Spike Magazine

Spike | 15 YEARS OF BOOKS, MUSIC, ART, IDEAS | www.spikemagazine.com
Interview [published August 1997]
Bertie Marshall: Text Maniac
Chris Mitchell meets Bertie Marshall, the original psychoboy
When does a debut underground experimental novel
featuring a stomach-churning mix of depraved sex,
hideous death, wanton coprophilia and insane genetic
mutation gain critical praise from the mainstream likes
of i-D, Time Out and The Big Issue?
When it’s written by Brighton author Bertie Marshall.
Psychoboys is his first literary outing and its kaleidoscopic
narration about the story of Rez, a rent-boy
surviving on the streets of Moscow and Berlin, has provoked
accolades such as “unique” and “intense” from
the likes of Grove Press’s Ira Silverberg and American
psycho author Dennis Cooper.
In the tradition of all great transgressive literature
(think William Burroughs, the Marquis de Sade, Kathy
Acker), Psychoboys is not written simply to shock. “It’s
about darkness and light, fantasy and reality, dreaming
and being awake, death and being alive,” Marshall says.
“It’s left up to the reader to decide what they make of it.
There’s no absolutes.”
Psychoboys portrays the extremities of human existence,
but it does so in an exploration of how fantasy and
reality collide, and the way Rez uses his imagination
BUY Bertie Marshall books online from and
to escape the sordidity of his existence. Underpinning
the graphic depictions of depravity is a grand guignol
humour, evinced by characters like Miss Thing – Rez’s
transvestite sugar mummy – and Countess Handover, a
bizarre transgender genetic engineer.
Marshall’s novel avoids the problem of much avantgarde
writing, where ‘experimental’ is a euphemism
for ‘unreadable’ – Psychoboys is powered by punk-energised,
page-turning prose. “Making sure Psychoboys
was readable was something I really had in mind while
I was writing the book,” Marshall confirms. “It was
a reaction against the first book I wrote, which was a
heavily fictionalised account of my punk days – and
which nobody wanted to publish.”
That Marshall’s first book was rejected is especially
strange, given the amount of attention his exploits as
part of the Bromley Contingent – the first group of Sex
Pistols fans – has gained from the media, culminating
in BBC2’s Arena documentary, Punk And The Pistols.
The then 15-year-old Marshall changed his name to
Berlin and hung out with the likes of Siouxsie Sioux
before the term ‘punk’ had even gained widespread
338
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