Kevin Brooks: Writing on the Margins

Kevin Brooks admits that he's always been drawn to writing about people on the margins of communities. In his 2007 novel, Being, Brooks takes this predilection a step further: his protagonist is an outsider to the extent that he may not even be human.

16-year-old Robert thinks he is a fairly ordinary teenager but discovers otherwise when he finds himself conscious during an operation, surrounded by observers trying to work out what the plastic and filaments in his abdomen are.

Robert escapes from the hospital and goes on the run, pursued by the ruthless Ryan, who wants to capture him for unknown purposes and frames him for a murder in order to achieve his aim.

Writing about outsiders just comes naturally to me,' says Brooks. 'But if I was to look beyond that natural inclination it's a slight reflection of my character in that although I'm not an outsider as such, I've done lots of different things and mixed with different people, and always felt to an extent that I'm on the outside looking in rather than part of a group. But also I just find being on the outside looking in you get a much more observational perspective, so you can look at things in a much more interesting way.

An adventure with a hint of science fiction, Being is something of a departure from the author's previous work. On the surface it is perhaps more accessible, but in typical Brooks fashion the novel also raises deeper questions.

Early on, Robert ponders what it means to be human: 'Was I flesh and blood? Or not? And, if not, so what? If I couldn't tell the difference, what difference did it make? What's the difference between complicated meat and complicated metal? ... What makes a life? History? Time? Memories? Senses?'

'I've always liked reading about those metaphysical questions,' explains the author. 'You think about that kind of thing a lot more when you're younger. Because they're questions that don't have answers, we stop asking ourselves those questions as we get older. So it fits in very well with the teenage mindset.'

The thought that this first novel for Penguin might appeal to a broader readership than some of his other work didn't occur to Brooks. 'If anything, I was more concerned that it might not appeal to a wider audience because it was dealing with basic, fundamental questions. Not that that particularly bothers me.

'When I go around talking to teenagers, they like that kind of stuff. They're very capable of dealing with very serious matters and very trivial matters within the click of a finger. When I first thought of the story, before I started writing, it was about a 30-year-old man. It works better with a teenager. The questions that are asked fit in much better with a teenager. But it's not necessarily a teenage story.'

Some critics, mainly in America, have complained that Brooks leaves too many ends untied and that who or what Robert is is never made clear. He is unsurprised by the comments.

'Before it was published, in Bologna (at the book fair) last year, where there were quite a few US film companies interested, they all assumed it was the first in a series where you eventually would find out. But if we found out what he was it wouldn't be the same book.

'I very rarely wrap things up and have happy endings, mostly because when I'm reading a book if it's all wrapped up and explained in the end then I close the book and it's done and it's finished; whereas if it's not all explained and wrapped up, the story's still there in my head and is going on, which to me is part of what a book's all about. It becomes something beyond the actual physical book; it becomes something in your mind.

The hardest work I've ever done on an ending was with Being. I wrote lots and lots of different endings and was never quite satisfied. Even though every one I did had pretty much the same effect as the one I ended up with, it took me a long time to come up with that ending.

'I was just trying to find the right tone, the right feeling, and in the end the ending was perfect. I had an e-mail from an American reader who loved the book but was disappointed that I'd spent five minutes on the ending, which was annoying because I'd spent about two months on it.'

Like much of Brooks's other work, Being is gory and violent. Although it is unsurprising when fictional villains use violence, Brooks's heroes do too, and often without compunction. Such moral ambiguity can make for uncomfortable reading at times, but, says Brooks, it is more true to life. 'There aren't saints and devils - everyone's a mixture of both,' he says.

'With Road of the Dead, one of the things I wanted to look at was how violence can be used - it's not necessarily an evil, bad thing. It's always going to be terrible, but sometimes it is a solution whether we like it or not. It has been for centuries and it will be for centuries to come.

'It would be dishonest if you're writing about that kind of stuff to make it that easy and say this is good and bad because everything is different tones of grey. Characters, people are complex; even the most saintly probably have something bad about them in the way that villainous people aren't wholly evil. By giving the good characters certain flaws and the other way round it allows them to reflect each other, so it just makes things a lot more interesting. If a scene is violent it's violent for a purpose, which is usually to see the deep, strong effects it has on characters and their relations.'

Although Brooks isn't conscious of deliberately trying to push the boundaries of teenage fiction, he feels there is no topic that can't be tackled in the genre. 'I think kids from 11, 12 upwards, they're probably better at dealing with controversial difficult subjects than adults are because they're more open-minded and better able to deal with those things.

There's nothing I feel is taboo for me personally to write about. But I understand that as a writer for teenagers I have certain responsibilities, and if they say, "We think this is too so and so, would you mind toning it down a bit" - which has happened - if I think I can do it without losing anything from the story I will probably do it. But I'm personally very happy writing about anything in any style for young people.

'All I do is try and write the best story I can, the best way I can. If I like it and I think it's a good piece of work that's all I can do. I write for myself, and I hope that if I like it and think it's good then hopefully other people will like it too.'