at how I started, because in hindsight all I can see is that house of cards I've apparently built a career on. My only hope is that I can sustain that kind of momentum with graft. Talent is too intangible a concept for me to contemplate.

More and more people are heaping praise on Ray Banks these days, do you expect your books to go supernova any time soon?

It's great that people are taking to the books, but I tend to keep my expectations very low. That way, every nice thing said is a fantastic surprise.

What's your assessment of the current crime genre offerings?

Sometimes I think Sturgeon's Law needs another six percent added to it. Not that there's anything the matter with the genre itself, I'm just not a police procedural fan, which makes up a vast majority of crime novels published, especially in Britain, so it's rare that I read in the genre now.

What's the worst thing you've discovered about being a published author?

That writing is a much smaller part of the job than it should be.

You worked as a croupier before becoming an author, and had first-hand experience of a raid … did that cut short another promising career?

No, that part of my bio is misleading. I didn't leave the casino because we were raided. There were myriad other reasons.

What's the worst job you've had?

I worked as a temp in a biscuit factory in the middle of the summer, making chocolate biscuits that were melting as soon as they were made. My job was shovelling Rice Krispies into a big vat of caramel and taking giant sacks of peppermint fondant out to a skip infested with wasps. For twelve hours a day.

At one stage in No More Heroes Cal employs 'foot in the door tactics', was this your experience as a double glazing salesman coming through?

Never done that in my life. Especially on the doors - if you're doing that, you're not going to get the sale anyway, and it's possible you're going to get your foot broken.

I think, after Cal, my favourite character in No More Heroes has to be Daft Frank … where did you find him? Have you met a few dafties?

Ah, Frank might be daft, but he's loyal. And, despite the whole armed robbery thing, I think he's pretty decent. And I have met a few dafties in my life, very few of them as nice as Francis.

What's on Ray Banks's reading list right now?

Just finished Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick, dipped into Harlan Ellison's shorts, if you'll pardon the expression, and now I'm onto Richard Ford's The Sportswriter.

You appeared at the Edinburgh Book Festival last year, any plans to return?

Hey, if they'll have me, I'll be back like a shot. The EIBF is a total blast every year - they make you comfortable to be an author. Like, "It's okay, you're not mentally deficient, and there are people who'd like to see you."

At the end of NO MORE HEROES Cal is looking a bit worse for wear, what's next for him?

Beast Of Burden. After that, we'll see.

And what's next for Ray Banks?

A sandwich, probably. Then a nap.

This article originally appeared at Books from Scotland

TONY BLACK's first novel PAYING FOR IT is to be published by Random House in July 2008. Ken Bruen kindly praised the book, saying it "blasts off the page like a triple malt . . . one adrenaline-pumped novel that is as moving and compassionate as it is so stylishly written". More of his writing can be found online at: Scotsman.com, Thug Lit, Shots, Demolition and Out of the Gutter. Black lives and works in Edinburgh. Reach him via his website: www.tonyblack.net

Read Tony's Crime Space competition short ... here