CRAIG TAYLOR

Author Interview

Alexander Larman meets the Canadian writer to discuss the similarities between interviewing farmers from Suffolk and therapists from Manhattan

The age of writers travelling to cities and interviewing their residents, once such a mainstay of travel literature, is now largely behind us, for any number of tiresome reasons. Yet writer Craig Taylor has produced a series of fascinating books about places ranging from New York to the Suffolk countryside, all of which draw on verbatim conversations with their residents. In addition to being an author, Taylor co-edits the literary magazine Five Dials, writes miniature plays and, as we shall see, has a fine line in functional attire. We talked to him about writing about place, the nature of literature and why he’d like to be remembered with a song that Leonard Cohen covered.

CHAP: Writer, editor, ‘psychogeographer’ and more – you are indeed a Renaissance man. Which of these various hats are you most comfortable wearing?

TAYLOR: Writer. Just writer. Maybe reporter. Certainly not Renaissance person. I’m barely a resident of the 21st century.

“That’s the secret: ask people to talk about their context. Hope for the best. Everyone has a folk song, a story they tell again and again, but most people have other stories that lay beneath their usual anecdotes. They’re the ones that often crackle with life”

CHAP: There are, I believe, two other Craig Taylors who are both writers. Are you ever confused for either of them?

TAYLOR: Not by passing strangers. I wish them all the best. I was nearly named Luxton Taylor, which would have been helpful. I’d love to free myself from ‘Taylor’ and leave the surname to those who truly own it: Elizabeth, James, Chuck.

CHAP: Our paths first crossed when you were editing Five Dials. How did you drift into literary journalism of that nature?

TAYLOR: I started Five Dials with Hamish Hamilton publisher Simon Prosser in 2008. He was looking to produce an interesting magazine. So was I. We had no idea the project would continue barrelling along for thirteen years. We recently revitalized the magazine, thanks to the work of co-editors Hermione Thompson and Hannah Chukwu. It’s heading in an engaging direction. Of course, it’s still free.

CHAP: You returned to Akenfield in 2006, for your book of the same name. Was Ronald Blythe’s original a major influence on your writing?

TAYLOR: Absolutely. The original Akenfield is a book like no other. I researched my follow-up in 2004-5. The research consisted of hanging around a small English village for months. Occasionally I travelled to Blythe’s Suffolk cottage, Bottengoms, for conversations that filled the afternoon. I was new to England, I knew very little about Blythe’s connection to figures of importance. He’d tell me stories of Benjamin Britten, John and Christine Nash, Patricia Highsmith, E.M. Forster. He sat there surrounded by his books and paintings, gently leading me back into British cultural history. Ronald is now nearly 100 and is an extraordinary storyteller. No-one else has captured the beauty and brutality of rural England.

CHAP: While researching Return to Akenfield, Londoners and New Yorkers, what have been the most striking similarities between the three locations?

TAYLOR: While working on my books I’ve been lucky to meet individuals who employ the rich vernacular of their surroundings. Farmers in Suffolk and therapists in midtown Manhattan speak in their own specialised professional language. That’s the secret: ask people to talk about their context. Hope for the best. Everyone has a folk song, a story

they tell again and again, but most people have other stories that lay beneath their usual anecdotes. They’re the ones that often crackle with life.

CHAP: And what have been the most notable differences, other than the obvious?

TAYLOR: New Yorkers tend to talk about the Mets more than Suffolk farmers.

CHAP: Do you find that researching and writing books of the kind that you produce is emotionally tiring or vastly rewarding?

TAYLOR: Both. But how else are you supposed to write a book? I love reading about Georges Simenon and his prolific output. I can’t do that. I can’t imagine working on books that don’t feel lived in. I didn’t mean for New Yorkers to take so long but the result is, I hope, depth and the feel of time passing. Reward and exhaustion are built into the process. Books like mine can’t be researched over the internet. They’re tethered to the world.

CHAP: Londoners was published in 2012. Do you think that a post-Brexit version of the book would have been substantially different, or do you not believe that much would have changed?

TAYLOR: Londoners was a celebration of the London I love, and that London is where cultures intersect. Are cultures still intersecting in London? Sure. But is it happening in the same way? London is tough to live in, tough to negotiate, but my conversations with foreigners, new immigrants and migrant workers were much more optimistic. I haven’t heard much optimism from Londoners post-Brexit. Where are all these optimistic Londoners? Maybe they’re hiding out in Penge?

CHAP: New Yorkers was strongly influenced by the covid pandemic. If you’d published it in 2019, do you think that it would have had a more optimistic feel?

TAYLOR: I’m thankful the book didn’t come out in 2019 or early in 2020. But no iteration of the book was gong to be too optimistic. New Yorkers are always dealing with some devastation – Sandy, 9/11, the 2008 recession, the Mets. Without mention of covid, the book would have been instantly irrelevant. I spent most of the summer of 2020 interviewing patients, doctors and nurses who’d been caught up in the first wave. They were trying to make sense of the tragedy as it unfolded. This most important section of the book was added at the last possible moment.

CHAP: Are you still in touch with many of the people who you’ve interviewed?

TAYLOR: One just called me a second ago – Dan Bauso, the lawyer who fought through covid. With many of them, yes, we’re still in touch. To sit with someone and listen to them talk about their life for six hours is a good way to kick off a lasting friendship. They’re characters, obviously, but not fictional characters. Their lives go on. They change. I love hearing about how their New York lives continue.

CHAP: What stories did you have to omit, and why? Do you have any regrets about any excised material?

TAYLOR: Much was cut. There were a few legally problematic sections that disappeared. There was one incredibly confrontational scene that was cut. Both Londoners and New Yorkers have shadow versions. There are entire books made up of all that couldn’t fit into the published edition. Like remixes, the shadow versions are revealing in their own way.

CHAP: What are your best and worst experiences producing the books?

TAYLOR: Doing this kind of work is a license to ask meaningful questions, which often lead to meaningful answers, which often lead to an improvisation of sorts. At best, something of meaning is created in the interview, a space where a person can assess their life. Occasionally the conversation changes us both. A current passes through the air. An afternoon disappears. The worst experience is when the improvisation fails, for one reason or another. But even then, walking away from a failed interview in New York, I was always surrounded by a loud city that seemed to be saying: How about this person next? How about this person?

CHAP: Other than Blythe, who have been your greatest influences as a writer?

TAYLOR: I like writers who linger and do a lot of legwork. Adrian Nicole Leblanc. Robert Caro. Tony Parker, Joseph Mitchell. And I love writers who capture the ineffable aspects of city life. Maeve Brennan springs to mind. I admire Janet Malcolm’s precision and the way Miriam Toews writes with heart. I’m sad there will be no further Stephen Dunn poetry.

CHAP: Which cities or areas would you like to produce similar books about?

TAYLOR: I’m not sure I want to write another city book. Maybe I’ll work on a project about climate change.

CHAP: You turned your hand to drama in One Million Tiny Plays About Britain – did that make you want to revisit the form on a grander scale?

TAYLOR: I’m still writing tiny plays. I’m up to around 500.

CHAP: Is there a ‘Craig Taylor writing ensemble’ that should be in the boutiques and gentlemen’s outfitters?

TAYLOR: I’ve been pretty much wearing the same blue Dickies workshirt since covid hit. Pair that with some jeans I bought from a little shop downtown owned by a man who once whispered to me: ‘These. These are the jeans best for you.’ And finally a pair of white plastic shoes so that when it’s too hot I can walk straight across the barnacles and into the Pacific. That’s the ensemble.

CHAP: What are your favourite books written over the last few years?

TAYLOR: Ali Smith created something special with her ‘Seasonal Quartet’. Tamara Payne helped finish her father Les’s incredible The Dead Are Arising. Leanne Betasamosake Simpson’s As We Have Always Done changed my entire perception of Indigenous culture. I loved Natalie Diaz’s Postcolonial Love Poem. And if you’re looking for a great book about algae, I recommend Ruth Kassinger’s Slime: How Algae Created Us, Plague Us, and Just Might Save Us.

CHAP: What advice would you offer to a literary editor?

TAYLOR: Look for writing coming from outside major metropolitan centres. Look out for the next hot book about algae.

CHAP: And what would be your epitaph, if you could have one?

TAYLOR: Leonard Cohen didn’t write the song, but I’ve always loved his version of Passing Through, so I’ll go with: Passin’ through, passin’ through Sometimes happy, sometimes blue Glad that I ran into you Tell the people that you saw me passin’ through n