"What's it
about?"
Everyone asks
this, as you'd expect, when I say I've just published a book.
"Werewolves,"
I reply.
"Ah, you're
getting on the bandwagon!" they say. "Trying to ride Twilight's
coattails. Everyone's reading books about vampires and werewolves these
days."
It seems that
people think I wrote the book thinking about what the next current fashion in
novels would be. If only! If only I could write that fast.
In reality, I
started Leaving
the Pack in 1990. Back then, as far as I can
remember, werewolves were the American one terrorising London, or were the
wolf-like beings of Whitley Strieber's Wolfen,
from nearly a decade before (we'll leave Teen Wolf aside, shall we?).
So if a species of
intelligent wolves could exist, why not a race of men who were like wild beasts
inside, whose hormone and pheromone production was affected by the moon? No
reason. It seemed scientifically feasible to me.
I wrote a novella,
and slowly expanded it into a novel over a number of years as I worked on other
things, too. And as the years passed, I saw werewolf books and movies appear
again. It's like clothing - you don't need to worry about your wardrobe not
being in style. Just keep the outfits until they come back into vogue. You
write what you want and sooner or later, someone will think it's the right time
for it.
Werewolves and
vampires are like denim jackets: they're never going to go out of fashion for
very long. Romance is like blue jeans: there are lots of cuts, but it's
essentially the same thing, and it's always in fashion. Put werewolves and
romance together and you have a look that has lasted since Levi Strauss was
wearing pocket watches.
But just like the Wolfen, my werewolves were different to everything I had seen and read
about both before and after. They're not paranormal beings. They can't infect
you; only kill you - albeit with extreme ease. But they only kill you if you
upset them.
In short, they're
real. So real that I had at one time considered writing "an Interview with
the Werewolf," where I got this whole novel from one of their kind
spilling the beans on the rest of his race.
And in real life, werewolves
have more time for love and romance than they have for killing, as the extract
below will show... Unless you upset them.
Links
Blurb:
Nobody believes in
werewolves.
That's just what
Paul McHew and his friends are counting on.
They and their
kind roam our city streets: a race of people from whom the terrible legend
stems; now living among us invisibly after centuries of persecution through
fear and ignorance. Superficially Caucasian but physiologically very different,
with lunar rhythms so strong that during the three days of the full moon they
are almost completely controlled by their hormonal instincts, you might have
cursed them as just another group of brawling youths or drunken gang-bangers.
Now at the point of extinction, if they are to survive their existence must
remain restricted to mere stories and legend, but, paradoxically, they also
must marry outside their society in order to persist.
The responsibility
for negotiating this knife-edge is given to Paul, who runs the streets with his
friends during the full moon, keeping them out of real trouble and its
resultant difficult questions. Having succeeded for years, he finds his real
test of leadership comes when he meets Susan, a potential life-mate, to whom he
will have to reveal his true identity if he is ever to leave his pack.
10% of the
author's royalties will be donated to WWF, the World Wildlife Fund.
Excerpt:
The rain started as Susan made her way to the coast that evening. The
clouds, building up all day and brooding darkly above the mountains, swept over
the city and sea on a fierce, sudden wind out of the north, bringing the night
with them. A number of enormous bolts, shooting down out of the black mass to
the buildings and into the boiling water, followed by thunder to make men
flinch and dogs cower, were the prelude to a downpour of seemingly biblical
proportions. The water gullied down the streets, bringing the traffic to an
almost complete halt. The bus crawled along for another half an hour, the
driver’s foot forever on the brake as the cars in front continually stopped.
Susan felt herself get irritated. She was going to be very late meeting Paul.
It would have been quicker to walk, but the rain outside would have drenched
her instantly. The very force of the drops would have plastered her light
jacket to her skin and the water rebounding off the ground and puddles would
have saturated the rest of her body. In some places, where the accumulated
litter and rubbish of the city had clogged the drains, there were veritable
ponds to cross and even the cars had to take runs at them. She took deep
breaths and told herself it was fashionable for a lady to be late.
Visiting her mother had been good. She had recognized Susan and they’d
had a pleasant conversation. The lights in the elder woman’s eyes appeared
distant however, as if she were talking from a different epoch, but
nevertheless, just as she was going, Susan told her about Paul. Her mother had
seemed pleased, but told her she was a bit young to be going out with boys,
she’d plenty of time for that and should be studying hard. Susan had smiled and
agreed, wondering at the same time if the relationship was really serious and
deciding that it was too early to know.
The bar – a wide, low-roofed room with some tables around the edges and
a view out over the water – was heaving. The rain had driven the masses from
the beach and half of them seemed to have taken refuge here. They would be
trapped there in their shorts and t-shirts, miniskirts and beach tops until the
rain ceased or at least eased and the floods abated. When she walked into the
bar, however, she saw Paul immediately. He didn’t notice her arrive, and for a
few seconds she just watched him from the doorway: standing quite alone in the
centre of the room where there were fewer people. It didn’t seem to bother him
at all. He didn’t look out of place, like you sometimes see people and would
have said to your friends: ‘Hey, look at the loner,’ if you’d been back in your
teens. It was as if nobody knew he was really there: a mere observer, a step
back from the rest of the bar; just standing there watching everyone with an
enigmatic smile on his face, as if he’d seen all this before, was appreciating
a play for the second time.
To her, however, it was impossible not to notice him. She would have
been less surprised to see him in same spot telling jokes or relating a story
to an enraptured audience. His aura seemed to fill the air around him, swelling
his being until it was the kernel of the room, the core around which everything
else revolved.
As she looked at him, she felt that this was a man who could do anything
he had a mind to do, who was strong enough to make a decision and stick to it
in the face of any opposition. He knew his mind and was not afraid to go with
how he saw things, despite what others might think, could take seemingly
impossible things and make them his own. It had been a long time since she had
known a man like that, and she had often wondered if she would ever encounter
another.
Paul turned suddenly towards her and caught her eye smiling broadly. It
almost seemed as if he had known she was there all the time, and she was a
little taken aback; her gut clenched the way it had when they had first met.
She grinned back, then went over and embraced him.
“Sorry I’m so late. What a nightmare!”
“No problem. I was just doing a little people-watching.”
“So I see – you look quite the anthropologist watching a tribal dance.”
He laughed and nodded. “Not far off, not far off.”
They got some drinks and sat down in a quiet corner where a young couple
had just left to brave the rain, bored and whining kids in tow. Susan noticed
that Paul was carrying a small rucksack. She wondered what he had it for, but
decided to wait and find out rather than ask directly. A part of her hoped it
was an overnight bag, for she longed to spend the night with him again. The
tiny piece or her which took offence at his presumptuousness was silenced by
the rest, remembering that she had invited him into her house, and had done it
just once.
“How was your mother?” asked Paul.
Susan shrugged slightly before nodding. “Good. She recognized me, and we
had a good chat.”
“That sounds great. Did you tell her you met the man of your dreams?”
Susan smiled softly. She was not sure why, but she decided to lie, not
really ready to reveal how much she believed that herself. “I didn’t. I’m not
sure how old she thought I was, so I didn’t want to upset her.”
Paul didn’t reply, but took her hand and squeezed it softly.
She felt bad then. A panicked thought shot through her mind that he
could see through her childish deception, but there was nothing in his
expression to suggest that. She smiled more brightly at him, brushing his face
with her hand. “I told the nurse, though, and she was delighted.”
Paul laughed and moved his hand to her knee, which he squeezed harder.
“Was she now?” he asked as he kissed her on the lips.
They had some more drinks, while outside the torrent subsided. The
clouds dispersed, quickly whipped south by the strong wind and the last rays of
the day broke through. Once the rain ceased, the bar emptied as the tourists
made for their hotels to change and spend the hours of darkness in the
restaurants and clubs nearer the city centre. Susan and Paul also left, walking
the promenade that separated the beach from the coast road. It was a balmy
evening, the dying sun making an effort to evaporate the puddles of standing
water, raising the humidity again. They strolled towards Chawni Point, jutting
into the sea between them and the river, just another couple among many others
doing likewise. The clouds had retreated to the horizon where they hung red
across the sky as the glowing sun set, like galloping horses on the edge of a
plain, circling some compelling predator. Soon after, the lamps along the sea
wall came on and they kept walking as the moon rose above the clouds and poured
its argent life across the ocean.
When they reached the Point, they continued walking around it and
stopped at a pub that faced the sea on the eastern tip. The bar was a favorite
of both strollers and bikers, which made a strange but agreeable blend. Susan
came here now and then herself, and it was as full as it always was. They took
their drinks outside and sat on the sea wall in the mild evening breeze, gazing
at the waning silver disc reflected across the oily water. The satellite seemed
to seep life directly into Paul’s eyes, so brightly did they glow in the gloom.
The hot passion of before had not returned, and she wondered if it would
disappear with the moon each month. However, it was replaced with something
else, something more precious to her for being less tangible. She felt that her
life would be like the night sky without the resplendence of that satellite,
should Paul retreat his presence. She would be without meaning, without life,
were he to suddenly disappear. The thought gave her a slight surge of fear, but
that fear gave way to something else as she recognized it for what it was:
love; the worry that someone she needed would not need her in return. Her heart
soared tentatively in this private revelation, glad it had at last encountered
this mysterious sensation, but amazed at its abruptness, its sudden evolution.
She felt an urge to reveal it then and there, to make her declaration of love
in the pearly luminescence, above the vermeil waves, but quelled it cruelly.
Reluctant to show her vulnerability, despite its potential luxury, she had not
gotten to this pearl-drenched headland by falling at anyone’s feet and would
walk away from it as proud as she had arrived, arm in arm with the man whose
very skin seeped steel. She would carry her concern untended until ready to
tell him the true depth of her feelings and presumed it was an anxiety shared
by all, a trepidation that never quite left. Susan wondered if the moon
depended upon the night as much as the night depended on the moon, in the
infinite dance of the earth and its satellite, and she felt the silver light
fill her own being, not directly, but through his luminous eyes. After
midnight, they continued westwards past the southern part of the harbor, in
which most of the smaller private crafts were moored, and back into the city,
where they caught a taxi back to her flat once more.
