Greetings, Bibliophiles!
Today I have the pleasure of sharing with you my interview with Andrew Webber, author of Erasure. After doing the review of Automaton and interview of Cheryl Davies, she recommended A.T.H. Webber to get in contact with me. It just so happened that when he did, I was testing out Google Forms as a basis for the start of interviews. He kindly offered to test it out with me. Here is the interview that spawned from it.
Bookworm: Thank you so much for helping me out with the Google form! So you were first brought to my attention thanks so Cheryl’s recommendation of your book, Erasure. Can you give us a brief synopsis?
Andrew Webber: What if we are fundamentally supposed to be forgotten? In this time of hyper-connectedness and society’s love of all things online, what if we are leaving a data picture for future archaeologists far more detailed and intimate than any mosaic adorning a Roman wall?
What if that data and the details of a life keep the individual from moving on to an after life, trapped in a middle ground until the last shred of existence erodes from history?
What if there was a group of people who believed the above to be true, and spent their lives driven only by the desire to expedite the middle ground – erasing everything that might save their memory?
The book follows the Narrator as he/she is faced with the dealings of a data-driven underworld bent on removing people from history, by any means. The Narrator’s partner is dead, and helped by the mysterious and slightly broken “Bammer”, the Narrator embarks on a quest to find the reasons why She was killed.
Erasure is by no means a geek-fest, nor is it even close to sci-fi.
It is a work of fiction, to be sure, but ALL of the concepts introduced to the story are real, and involve anyone with an internet connection and a credit card.
Bookworm: What inspired you to write Erasure?
Webber: It was an idea that had been bouncing around in my head for a while – but the catalyst for actually getting it down was:
A friend of mine died a couple of years ago. Melanie died of a heart attack – she was thirty years old.
She is STILL on facebook though, and people regularly tag her in photo’s, as a result Melanie continues to pop up in my time line.
Around the time I started writing the book, her death was still a recent thing – and relationships being what they are on FaceBook (particularly for me as an expat, peeping in at the lives of friends and family all over the world in one convenient blue and white place) I found myself consistently thinking as Mel popped up on my feed: “Oh, haven’t heard from her in a while, I wonder what she has been up to… wait..”.
Then the crushing realisation that she hadn’t actually been up to anything would invariably come steaming into my thoughts.
It got me thinking about whether being so intimately remembered after death might affect ones transition – keep us tethered here, as it were.
I am a fiction writer, and part of my job is to ask such questions in order to see where answers take me. While I don’t BELIEVE that the whole afterlife thing might be an issue, I do believe that the resulting questions created an interesting concept for a book.
Bookworm: From idea to print, how long did it take you to publish?
Webber: 12 Months
Bookworm: Does you have any other works? If so, what are they?
Webber: I have a library of yet to be released work, mostly shorts and poetry. I have written short prose for almost as long as I can remember.
My current focus is on the next book in the Erasure series – working title is “Broken”. I can’t discuss the guts of it – not due to any sensitivity to revealing the work, but to describe it would involve spoilers that would ruin the Erasure experience for those that are yet to read it.
What I can say is that currently it is a prequel to Erasure. I say “currently” because I suspect it is going to overlap the first book to some degree. I’ll have to wait and see how much.
Bookworm: What inspires you to write?
Webber: I spent a lot of time with my Grandfather when I was growing up, and learned much from him. He was the finest storyteller I have ever known, and I spent hours sitting in his workshop while he worked just listening to him.
My Grandfather was my hero, and my constant safe-harbour in a childhood that by any measure would be considered hard. (A story on it’s own) Unfortunately he died when I was 10, and there was no-one to fend of the demons that descended afterward, so I turned to writing and reading as much as I could so I could escape.
All of the above sounds a little melodramatic, and I hope that you aren’t now picturing me as some unwashed hermit writer secreted away in a dingy hovel bemoaning a truly awful childhood. I’m NOT! Things just are what they are, I’ve dealt with it all – and for the most part it seems like a childhood that someone else had.
I’m just truly grateful that I had my grandfather, even if only for a short while. The “H” in “A.T.H.” I added a couple of years ago to honour him, his name was Halsey. Without him, among so many other possible outcomes, I am not sure that writing would be part of me now.
Bookworm: What is your favorite book by a small press/indie author?
Webber: There are many, and I don’t know if it qualifies but “The Dog Stars”by Peter Heller is a standout.
Bookworm: What are you currently reading?
Webber: Hemingway’s collected short stories. And yes I know how that sounds.
Bookworm: What advice do you have for new authors?
Webber: Write. Grow a thick skin – not everyone wants to see you succeed, many of whom have never met you.
Write. Believe. Write.
Get it all out of you first, then go back to see how awful your technique is. If there is worth to the work, you’ll be able to dig it out in ensuing drafts.
Write.
Bookworm: Which book/character/scene do you wish you had written?
Webber: There are so many things that I wish I had written. To narrow them down to just one is a hard thing, so I’ll narrow it down to my favourite two moments.
Cormac McCarthy’s “Border Trilogy” is a triumph on so many levels. Each book (All the pretty horses, The Crossing, and Cities of the Plain) is amazing on its own, but the three culminate in one conversation in the Epilogue. No more than a paragraph or two, it is one of the most moving moments I have experienced in literature. It is almost as if all of the previous pages were designed only to frame the scene, a moment between an old man and a stranger. I remember having to stop for a moment, overcome with the enormity of such a simple thing. I have a lump in my throat just writing about it now.
The other: I am a huge fan of Charles Bukowski’s writing. I’m not sure I like him as a person, but amidst all of the detritus of a life spent below the fringe, and writing that is raw and confronting, there is (for me) one striking moment: His great love elected to drink herself to death, and the piece he wrote about standing in her bedroom holding a dress that she loved so much, and would now be her burial attire, is heartbreaking. It is a moment of clarity, emotion, and perfect poetry.
Just for fun
Favorite Literary Terry?
Terry Pratchett
If you were stranded on a desert island and had one book with you, which one would it be?
Robinson Crusoe OR “How to build a raft out of coconuts” . If it isn’t a book yet, it ought to be.
Midnight Craving?
I am not one for midnight cravings, BUT if I know there is an open block of chocolate somewhere nearby, I become fixated by it.
Favorite Jell-O Flavor?
Anything with a chocolate frog in it.
Chocolate Frog?
I think it is an Australian (ahem) delicacy.
Usually it’s lime jello with a chocolate frog stuck in it, a mainstay of pub desserts – “Frog in the pond” .
Think it’s been around since the seventies.
(Stop judging my people :-p )
Dark Secret?
I seem to be pretty articulate, and have no problem expressing myself in a manner that would suggest that I had spent at least a little time in the hallowed halls of a university. Friends (many of whom have been educated in the best schools in the world) often take it for granted that, when speaking to me, they are sharing a moment with one of their well educated peers.
It surprises them no end when they find out that I walked out of the front gate of my high school at 15 years and 3 weeks old and never went back.
Favorite Literary Character?
James Bond, Ethan Hunt, or Jason Bourne?
Aragon
Once again, thanks so much for all your help! I can’t wait to read Erasure. Now if you excuse me, I’m going look up frog in a pond!
You should all check out Andrew’s website as well as pick up a copy of Erasure if it strikes your fancy!
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