Muse: Larry, first of all, Whispers of the Muse welcomes you and The Fruit & Veg Man to the site. Tell us a little about yourself. What part of the world do you live in? Tell us about your background?
Barker: I now live in rural Shropshire, England with my wife and four kids. I’ve also lived in Oxford, Camden and, most recently, France.. I had a highly successful career in advertising but grew increasingly disillusioned as I was pushed further and further into a management role. I preferred shooting commercials to firing employees! So, I took the plunge, went freelance and concentrated on my own writing. Luckily there is a history of successful UK novelists coming out of advertising (Salman Rushdie - “Fresh Cream Cakes - Naughty but Nice”; Fay Weldon -“Go to Work on an Egg”). So, when I make it, I’ll be known as Larry The Future’s Bright, The Future’s Orange Barker. Who knows?
Muse: Who are your favorite authors?
Barker: Laurence Durrell. John Irving, Ian McEwan,, John Fowles. A.S Byaatt, Annie Proulx, Carl Hiassen, John Le Carre - to name but eight.
Muse: Why do you write?
Barker: I’ve always written. It’s just that between the ages of 20 and 45 I did it on behalf of various advertising agencies. Now I want to write for me ( and you, I hope!) I enjoy words, that’s all. No inner demons. No compulsion - I just enjoy it.
Muse: What is your writing regiment? How often do you work on a novel? Do you set daily time or word goals? What keeps you meeting your deadlines?
Barker: I’m lucky enough to be at home full time so it’s pretty regimented. Essentially I sit down at 9.00am (I’ve got my own miniscule office separate from the house) and get up at 1.00pm.. After that I spend time round the house and by 3 o’clock the place is swarming with kids, so that’s pretty much it. I’m not a night person. I never set word count goals because, sometimes, three words can take as long as 3000. Plus, I’m a lazy bastard. I haven’t had a real deadline yet - but I was pretty good at them in ‘adland’ so I should imagine I’ll cope.
Muse: Larry, I totally enjoyed your novel, The Fruit & Veg Man! From word one I was hooked and this book offers an interesting, tongue-in-cheek outlook on life. Are you anything like your characters? Does the way you personally look at life reflect in your writing style?
Barker: Yes, I guess it does and there is quite a lot of me in it. I suppose if it’s about anything it’s about the nobility of disappointment. Deep down we all believe we’re special but, in the main, we don’t amount to much. It’s a very British thing. In terms of style, I’m very much an observer. To me the writing works when you can accurately transmit what you have observed, whether it be the colours of a market stall or how it feels to be lonely, to your reader.
Muse: What are the creative jumping off points for you? Are you inspired by dreams? Music? Nature? What triggers your imagination?
Barker: I think quite filmically. I imagine a shot - often a piece of music will be the springboard - then I’ll try to work out how we got to that point in the story. In ‘The Fruit & Veg Man’ certain scenes were fixed in my head before I even knew how it all fitted together.
Muse: Tell us about the story in The Fruit & Veg Man.
Barker: I spend all my time thinking ‘what if?’ about certain events in my life.
I mean, I’m incredibly happy now - but I’ve been sad. But what if things had gone differently...? Tim opens himself up to all sorts of pain because he wants to go back and change things - to create the life he’d originally mapped out for himself. He has to go back mentally as well as physically and, along the way, we are told the back-story of how he became the Tim we find today. Then of course he tries to put things right. One thing it’s worth stating is that it is a bit of a roller-coaster ride. It also deepens as it progresses. It purposely starts off quite light before dragging you to some pretty dark places. But I think life’s like that - none of us have any idea how things are going to turn out.
Muse: What was your inspiration for this story?
Barker: My own love of France was always a big factor. Failed love affairs, food, painting (I dabble a bit!) - just stuff that means a lot to me.
Muse: What is your favorite scene in this wonderful novel and why?
Barker: On the comedy front I do love the scene in the Garden of Remembrance. Of the more poignant stuff? Harder to say, but there are passages of descriptive writing where I can actually smell the place I’m writing about. I like that.
Muse: Have you written other books?
Barker: Not as yet. I also write for TV and film and, the truth is, a novel takes a lot of time. You can put together a synopsis and sample pages in a couple of months. For me, a book is a year’s commitment. But if someone wants another one…!
Muse: How do you feel about the current publishing marketplace? Barker: Of course it’s tricky. Everything’s in flux, there’s not a lot of money around - it’s the same in TV. I’m still hanging out for a mainstream publisher, though. To my mind there’s not enough clear blue water between POD/self-publishing and Vanity publishing for me to want to go down that route. Things are changing. But it’ll always be slow when the resistance comes from within the industry. For instance, when I go to buy an e-book at Waterstone’s, more often than not it’s more expensive than the hard-copy. That’s just nuts, and shows a complete lack of commitment to the new formats. It’s all a bit wait and see at the moment.
