Jonathan Coe Meet the Author


Jonathan Coe

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In this week's Meet the Author Rebecca Jones talks

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to Jonathan Coe about his new book Number 11.

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Jonathan Coe is a novelist whose books impressed the critics, wind

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awards but also appear regularly on the bestseller lists. He is best

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known for writing serious novels that are also very funny. He made

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his name with What a Carve Up! , a satire. Then came the Rotters Club,

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followed by the sequel that scrutinised new Labour. Then it

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becomes his 11th novel, Number 11, turning its gaze on Britain today.

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Jonathan Coe, the Number 11 is a recurring theme in the book. Tell us

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why? Like many of these things it happened kind of by accident. I was

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making my first notes towards the book, I didn't have a title and I

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knew it was my 11th novel so I wrote in about 11 at the top and started

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making my notes and it stuck. I couldn't think of a better title and

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immediately, to me, it evoked Number 11 Downing Street, obviously,

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because the economic state of the country is a background theme in the

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book. I also knew I always liked to do different things with form with

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each book and I knew the form of the book was going to be five short

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stories or novellas, linked by a certain theme and the Number 11

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seemed the perfect linking device. One story is set in a house that is

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Number 11, another is a bus, another a restaurant table at Number 11 so

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it became a very useful hook. The story is structured into five

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separate but intellect sections, with characters disappearing and

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appearing again come together they cohere into a portrait of Britain

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today. Why modern Britain? Well, more than 20 years ago I wrote

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highly -- I wrote a highly political novel, What a Carve Up!, he reaction

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to the Thatcher revolution. I suppose as a concerned citizen,

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rather than anything else, I was looking around me at Britain today,

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how the policies of hers, the changes of hers have evolved and

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been carried on by successive governments over the years and had

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eagerly how austerity policies are impacting people on the country

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after the 2008 crash, and it seemed like the right time for another

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novel looking at the state of written today. And you take aim at

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tax havens, the conditions endured by migrant workers, reality

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television, Internet trolls. The picture you paint of Britain is

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somewhat depressing. Are you pessimistic? I try not to be. Novels

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thrive on conflict. You have to put your characters through difficulty

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or there is no story so there is a tendency to emphasise the more

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difficult elements of life but there is a gentle optimism in the book as

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well, I hope. It is essentially the story of a friendship between two

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girls who we meet at the age of about eight or nine and by the end

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of the book they are in their early 20s. And the book ends on a kind of

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note of hope because of the strength of feeling between them really,

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despite the way circumstances have pulled them apart during the course

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of the narrative. There is an underlying optimism and faith in the

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resilience of human nature, I suppose. The book is very funny and

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there are some very funny comedic set pieces. Clearly, you have

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decided to write about serious themes in a comic way. Is that

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because you think we all need cheering up? We do need cheering up,

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as a reader and a viewer of films and television, there is a dearth of

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cheering entertainment around at the moment so I wanted the readers to

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have a good time while they were reading this book as much as

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anything else. One way of looking at an unsatisfactory situation, be it

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political or personal, is not to say it's wrong but to say it is absurd

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and to see the ridiculous and as of certain situations. That is what I

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try to do a lot of the time in Number 11, although it is also in

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some ways one of my darker books and one of my more horrific books and it

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pushes a little bit more in the way of horror and sci-fi than I have

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done before. It is subtitled tales that witness madness. Why is that?

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The structure of the book, as I said, is five interlinked stories

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and I took that from an Ealing film from the 1940s called Dead of Night.

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The fourth story in that is therefore comic relief, almost

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exactly what I've done in this book. That set in train portmanteau horror

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movies, which thrived in the 1960s and 1970s and one of them was called

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Tales Which Witnessed Madness. It starred Joan Collins and I liked the

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title, gesturing towards the form of the book and my indebtedness towards

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are movies. It is my guilty pleasure. You mentioned the female

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friendship at the heart of the book and one thing that struck me about

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the novel is how much of it is told from a female standpoint. Was that

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deliberate? And why do you like writing as women? Like many writers,

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I write to escape myself and when I write about men they are usually

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comes a point when I realise I'm writing about myself and that is

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exactly what I didn't set out to do so I took a decision very early on

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that the French, the core friendship in the book would be between two

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women and -- that the friendship. As it panned out I didn't use any major

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male characters in this book at all. It wasn't really deliberate but, you

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know, it was an instinctive choice. You do bring back some characters

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from the book. You have already mentioned What a Carve Up!. In some

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ways, Number 11 can be seen as not a sequel but a companion piece to that

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book, although it can be read as a stand-alone novel. Why did you want

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to revisit the OP 's -- those people? I realise although What a

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Carve Up! Ends in carnage and everyone is killed off, there are a

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couple of survivors from the massacre in the end and I was

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wondering what they were doing 20 years on so I revisited them and

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wrote them back. Does it get you that it is the book you are most

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associated with, giving you have written all sorts of novels since

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then? No. A lot of people said, when are you going to write a sequel to

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What a Carve Up! ? And I always said I wouldn't and couldn't because so

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many of the characters die at the end. I realised recently that Number

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11 is not a sequel to What a Carve Up! It is actually a spin off so

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this is the George and Mildred to the original man about the house,

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maybe that is not the way to select on television but that is how I

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think of it now. Jonathan Coke, it has been a pleasure to talk to you

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about Number 11. -- Jonathan come. Good evening. We have had some

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changeable weather over the last few days and more of it to come. Here

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are contrasting scenes from today. These guys from Chatham in Kent

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earlier on today, contrasted further

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