:00:05. > :00:12.Thank you. Now on BBC News, it is time for Meet
:00:12. > :00:17.The Author with Nick Higham. Then Brooks is 22 but he has already
:00:17. > :00:20.written six novels. His last, written when he was 17, is called
:00:21. > :00:26.Grow Up and it is about growing up as a self-aware teenager in modern
:00:26. > :00:36.Britain, a world full of sex, drugs, alcohol, Internet porn, Facebook,
:00:36. > :00:36.
:00:36. > :00:39.daytime TV and general adolescent angst. His latest book Lolito is the
:00:39. > :00:42.recipe pretty much as before but one added ingredient. His 15-year-old
:00:42. > :00:49.narrator meets an older woman in an online chat room and they start a
:00:49. > :00:54.relationship. It is a funny book and an explicit one. It is probably not
:00:54. > :01:00.for the faint-hearted or frankly, the parents of teenage children.
:01:00. > :01:04.Ben Brooks, Nick Cave was shown the manuscript of your book and he says
:01:04. > :01:09.it was one of the most horrible and the funniest books he has read for a
:01:09. > :01:14.long time. Those two adjectives, funny and horrible, which one
:01:14. > :01:19.pleases you the most? They are both exciting but probably funniest. That
:01:19. > :01:25.is the thing I prefer. The books I like the most are books that make
:01:25. > :01:30.you laugh because it seems very depressing. So many books you will
:01:30. > :01:33.spend six hours reading and they do not make you laugh. There is
:01:34. > :01:39.horrible stuff because it is seen from the perspective of a
:01:39. > :01:43.15-year-old boy and they can be horrible. They can be horrible but
:01:43. > :01:50.endearing, dare I say? Everybody is probably a little bit horrible but
:01:50. > :01:57.it has naive cuteness that endears them despite any of the horrible
:01:57. > :02:04.things they do. Your narrator is 15, he is home alone, his parents
:02:04. > :02:08.have gone to Russia and his girlfriend has gone to Antigua. His
:02:08. > :02:18.girlfriend has been unfaithful with someone called Eireann. He goes into
:02:18. > :02:26.an adult chat room and what happens? He is bored and lonely and ends up
:02:27. > :02:34.chatting with them over 40-year-old woman from Canada, aboard lonely
:02:34. > :02:40.person and they end up forming a relationship. How many spoilers
:02:40. > :02:44.should we do? They spend a couple of days together in a hotel. And she is
:02:44. > :02:51.breaking the law because he is 15. That is the interesting thing
:02:51. > :02:57.because of the recent news stories. It is topical. Were you aware of any
:02:57. > :03:05.real-life situations? I was reading about it at the time. I felt, the
:03:05. > :03:11.weird thing for me is everybody is quick to demonise a person in a
:03:11. > :03:15.situation. The idea that it is someone's fault and it seems weird
:03:15. > :03:19.that you demonise someone very quickly. I wanted to have a book
:03:19. > :03:28.that was more evenhanded and less throwing blame around and more being
:03:28. > :03:32.two lonely people who end up... the title is a parody of Nabokov's
:03:32. > :03:38.Lolita. The difference there was that was a relationship between a
:03:38. > :03:43.man and a prepubescent girl, that was definitely paedophilia. Teenage
:03:43. > :03:51.boys, 15-year-olds, they are almost adults, it is different, isn't it?
:03:51. > :03:58.It is a very difficult thing. I do not know. Personally, for me, my Nan
:03:59. > :04:02.is going to watch this. When I was 13 or 14, I spent time pretending to
:04:02. > :04:06.be an older man on the Internet because I wanted to interact with
:04:06. > :04:13.older women and that was something which was good because they made me
:04:13. > :04:18.feel safe. Paedophilia seems a difficult thing because immediately
:04:18. > :04:25.it comes up and people go evil, evil guy, that is the worst thing you can
:04:25. > :04:31.be in the world. What are her motives? Saying motives makes it
:04:31. > :04:35.sound evil and predatory. It is someone, a lonely person, who is
:04:35. > :04:40.someone says I am lonely as well, let's talk about something or do
:04:40. > :04:45.something together, it seems OK to me. One of the things that struck me
:04:45. > :04:53.as someone who used to be a parent of teenage children, is the sheer
:04:53. > :04:58.deluge of stuff. They did not die? No, my children are now grown-up,
:04:58. > :05:05.but they were once teenagers! The thing that struck me is the
:05:05. > :05:11.incredible deluge of stuff on the Internet, videos, television, stuff
:05:11. > :05:16.that today's 15-year-olds have to deal with, a lot of it quite extreme
:05:16. > :05:21.and extraordinary. Presumably, you have said this book is partly
:05:21. > :05:27.autobiographical, how does a kid make sense of all of that? I do not
:05:27. > :05:33.think you come out of all that. I am vaguely of the generation that never
:05:33. > :05:37.did not have the Internet. Your concentration span goes and you need
:05:37. > :05:43.constant information coming from all these different sources. You need
:05:43. > :05:49.news, you need pictures. You think, I wonder how much Britney Murphy was
:05:49. > :05:59.worth before she died, and you find out. Your previous book, called Grow
:05:59. > :06:03.
:06:03. > :06:09.Up, and the phone is going off. is my mum! She is not watching, it
:06:09. > :06:18.is not live. Let's ask the question again. Your previous book was called
:06:18. > :06:25.Grow Up and it is being filmed by E4. They are in a thing.They
:06:25. > :06:30.might. Hopefully.Was writing novels away into writing for television?
:06:30. > :06:36.No, I have written a pilot with a friend recently and I am interested
:06:36. > :06:40.in writing for television. I think in some eyes I prefer it but the
:06:41. > :06:50.novel, I think I have fallen in love with a lot more novels than TV
:06:51. > :06:51.
:06:51. > :06:56.programmes. This is your sixth novel. No way.Fifth? We had an
:06:57. > :07:02.issue with one of the books. Would you stand by the early ones? You
:07:02. > :07:08.were very young when you wrote them. My first book was my best
:07:08. > :07:13.book, probably. My sister said it was the most boring book she had
:07:13. > :07:17.ever opened in her life. In response to that I wrote Grow Up because I
:07:17. > :07:22.said, I can make you laugh and I can make something which you would
:07:22. > :07:29.enjoy. The first ones were very experimental. Would you go back to
:07:29. > :07:34.that? I could not now really. This is my job, I think! It would be nice
:07:34. > :07:44.but I cannot afford to go back to that, I guess. You have a living to
:07:44. > :07:45.
:07:45. > :07:49.earn? Yes.What would you do next? Try and do better. I feel not at all