Charlie Williams

Roger Morris recently interviewed fellow novelist Charlie Williams, author of the “Mangel Trilogy”: Deadfolk, Fags and Lager, and King of the Road, for "The Rap Sheet."

Part of their dialogue:

RM: There’s a lot of humor in these books. But it’s pretty dark, jet-black, in fact. It’s the kind of stuff that as a well-brought up, PC-indoctrinated North Londoner, I find myself laughing out loud at and then feeling terribly guilty about. So thanks for that. But it is tremendously liberating, though I imagine it can provoke pretty strong \negative reactions, as much of the humor revolves around people dying violently and casually. None of these deaths ever seems to trouble Royston too much, and that’s part of what’s funny, I think. Do they ever trouble Charlie Williams?

CW: Am I ever troubled by a fictional character dying? It’s easy to say “no, of course I’m not.” These people don’t exist. But I have been troubled on one or two occasions. You get close to the characters and you might want a better outcome for them. But am I troubled by the violent deaths? Not if I can get a laugh out of it. Also, like I say, it’s usually Blake (or the flow of thoughts and creativity, or whatever you want to call it) who decides that someone dies (or accidentally kills them), so I don’t have to feel bad. Of course I feel bad if someone gets killed in real life, or even just hurt. Especially when it’s not even funny.

Read the entire interview.

--Marshal Zeringue