“Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?” # 546: Neville Thompson

Yep, it’s rubber-hose time, folks: a rapid-fire Q&A for those shifty-looking usual suspects ...
What crime novel would you most like to have written?
Has to be THE CAVEMAN by David Dawes Green. I love it. I love the whole description of the caveman and the madness of what goes on in his head and then the reality that its not that mad after all. I was disappointed with his next book THE JUROR but CAVEMAN was pure pleasure.
Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
I love Irvine Welsh, and although his last few novels are crap I still go out and buy everything he does. For guilty pleasures PORNO is hard to beat. I laughed out loud at the stuff he came up with in that. TRAINSPOTTING is a read over and over again book and it never loses its appeal. FILTH (apart from the snake bit at the end) is very clever and possibly the most hateable lead character ever.
Most satisfying writing moment?
For me it is always the latest project, when you get excited about where the story is going and you just stay up writing for hours. Nothing beats it ... well, some things do but you know what I mean. I like writing stuff that will catch the audience out. There’s a guy called Hippo and another called Fing in my latest book and I loved writing them.
The best Irish crime novel is …?
Haven’t a clue, was THE CRYING GAME a novel? Is it crime? If it is, then that. Irvine Welsh is living here now, isn’t he? If that’s the case, FILTH!
What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?
I should have read all these first, shouldn’t I? THE CRYING GAME! I always thought my own JACKIE LOVES JOHNSER was a model to be made into a film but the only ones who wanted it were foreign. It’s due to be made into a French film this year.
Worst / best thing about being a writer?
Best is doing what you want to do as a job. Worst is every fucker you meet telling you should write his story.
The pitch for your next novel is …?
Fat guy from Dublin goes to Thailand and falls in love with a prostitute ...
Who are you reading right now?
Reading a book on how to make a micro-budget film ’cause I want to make a film of a script I wrote and no one will touch it with a barge pole ’cause it’s politically incorrect.
The three best words to describe your own writing are …?
Modern, funny, real.

Neville Thompson’s A Simple Twist of Fate is available now.

They Say The Neville Has All The Best Tunes

Word around the campfire is that Neville Thompson has a new novel due next month, A Simple Twist of Faith - which may or may not be hinked into the Dylan tune of the same name. Thompson looked set fair when his debut, Jackie Loves Johnser, OK? sold a staggering 17,000 copies in the Irish market, and he then penned the superbly titled Two Birds / One Stoned - until those pesky contractual wrangles set in with Poolbeg, to the surprise of absolutely every writer in Ireland (ahem). Anyhoo, the way the rabidly intelleckshual Dublin Quarterly devotes the vast part of its current Big Conversation to Neville's offering of last year, Mama's Boys, is entirely post-modern, or summat, we can't keep up ... but hey, at least they're giving Irish crime fiction the respeck, yo. Which is nice ...