Michael Kennedy of TIWN Magazine Interviews Andy Bracken

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Interview reproduced with kind permission from Michael Kennedy at TIWN Magazine at TIWN Media Ltd.

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Author of 15 published novels, a record label owner since 2004, and music lover since infancy, Andy Bracken hails from Coventry, lives in the USA, grew up through post-punk, inherited a love of 50s and 60s music, and has never stopped listening… Particularly to music, but sometimes even to good advice.

I try to write stories that I’d like to read, about things I’d like to read about. They’re very honest books, I think. The best bit of it all, though, is the friends I’ve made through my books. They tend to attract like-minded people.

I was introduced to your work by a mutual friend, Phil Rogers…

Never heard of him! He calls himself Philip these days, just so you know.

…who told me that I ‘had to read Worldly Goods’ by a Welsh guy, living in America, called Andy Bracken…

The Welsh thing isn’t quite true. I mean, I do qualify to play football for Wales via grand-parentage. Unfortunately, I don’t qualify through ability.

My Granny was from Pontardawe, and her parents managed a post office in the area. My aunt was born there, but only because of the Blitz. It was too dangerous in Cov at the time. By the time my Mum came along in ’43, it was safer. Anyway, in the 70s my great-gran came to live with my aunt.

Thus, I grew up eating Welsh cakes cooked on a raised griddle. Still warm with sugar sprinkled on top! And we’d go to The Gower as kids. The sand and sea there are as good as anywhere.

Later, my family moved back across the border! North Wales, mind. Not Pontardawe. My aunt first, in the early-80s. Near Llangollen. Mum followed in the 90s. And my Dad had a decade in Anglesey.

I digress!

’Worldly Goods’ blew me away and is still one of my favourite books of all time. How do you deal with reactions like this?

Thank you for the kind words, Mike. And thank you for your support and encouragement. I hope you know how appreciated you are.

How do I deal with reactions like that? By not taking them very seriously, to be honest. It’s brilliant that people connect with it, and the feedback from readers is sometimes quite… It’s moving. It’s extraordinary.

I try to write stories that I’d like to read, about things I’d like to read about. They’re very honest books, I think. So perhaps the reaction comes from that. The best bit of it all, though, is the friends I’ve made through my books. They tend to attract like-minded people.

Your books are very ‘human’ and relatable. Is this something you deliberately aim for?

Honestly, no. I don’t know any other way. It’s natural for me. I’ve always read, and I sometimes watch television and films. All the things I’ve enjoyed the most, in all instances, are when I care about the characters. So, perhaps ‘human’ and ‘relatable’ simply come from that. I mean, if you don’t care about the characters, you don’t care what happens to them, so why bother finding out?

I have, it seems, a knack for writing in a way people can identify with. Even if I haven’t experienced events personally. When I wrote about a father dying in ‘Worldly Goods’, my Dad was fit and well. Similarly, in ‘Single Minded’, I have no experience of dealing with someone with dementia. Yet, people who do, have told me they can relate to how I portrayed it.

I recently read an interview with Lee Child who said he believed authors put something of themselves in their ‘heroes’ - do you agree?

He’s from Cov like me! Perhaps we met on a bus once, and nodded a greeting. Did he ever go to Highfield Road…? Does he like 2-Tone music?

I kind of agree. I believe there’s certainly author-truth in every book, no matter how fantastical. We all write, to some degree, about what we know.

How many books have you written and do you have a favourite?

Ha! Fifteen. Actually, it’s more than that. Twenty-plus. But fifteen have been published.

As to favourites… ‘Reflections Of Quercus Treen’. It was my first published novel in 2015. I was learning, and it’s flawed, but I love the concept. An oak tree who tells his story, as he recalls the people who visited him over centuries.

It was also when I began to develop my own voice, and put the setting together, as I built my own fictitious county called Brakeshire. It’s my version of George Eliot’s Loamshire, or Hardy’s Wessex.

‘The Cut’ is very personal. That’s a precious one. ‘Equilibrium’ is viciously honest, and I do rate. It’s hard to choose, though. They all hold bits of me, I think. Besides, it’s unfair. It’s like being asked to pick your favourite spouse…

It’s usually the latest one.

Where do the ideas come from?

It varies. For ‘Reflections Of Quercus Treen’, as an example, I walked my dog every morning and evening for a year. He was just a puppy. We barely missed a day. That would have been Spring 2013 to Spring 2014. And as we walked, I watched the oak trees go through their full cycle. By the end, I had the book in my head.

I remember, as well, at that time, I was re-reading a lot of books I’d read as a child. Edith Nesbit, in particular. I did ‘borrow’ a line from ‘The Railway Children’! Not that ‘Treen’ is a children’s book, I hasten to add.

‘Worldly Goods’ came from buying a used album, and finding a Valentine Card tucked inside. And a throwaway comment from my Dad in 2018, when he said I was having his records when he died. To which I screeched with horror, “what, even the Dire Straits albums?!”

‘Single Minded’ was because of my Dad dying last year, which prompted me to think about the memories held by certain 7” singles, having inherited his when I was young. And the dementia element arose after meeting a man in the street and enjoying a brief chat. We were looking at houses to move to, and he would have been my neighbour. His wife was in a Memory Home.

There’s usually a trigger, or combination of events. You just have to keep your eyes, ears and mind open.

How long does it take you from coming up with a concept to the final edit?

Some sit on a back-burner for years. ‘Across The Humpty Dumpty Field’ was a book I first wrote twenty-five years ago. Albeit, a very different version. I think it was J M Barrie who said something about never throwing ideas away. I heeded that! And revisited it in 2017-18, when it finally fell into place and became a novel.

More generally, though, concept to final edit is about six months. I never make notes, so sometimes carry an idea around with me for weeks before I even begin to write. It’s all part of the process. My notion is - if the idea is good enough, you remember it.

I can paint a room in my house, switch off as I go about the fairly mundane act, and have a book three parts formed in my head at the end of that. My novel, ’Clearing’, is a book that literally came about that way. It begins with a man painting a room in his house over and over again, as I painted my house and pondered the circumstances under which someone would do that!

I’ve written books very quickly - five or six weeks. But then editing will take a couple of months, minimum. More recently, I tend to be a little slower and considered in the writing, to save on the editing later. The thing is, I never tie myself down. My writing is very fluid; the plots largely unstructured initially. I love that freedom! It means I can go off in any direction I wish at any point.

But… It also means I have to go back, and bring everything in to line at some stage.

The ultimate test of that was ‘Catena’, written in 2021. I sat with a blank sheet, and simply began writing. No concept. No plot. No plan. No characters. No ending. Nothing. In fact, the concept was to have no concept. I wrote a chapter until it felt complete. Then I began the next chapter afresh, somewhat informed by what I’d just written. I kept going until, a few weeks later, it led somewhere, and I could tie it all together.

It was crazy, and quite nerve-wracking! But I like the resulting book. It has an energy because of the approach. And it led to football shirts and a vinyl album spin-off, so that was nice!

Do you use anyone as a sounding board for your ideas?

No. My wife, Cathy, is invaluable in the editing process. Obviously, that comes after I’ve written it. She then always makes it better. But I never share my ideas up-front with anyone. I have asked for input via my ‘Andy Bracken Books’ Group on social media a couple of times. I’d hit a buffer and needed something specific. In both cases, it was a song - a record. Huge thanks go to Kevin Bolton and Pete Baird for their suggestions. They really did help to get ‘The Cut’ and ‘Single Minded’ over the line.

Ultimately, though, it’s a solitary process, being a writer. And I like that about it. I isolate myself, and become, I dare say, quite insular and withdrawn. I know that I get very involved…

You asked earlier about Lee Child, and the author being in the character. In my case, it’s probably truer to say that the character informs the author. I do somewhat ‘live the role’ as I write it. You know that Method Acting technique? I think I might Method Write…

Is that a thing, or have I just invented it?

When handing a book over to Cathy for a first read, I’ve usually edited it a few times. She knows she needs to perform a ‘Big Read’. So, not minutiae on that first pass. I don’t even want her focusing on typos or grammatical errors. But large things. Does it even make sense? Are there glaring continuity errors?

By that stage, I’ve got a blindness to it, having spent 12 hours a day for weeks writing it, and the other 12 thinking about it. A fresh pair of eyes is essential.

Not giving anything away but, I read ‘The Cut’ and had a book-hangover for weeks afterwards. I couldn’t imagine ever reading a better book. Do the books put an emotional strain on you?

That one did. It’s my most autobiographical to date. I’ve never read it, in the years since. Not sure I’ve ever read any of my books in their entirety after publication… Is that weird? Do musicians listen to their own albums after release…?

I did read ‘Quercus Treen’, because I re-edited it, and added a short story to the end. But the others, I’ve not read in their totality. Only in part, for continuity research - fact-checking, and suchlike. ‘The Cut’, though… Yep, that one left me… Drained, I think is the right word. Writing is the best form of therapy. And I believe ‘The Cut’ is a book I needed to get out of my system.

Six months on, and I’d written and published ‘A Different Mix’. I think I felt a need to get straight in to it, and move on. Finishing a book usually leaves me buzzing and energised. With ‘The Cut’, I remember being exhausted.

'Single Minded’ is your latest novel and, again, there’s a music theme running through it. What comes first - is the music worked into the tale or is it the other way around?

Nice question! Again, no straightforward answer. It varies. I’ve always worked music into my writing. On the earlier books, it was less overt. But it’s a part of every novel. For example, I use music to establish time period. I had a literary agent many years ago. It came to nothing, but he taught me some vital lessons. Probably the most valuable, was to show something, rather than tell it.

‘Show Don’t Tell’ has become a mantra for me.

It’s why I love writing dialogue, because it’s a great vehicle for that. If you have strong characters, with clear voices, they can often achieve things in a story far more engagingly than prose. Music references are also hidden in the text. I use it all the time, both overtly and covertly. It informs the reader without being obvious.

A mate of mine, Pete Trenholm, once said I should write about records more. To him, I was synonymous with them, having managed labels and been a part of the vinyl buying scene. That certainly added to my thinking around ‘Worldly Goods’ in early-2019. From then on, music became a much larger part of my writing. It was far more pronounced.

My stories, to some extent, became about music and records. More recently, the books spawn records and music of their own! Talk about full-circle! Two albums, an expanded CD, a 10” EP, and two 7” singles exist today, purely from fiction!

I’m very fortunate to know some fantastic musicians who make it all possible. A large number of them seem to come from Wales!

What’s next for Andy Bracken?

More. Certainly more writing. The next novel is in progress. More music, too. I’ve resurrected my old Bracken Records label, first established in 2004.

Writing comes first, though. It’s the only thing I’ve found in life that absolutely satisfies me.

Had you met me as a six year-old, and asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I’d have answered, “a writer!”

I lost sight of it for a while… Not quite that. But I thought it was something I could do later; when I had time; when the time was right. Then I had a scare around 2011/12. It changed my outlook on everything. I walked away from the record labels I was involved with. Suddenly, time wasn’t something I could be so sure of. It became more valuable as a result.

And that doesn’t half focus a person on what’s truly important in life!

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Interview reproduced with kind permission from Michael Kennedy at TIWN Magazine at TIWN Media Ltd.

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