0:00:00 > 0:00:02to get in en masse development. -- might want to get in on this
0:00:02 > 0:00:09development.We shall see. Thank you.Thank you.
0:00:09 > 0:00:10Now it's time for Meet the Author.
0:00:10 > 0:00:14We all watch other people, but most of us feel uncomfortable when we
0:00:14 > 0:00:15become too curious about them.
0:00:15 > 0:00:17Why they're doing this or that, what they're thinking.
0:00:17 > 0:00:19Consent by Leo Benedictus is a novel that describes
0:00:19 > 0:00:21the nightmare of a curiosity that becomes an obsession.
0:00:21 > 0:00:24Cruel and destructive, it takes us into the
0:00:24 > 0:00:27mind of a stalker whose life is shaped by his
0:00:27 > 0:00:29targets, his victims.
0:00:29 > 0:00:33Quite simply, it is a contemporary horror story.
0:00:33 > 0:00:43Welcome.
0:00:53 > 0:00:55The central figure in this book has got a mind
0:00:55 > 0:00:56which is clearly disturbed.
0:00:56 > 0:01:06And you had to get inside it.
0:01:10 > 0:01:12Because you're telling the story from his point of
0:01:12 > 0:01:13view for most of the book.
0:01:13 > 0:01:15How difficult was it to do that?
0:01:15 > 0:01:18I suppose the honest answer is it maybe wasn't as difficult as I'd
0:01:18 > 0:01:19like it to have been.
0:01:19 > 0:01:21What does that say about you?
0:01:21 > 0:01:23Well, I know, I mean, I think for me...
0:01:23 > 0:01:25In a way the primary aspect of the book was the
0:01:25 > 0:01:29way that I am going to talk to readers, and the way that he is
0:01:29 > 0:01:30going to talk to readers.
0:01:30 > 0:01:32And I found that by talking in that intimate,
0:01:32 > 0:01:34deeply present way, that I
0:01:34 > 0:01:38think he feels in relation to the people that he stalks, I found
0:01:38 > 0:01:39myself quite naturally talking like him.
0:01:39 > 0:01:42I mean I spent a long time writing the book, about five years,
0:01:42 > 0:01:44and I think it probably grew over time.
0:01:44 > 0:01:48But by the end of it I could talk like him at the drop of a hat,
0:01:48 > 0:01:50a bit too easily.
0:01:50 > 0:01:52We're talking about a man who is a stalker, who
0:01:52 > 0:01:54stalks dozens and dozens and dozens of people,
0:01:54 > 0:01:58remembers the first one and so on.
0:01:58 > 0:02:00It then becomes a violent obsession late in the book.
0:02:00 > 0:02:03But what fascinates me, as we were saying at
0:02:03 > 0:02:07the beginning there, is that we are all,
0:02:07 > 0:02:13to some extent, curious in that way.
0:02:13 > 0:02:15You can sit opposite somebody in the train
0:02:15 > 0:02:16and you think, why are
0:02:16 > 0:02:18they reading that, where are they going,
0:02:18 > 0:02:19what are they doing?
0:02:19 > 0:02:21But we all know there is a point beyond
0:02:21 > 0:02:22which you don't go.
0:02:22 > 0:02:24And imagining what happens when you don't have
0:02:24 > 0:02:28that control mechanism is really quite terrifying, isn't it?
0:02:28 > 0:02:29I think so.
0:02:29 > 0:02:30I certainly felt that way.
0:02:30 > 0:02:32Do you know, I'd be interested to know
0:02:32 > 0:02:35how many other novelists feel this way, because being a novelist
0:02:35 > 0:02:36especially, I've found, after my first book,
0:02:36 > 0:02:39I was looking at people all the time, and making little
0:02:39 > 0:02:45mental notes all the time about details of behaviour and...
0:02:45 > 0:02:47Someone would say something in a conversation
0:02:47 > 0:02:48and secretly I'd be at
0:02:48 > 0:02:50work thinking, that would be good, I can use that.
0:02:50 > 0:02:54I think all of us are stalkers in that way.
0:02:54 > 0:02:56In one sense, this character does some dreadful
0:02:56 > 0:02:59things in the second half of the book, it's just doing that,
0:02:59 > 0:03:01it's just that it becomes a habit and he
0:03:01 > 0:03:04thinks it's quite normal.
0:03:04 > 0:03:07Yeah, he clearly never notices a moment when
0:03:07 > 0:03:09he goes off the rails, and I think really
0:03:09 > 0:03:10struggles with the idea that
0:03:10 > 0:03:13maybe he has gone off the rails, but he could put his finger
0:03:13 > 0:03:14on exactly when it happened.
0:03:14 > 0:03:17And I do like that idea as well of how blurred the line
0:03:17 > 0:03:21is between being interested in someone, maybe fancying someone,
0:03:21 > 0:03:24maybe wanting to talk to someone, maybe finding out a little bit more
0:03:25 > 0:03:26about them before you do.
0:03:26 > 0:03:28And before you know it you're standing outside
0:03:28 > 0:03:29their house.
0:03:29 > 0:03:30Yeah, exactly.
0:03:30 > 0:03:33I mean, I think that's how it works for him,
0:03:33 > 0:03:35yeah.
0:03:35 > 0:03:38Do you have an attraction to horror?
0:03:38 > 0:03:41I mean here we have a situation in which he is inside
0:03:41 > 0:03:43people's bedrooms, inside their heads,
0:03:43 > 0:03:45watching their most intimate behaviour, you know, their
0:03:45 > 0:03:46conversation with a lover for example.
0:03:46 > 0:03:56It's terrifying stuff.
0:03:58 > 0:03:59I suppose I must do, yeah.
0:03:59 > 0:04:00I don't know exactly why.
0:04:00 > 0:04:03I know that for a long time I felt when writing novels
0:04:03 > 0:04:05actually a sense of guilt about what I'm doing,
0:04:05 > 0:04:08because I know that I'm not doing it in the interest of
0:04:08 > 0:04:11readers, I'm not trying to bring them something generous and mind
0:04:11 > 0:04:13expanding, I'm just writing because I need
0:04:13 > 0:04:17to and I'm writing about what interests me.
0:04:17 > 0:04:19I'm hoping that I can grip their attention for long enough
0:04:19 > 0:04:20to make them interested.
0:04:20 > 0:04:22So he's just a writer who's gone a little
0:04:23 > 0:04:24bit further.
0:04:24 > 0:04:28Well, yes he is, though I don't think I'm likely to go that
0:04:28 > 0:04:29far myself.
0:04:29 > 0:04:30But it's a way, certainly, of exploring those
0:04:30 > 0:04:32feelings I've always had about writing.
0:04:32 > 0:04:35When you began the story with the idea of getting inside the
0:04:35 > 0:04:38head of a man who is behaving in this very odd way, did you always
0:04:38 > 0:04:42know that it was going to end with some scenes that are difficult
0:04:42 > 0:04:52to read and must have been difficult to write?
0:05:04 > 0:05:05I got...
0:05:05 > 0:05:07I can't say I always knew, no.
0:05:07 > 0:05:10I think I knew he was going to lose control of himself, and I think
0:05:10 > 0:05:13probably if I'd analysed that I would have known, but in a way
0:05:13 > 0:05:16maybe I didn't want to know, just like he doesn't.
0:05:16 > 0:05:18Well, I think to the reader, when you open this book,
0:05:18 > 0:05:21you do sense that it is going to end rather badly.
0:05:21 > 0:05:24I mean you don't think he's going to stop doing it.
0:05:24 > 0:05:27No, I wouldn't have thought so, and I don't think he has
0:05:27 > 0:05:29the ability to control himself, and I think he makes it clear
0:05:29 > 0:05:32from the beginning that he is trying to justify his own behaviour,
0:05:32 > 0:05:34trying to understand what he's done, hopefully make
0:05:34 > 0:05:35people understand him.
0:05:35 > 0:05:37There is an intriguing note on the dust cover
0:05:37 > 0:05:40of the book where you say, this book is an experiment.
0:05:40 > 0:05:42What exactly do you mean by that?
0:05:42 > 0:05:45Well, to my mind it's an experiment between me and the reader.
0:05:45 > 0:05:47He is conducting experiments of various kinds on the people
0:05:47 > 0:05:50that he stalks, but it's also an experiment I think I'm making
0:05:50 > 0:05:52really to see how people will respond to this book.
0:05:52 > 0:05:55I won't necessarily know, of course, but I want to take
0:05:55 > 0:05:57people to the point, this involves stuff
0:05:57 > 0:05:59towards the very end of the book, where they've had a creepy
0:05:59 > 0:06:04and maybe horrifying experience.
0:06:04 > 0:06:07Maybe they discover that it's been creepy and horrifying in a way
0:06:07 > 0:06:09they hadn't realised all along, and that is where it comes
0:06:09 > 0:06:13into the relationship with me writing a book.
0:06:13 > 0:06:15It's fascinating, I said at the beginning, that it was
0:06:15 > 0:06:18a contemporary horror story.
0:06:18 > 0:06:24And really, what you're talking about here,
0:06:24 > 0:06:28is a world in which, you know, individuals
0:06:28 > 0:06:32are moving in different ways, apart from being quite lonely,
0:06:32 > 0:06:37even in the context of, you know, their social lives.
0:06:37 > 0:06:38And this guy is somehow exploiting that.
0:06:38 > 0:06:40The solitary nature of contemporary life.
0:06:40 > 0:06:50Were you very conscious of that?
0:06:52 > 0:06:54Well, I was, I think particularly...
0:06:54 > 0:06:57The book is really, we talked all about him and it's a book
0:06:57 > 0:06:59split into two halves, really, between him and her.
0:06:59 > 0:07:00particular.
0:07:00 > 0:07:03Frances, the woman that he stalks in She is, I think,
0:07:03 > 0:07:04quite a lonely person.
0:07:04 > 0:07:06I think a lot of people are quite lonely.
0:07:06 > 0:07:11We indeed have a lot of research on how widespread loneliness is.
0:07:11 > 0:07:21And that's her vulnerability, really.
0:07:29 > 0:07:31Yeah, absolutely.
0:07:31 > 0:07:33I mean I think he wants to connect with people just
0:07:33 > 0:07:36as I do by writing novels, just as she does
0:07:36 > 0:07:46by making friendships and forming relationships.
0:07:50 > 0:07:52So there's a desperation about his position.
0:07:52 > 0:07:53Yeah, very much.
0:07:53 > 0:07:56I think lonely people are always desperate to make that kind
0:07:56 > 0:07:57of connection and sometimes something goes wrong,
0:07:57 > 0:07:58as it does with him.
0:07:58 > 0:08:02He can't do it and he tries these terrible ways to feed this craving.
0:08:02 > 0:08:04He is unusual because by accident, completely unexpectedly, he becomes,
0:08:04 > 0:08:05suddenly, very rich.
0:08:05 > 0:08:08He doesn't have to work he doesn't have to worry about money.
0:08:08 > 0:08:09The world is his oyster.
0:08:09 > 0:08:13In a way that releases him to be the man he really is underneath.
0:08:13 > 0:08:15In that sense we are not all like him.
0:08:15 > 0:08:18No, we're lucky because we don't suddenly inherit millions of pounds.
0:08:18 > 0:08:21I think for him it is a tragedy that he becomes as rich as he does.
0:08:21 > 0:08:23For a lot of people that are extremely rich,
0:08:24 > 0:08:25it is a severe problem.
0:08:25 > 0:08:26I know that sounds ridiculous.
0:08:26 > 0:08:29It's many of our greatest dreams to become as wealthy as he is.
0:08:29 > 0:08:33But I think when suddenly you don't have to work you do have to think
0:08:33 > 0:08:35about how to your life, and that's a hard
0:08:35 > 0:08:36question to answer.
0:08:36 > 0:08:39And he doesn't know the nature of his tragedy, but we do.
0:08:39 > 0:08:40Yeah, exactly.
0:08:40 > 0:08:41I hope...
0:08:41 > 0:08:43You know, I do, in spite of everything he does,
0:08:43 > 0:08:45feel a lot of sympathy for him.