08/08/2013 Meet the Author

Thank you. Now on BBC News, it is time for Meet

The Author with Nick Higham. Then Brooks is 22 but he has already

written six novels. His last, written when he was 17, is called

Grow Up and it is about growing up as a self-aware teenager in modern

Britain, a world full of sex, drugs, alcohol, Internet porn, Facebook,

daytime TV and general adolescent angst. His latest book Lolito is the

recipe pretty much as before but one added ingredient. His 15-year-old

narrator meets an older woman in an online chat room and they start a

relationship. It is a funny book and an explicit one. It is probably not

for the faint-hearted or frankly, the parents of teenage children.

Ben Brooks, Nick Cave was shown the manuscript of your book and he says

it was one of the most horrible and the funniest books he has read for a

long time. Those two adjectives, funny and horrible, which one

pleases you the most? They are both exciting but probably funniest. That

is the thing I prefer. The books I like the most are books that make

you laugh because it seems very depressing. So many books you will

spend six hours reading and they do not make you laugh. There is

horrible stuff because it is seen from the perspective of a

15-year-old boy and they can be horrible. They can be horrible but

endearing, dare I say? Everybody is probably a little bit horrible but

it has naive cuteness that endears them despite any of the horrible

things they do. Your narrator is 15, he is home alone, his parents

have gone to Russia and his girlfriend has gone to Antigua. His

girlfriend has been unfaithful with someone called Eireann. He goes into

an adult chat room and what happens? He is bored and lonely and ends up

chatting with them over 40-year-old woman from Canada, aboard lonely

person and they end up forming a relationship. How many spoilers

should we do? They spend a couple of days together in a hotel. And she is

breaking the law because he is 15. That is the interesting thing

because of the recent news stories. It is topical. Were you aware of any

real-life situations? I was reading about it at the time. I felt, the

weird thing for me is everybody is quick to demonise a person in a

situation. The idea that it is someone's fault and it seems weird

that you demonise someone very quickly. I wanted to have a book

that was more evenhanded and less throwing blame around and more being

two lonely people who end up... the title is a parody of Nabokov's

Lolita. The difference there was that was a relationship between a

man and a prepubescent girl, that was definitely paedophilia. Teenage

boys, 15-year-olds, they are almost adults, it is different, isn't it?

It is a very difficult thing. I do not know. Personally, for me, my Nan

is going to watch this. When I was 13 or 14, I spent time pretending to

be an older man on the Internet because I wanted to interact with

older women and that was something which was good because they made me

feel safe. Paedophilia seems a difficult thing because immediately

it comes up and people go evil, evil guy, that is the worst thing you can

be in the world. What are her motives? Saying motives makes it

sound evil and predatory. It is someone, a lonely person, who is

someone says I am lonely as well, let's talk about something or do

something together, it seems OK to me. One of the things that struck me

as someone who used to be a parent of teenage children, is the sheer

deluge of stuff. They did not die? No, my children are now grown-up,

but they were once teenagers! The thing that struck me is the

incredible deluge of stuff on the Internet, videos, television, stuff

that today's 15-year-olds have to deal with, a lot of it quite extreme

and extraordinary. Presumably, you have said this book is partly

autobiographical, how does a kid make sense of all of that? I do not

think you come out of all that. I am vaguely of the generation that never

did not have the Internet. Your concentration span goes and you need

constant information coming from all these different sources. You need

news, you need pictures. You think, I wonder how much Britney Murphy was

worth before she died, and you find out. Your previous book, called Grow

Up, and the phone is going off. is my mum! She is not watching, it

is not live. Let's ask the question again. Your previous book was called

Grow Up and it is being filmed by E4. They are in a thing.They

might. Hopefully.Was writing novels away into writing for television?

No, I have written a pilot with a friend recently and I am interested

in writing for television. I think in some eyes I prefer it but the

novel, I think I have fallen in love with a lot more novels than TV

programmes. This is your sixth novel. No way.Fifth? We had an

issue with one of the books. Would you stand by the early ones? You

were very young when you wrote them. My first book was my best

book, probably. My sister said it was the most boring book she had

ever opened in her life. In response to that I wrote Grow Up because I

said, I can make you laugh and I can make something which you would

enjoy. The first ones were very experimental. Would you go back to

that? I could not now really. This is my job, I think! It would be nice

but I cannot afford to go back to that, I guess. You have a living to

earn? Yes.What would you do next? Try and do better. I feel not at all