Sathnam Sanghera: The Boy with the Top Book

Sathnam Sanghera, the author of acclaimed memoir The Boy with the Topknot / If You Don’t Know Me By Now (depending on which edition you own), is also a journalist for the Times, working on a business and a lifestyle column.

Born to Punjabi parents and growing up in Wolverhampton, he led an eccentric lifestyle. The book, The Boy with the Topknot, follows Sathnam as he returns home to unravel his family’s problems and reconcile his traditional Asian roots with his flashy London lifestyle. In the process he discovers the truth about his father’s schizophrenia and why his mother won’t accept any English girlfriend of his. It’s a funny and touching piece of work that draws on feelings of belonging and unbelonging, and cultural nuance. Sathnam is an interesting writer, his memoir draws on a lot of music as a backdrop to the words, creating a chronological soundbed of song influences over the years, his writing is journalistic but funny but tender and pained all at the same time. We wondered how he managed to cram all those conflicting styles and emotions into the same bits of prose, so met up with him on a muggy day on Hampstead Heath and talked about the chaos that is the writing process.

> What was the writing process for you like when you wrote this book? What was a typical day for Sathnam Sanghera?

As it was my first book, it was complete chaos. I started writing it from the middle. The first thing I wrote was my haircut scene, which ends up in the middle of the book. The next thing I wrote was the letter to my mum. Every time I got tired of one bit or got stuck, I moved to another bit. So I was writing the whole book simultaneously. That’s how I write. Then I rewrite and I rewrite and I rewrite. It makes no sense to talk about drafts as I constantly rewrite but I probably went through about 60 drafts.

> Did you have an idea of what you wanted it to look like by the end?

No. By the end, I knew. At the beginning I had no idea. The synopsis I sent off to Penguin bears no relation to the final thing. I’m amazed I got a book deal based on it because it was chaos. In a way, my mum wrote the book, as she shaped the whole thing with her reactions and the way she told me her story. She gave me the narrative. Now it looks really contrived, the way I go back and forth, it looks like I thought about it but I didn’t.

> What was a typical day for you like writing it?

It was hell! The idea was, I’d go on sabbatical for three months, come back and do it part-time but I ended up taking a load of months off, getting nowhere and the whole thing took 18 months in the end, rather than 6 months. I had to quit my job. It was complete solitude; partly because the way I write requires that. The story was painful to tell so I felt like I couldn’t talk to anyone about it. To talk about it was to relive the pain. I was living by myself in Brixton where no one ever came to see me because it was Brixton. I tried working at home; got fed up of that. I spent about 8 months working in the London Library then got tired of that and ended up doing the most of my work in the British Library. I’d wake up really early and start writing at 7 in a [well known coffee emporium- no logo ed] opposite the British Library, because mornings are best. I’d go straight from there to the British Library. By about 4, I’d have had enough, I’d drunk too much coffee and I’d go work at home with a few drinks. I was working for 16 hours a day. That was the only way, because I knew I had to go back to work to earn money, but at the same time I knew I had to finish it and I knew it had to be good.

> Coming from a journalistic background, would you like to stick to non-fiction or would you try your hand at fiction?

I’d like to try fiction but I do write better journalistically. I’ve never written a sentence of fiction in my life. I think I’ve sussed out fiction now though. It’s basically non-fiction. You lie, right? When I think about it in those terms, I think I could do it. When I think about my friends who’ve written novels, they’re actually memoirs aren’t they? They just change a few details. For me, because I studied literature, fiction and novels seemed so unattainable. I thought only clever people can do that but now I realise, all books are memoirs.

> Did you always want to write a book?

The whole thing was someone else’s idea. I was writing for the FT and I’d written a column after the 9/11 attacks about being mistaken for a bomber on the tube and someone from Penguin emailed me and said, ‘That was a really good column. Do you want to come and have lunch?’ I went to lunch with her. During this lunch, she asked if I’d ever thought about writing a novel. I said I’d rather chop off my arms and eat them then write a novel because all the novelists I know are unhappy, badly dressed, underpaid, unattractive and neurotic! Plus, I really enjoyed my job. Then, I started talking about my family and my situation and she said, ‘Why don’t you write a memoir?’ Which is really presumptuous, that at 28, to think I’m going to write about my life, because why would anyone care? She told me it was an interesting story. She then got me my agent. It was completely back to front because then I wrote the book.

> Have you always read?

Yes. They say a writer is someone who reads, right? The problem is, I read very slowly. It takes me weeks to finish a novel. I have to underline and highlight things I like. It’s partly from being a literary student. Sometimes I worry that I’m not a writer because I don’t read novels in a day. Even though he was illiterate, my father used to take us to the library every two weeks. We had to go. My sister used to read Mr Men books to me but it was mainly at those fortnightly visits to the Heath Town library in Wolverhampton that I really read. We’d stop there for an hour or two. My brother would go for the horse books. He was obsessed with being a cowboy, despite being an Indian. My sister would read the girly books. But I’d be with Roald Dahl and Jennings and I read all these very English books. I then started reading Evelyn Waugh when I was older. I was into really English writing.

> What was your favourite?

I think Dahl. He’s the finest storyteller to have lived, almost. I loved Boy, his memoir. They’re all brilliant: The Twits, Danny, Champion of the World- amazing stories.

> Did that love of reading carry on into your teens?

I loved reading as kid. I gave up on it for several years. Didn’t like English, was into maths like a lot of Indian kids. I wanted to do further maths for A levels but I won this competition and that changed my life. After that, my local paper invited me to write about music. I had a brilliant teacher as well and I started reading again: Evelyn Waugh, T S Eliot, Raymond Chandler.

> And you were writing at this point?

I was writing columns, never my own stories. I was trying to get stuff into the papers, basically. I got into journalism. Every writer has a certain amount of rubbish they have to write before they get half-decent. I was lucky in that I started so young, so when I was 21, I was half-decent. You get all that out of your system at university; I wrote a lot at university, really bad stuff.

> What are you currently reading?

I’m currently reading Nick Hornby’s new novel, which is in proof. I like Nick Hornby. I read this amazing book by Daniyal Mueenuddin, it’s called In Other Rooms, Other Wonders. It’s one of the best books I’ve ever read. Honestly amazing and beautiful. It’s a collection of inter-connected short stories, which would usually be my idea of hell because I’m into good plots, something that has to be funny. It’s neither of those but it’s one of the best books I’ve ever read. I’m reading One Day by David Nichols, a cross between Nick Hornby and Jonathan Coe.

> Who’s your favourite author of all time?

It changes all the time. I used to say Salman Rushdie but then you read their stuff and think, I loved this when I was 22 but now it means nothing to me. My favourites have been, at various points, Martin Amis, Salman Rushdie, Jonathan Coe- who I adore, David Sedaris, John Foulds, William Sutcliffe, Evelyn Waugh- who I think is amazing, Nick Hornby... There’s this common theme that they tend to be English, a bit funny but they write serious stuff. They’re all men.

> They all write about the English male ‘condition’?

If I did write another book, I think that would be my main theme. Masculinity, it appears to be such a simple thing. There’s a certain way men are meant to behave, but they’re not like that. If you read the papers, you’d think all we want to do is get into fights... but I think we’re much more sensitive and complicated than that. Especially from the Punjabi background, where there’s a real ideal about what men do. Very macho, and if you’re not like that... I’m not like that at all, I get called a ponce all the time.

> What do you prefer about the medium of literature to any other artform?

I don’t, I hate it! No, I don’t really. I just find it hard. Writing is lonely, difficult, it gives you haemorrhoids- and almost any other creative industry appeals to me more. Like painting, all the painters I know are so happy, because there’s a physical element to it. Of having to physically putting the canvas up and putting the paint on it. And with music, you have to have other musicians involved, and there’s a public performance element involved, which is really appealing. Acting, similarly. If you’re sociable, which I am, writing is difficult. I don’t want to slag off writing completely; I’ve written a book, it is great and it’s changed my life but it is difficult.

> Okay then, let’s talk tips then for writers...

I usually tell writers that it’s so hard, don’t do it...

> Every writer I talk to says that, and one once confessed it was because he didn’t need the competition!

Yes! A) I don’t need the competition B) It’s very hard to make money C) It’s hard. You have to be dedicated. Write what you know, always. It’s obvious when you’re writing about something you don’t know that you don’t have a clue about it. Don’t worry too much about description, you can always come back to it. To me, it’s about getting your voice right and ensuring your narrator’s voice is authentic. Almost everything flows from that: plot, character... A writer is someone who writes so if you’ve written a manuscript, you’re halfway there. People talk about writing but never actually write a single sentence. Kingsley Amis said that writing is ‘the art of applying one’s a**e to a chair.’ That’s what it is. You have to sit down and write. It’s lonely and isolating but you’re halfway there once you’ve got your manuscript. After that, I don’t know... gotta get an agent, a publisher, you’re at the mercy of the publishing world... Good luck! It’s pretty random, it’s like a casino- what gets published and what’s a success. Complete chance. It’s total luck. Utterly random. My friend, Aravind Adiga, was complaining a while ago that no one wanted to buy his book and look at him now, he’s won the Man Booker Prize! Why did that happen? It was just random.