Spike Magazine

Spike | 15 YEARS OF BOOKS, MUSIC, ART, IDEAS | www.spikemagazine.com
write up, have I not mentioned his best selling follow
up, The Tesseract? Why indeed. More of that later
– for now, meet Alex Garland. Some biographical
details: He was born in 1970, son of the well-known
and respected political cartoonist, Nick Garland. With
a resolutely middle-class and intellectual background,
he graduated from Manchester University with a degree
in History of Art, and was planning on following
in a his fathers footsteps before he realized: “There
aren’t many openings for a cartoonist.” Instead, he
turned his attention to fiction, and started writing The
Beach when he was just 23, drawing on his many
experiences of travelling (he first went to India when
he was 17, on a school trip, and he now makes several
visits to South East Asia per year).
The Beach was brought out in 1996, with no big promotional
push from the publishers, yet within a year, it
was a best seller. Rave reviews everywhere from The
Mail On Sunday to Maxim magazine certainly did no
harm, but predominantly it was word of mouth that
made The Beach a success. Only three years after he
first put pen to paper, Garland was being heralded as
the new voice of ‘Generation X’ and making Vogue’s
most eligible bachelors list. At such a young age, and
on the back of a debut novel, this was a rather heavy
weight to bear.
Bearing this in mind, his media shy and somewhat
guarded manner are understandable. Fortunately, in
BUY Alex Garland books online from and
keeping with the ultra-modernism of the book, Garland
himself has a very low-key approach to his what he
does. “Writing certainly wasn’t something I thought I
wanted to do as a kid. It was something I chanced upon.
And, in a way, I don’t think you could say I chose it as
my profession. I gave it a try and it worked out, and
I enjoy it and that’s it.” He is similarly down to earth
about his situation. Despite being one of the most indemand
authors this side of Nick Hornby, he harbours
no illusions.
“There is a business side to writing and if you don’t
sell books then publishers won’t print them. You’re
only as hot as your last novel. I think you can reach a
point when you’re not as good as your last novel, you
may have written one or even two bad books in a row,
and the publishers will hang onto you. But you need
to have proved yourself in a long term way before that
and I certainly haven’t done that yet. I still feel like I’m
doing an incredible bluffing trick and I’m going to get
caught out.”
There are those that would agree with this self-effacing
appraisal. Reaction to Garland’s second book The Tesseract
has been mixed. There were some scathing reviews.
“A pointlessly elaborate portrait of disparate lives coming
together” was one description. “Tedious, convoluted,
pompous” was another. Yet others have heaped praise
on the book (Michiko Kakutani in The New York Times
said it felt like “a Quentin Tarantino or John Woo movie
234
More
Spike
email
RSS
Facebook
Twitter
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z