Chaz Brenchley

By Nicola Warwick

"Memory is the soul's mirror. What happens when someone steals it?"

--Chaz Brenchley

What would you do if you woke up in hospital and your last memory was dated January, but the calendar said April?

If they said you'd crashed a car and you not only didn't remember the crash but you didn't remember the car either?

If you were a solicitor, rigidly honest, and the biggest bunch of flowers in the room had come from the biggest crook in town?

If there were no flowers or visits from your long-time girlfriend but the total stranger at your bedside claimed to be your wife--and then proved it?

If someone drove a blazing truck into your room in an obvious attempt to kill somebody, and very possibly you?

You'd do what Jonty Marks did when all this happened to him. He ran for sanctuary. To the mountain garden of a fallen angel where else would he go?

I first came across Chaz Brenchley during one of my habitual weekend trails around the bookshops in Manchester. It was the title that first called to me from the bookshelf . . . Light Errant. I didn't know then about Chaz's penchant for puns, neologisms and paronomasia. I just liked the great book cover and the main character's name. Benedict Macallan (mmm--Chaz has a thing about names like Luke, Ben, Joe) inspired by Chaz's indulgence for Macallan Whisky which he has been known to quaff in reasonable quantity at the Crime Writers Association, a small compensation for not yet having won one of their awards.

I read the first page. Always a good test. If you're gripped, then buy the book. I was; I did. After that there was Dispossession, an amnesia/identity crisis theme with a twist. With a fallen angel, Luke. Chaz claims it's not his best book, but I really enjoyed it. The book kept me guessing.

Some time later Chaz's name appeared among the cast of addressees on an e-mail I received and being one to "seize the day," I applied in writing for an interview.

A few (long) e-mails later here we are. Chaz suffers from a similar blight to me. Apart from being a compulsive buyer of books he's an e-mailer after my own heart--good, long e-mails. He initially embarked on his voyage of cyberspace under the illusion that e-mails were short and sweet, all flashy witticisms and newslines.

Chaz is also compulsively honest at the keyboard so you're in for a fascinating read. Deep-seated revelations of the soul abound. (I'm sure we'll both live to regret it one day as old e-mails surface from servers to come back to haunt us). Chaz is the guy who challenged me to "pistolettes at dawn . . . sweetie" because of my emailqueen sobriquet. Apparently I was a pretender to the title. Ha! Who are you kidding?

Chaz was born in 1959 and lived in a two up two down house (outside loo, no bath) in Oxford. There was no phone either. Chaz's entry into the world was heralded by a midnight encounter with a policeman as his father made a dash to the local payphone.

Later Chaz fled from Cornwall to Newcastle intending to stay only six months. That was 18 years ago. Now he can't go too far . . . he has two cats (known as kithren), Sophie (Sophonisba) and Misha (Artemisia) and too many books.

Ask him what he would grab in a domestic disaster? His cats, the unfinished novel, and Softly, Chaz's constant companion and a very famous bear. Fearing he may be eaten by the cats--or some domestic catastrophe like the electrics going phzzt may befall him, Chaz totes Softly around with him everywhere. He couldn't "bear" it if Softly went AWOL.

At one point Softly acquired a nom de guerre: "Sorry", attributed to him by The Independent diarist, but that's another story altogether. However, I can safely tell you that Softly is the only teddy bear to have been gossiped about in a national newspaper's diary column.

Chaz is 6'2". A Capricorn, loyal, trustworthy, materially-minded and a great cook. A hat man with a large collection of baseball caps he counts Truly Madly Deeply, Ladyhawke, The Blues Brothers, Rocky Horror among his favourite films and confesses to a mad passion for musicals. Like me, Chaz listens to the World Service--we Brits have a thing about the World Service especially when we're away from home. We become terribly patriotic, develop cravings for things like a good cup of tea and a compulsion to tune in to the dulcet tones of some very British-sounding guy speaking the Queen's English. Of course, I could just be speaking for myself here!

Chaz is a bit of a fashion victim too, when he can afford to be--Nicole Farhi black linen suits sing out to him.

Taught to read at the age of three by his sister, Chaz always has at least one book on the go. More commonly, several books. He says they're an improvement on real life. They have better endings. And books, after all, are the ultimate survival kit. To love and buy lots of books (especially by a certain Chaz Brenchley) just has to be a blessing.

Whilst at school as a sixth former he solemnly waded his way through the entirety of Proust's "A la recherche du temps perdu" in version originale. Definitely an impressive feat. Contemporary favourite writers include Michael Marshall Smith, Nick Royle, Graham Joyce, Iain Banks, Geoff Ryman and Guy Gavriel Kay.

Chaz has even set foot in my favourite place: Waterstone's, Manchester. During his book-signing visit he managed to persuade a customer to buy one of his own books instead of that of some other writer. I managed to acquire a couple of copies of his books, signed, of course, in the obligatory green ink.

Chaz loves coloured inks. His first second-hand electric typewriter came with a brown ribbon which he kept replacing with another, typing in brown until he entered the computer age. And then he went through the green biro stage. On the basis that he is the captain of his soul and only the captain onboard ship is permitted to use green ink. Bet you didn't know that!

Chaz has only ever made his living from writing and he's been doing that since he was 18. He's recently celebrated 21 years in the business--a host of guests and Chaz in a Nicole Farhi black linen suit.

In answer to the question that is the bane of every writer's life, "Where do you get your ideas?" Chaz cites his own life, a poster at a bus stop, an advertising brochure which landed on his doormat, listening to the radio at bath time and sometimes personal tragedies. Inspiration comes wherever he can find it. He describes writing as "a messy, earthy, skin stripping business and it hurts." But writing requires honesty.

Sometimes he chooses book titles first and does the writing later. This happened with Outremer. He knew the background, how he wanted to use it, knew where he wanted to set the story. He was looking at the map of the real castle on which his own castle is based. One of the turrets had a name but no one knew what it meant. That was how the title, Tower of the King's Daughter occurred to him. By the time he arrived back home he'd found three matching titles for the rest of the series. And the plot fell into place.

Legend took all of three hours to make Chaz an offer for Outremer, a fantasy series involving the Crusades, a Middle Eastern setting, magic and mythical Djinns, Afrits and Ghouls. A fan of TE Lawrence (my hero), Seven Pillars of Wisdom constituted some of Chaz's research for the Outremer series. TEL also assisted enormously by very considerately mapping all the Crusader castles in his doctoral thesis. "Such a help," said Chaz.

Chaz says he knocks words together until they stop making clunking sounds and begin to resonate pleasantly. However, the more you get it right, the less time you have to write. You become prone to meetings, lunches, signings, tours, talks, committees, columns, and . . . interviews!

Oh, and he's promised to name one of his book characters after me. That's Nicola. Or Nic. Never Nicky though! OK, Chaz? I'm holding you to that.

Nicola Warwick is the author of life's little luxuries. She lives in Manchester in the North West of the UK. Nicola's articles have been published in various writing, computing, and electronics magazines. Read more about her here.

About the Author:

Order the author's books from Amazon.com.

Bibliography: 12 novels for adults, a book of short stories, 3 children's books, and poetry.

The Samaritan
The Refuge
The Garden
Blood Waters
Mall Time
Light Errant
Paradise
Dead of Light
Dispossession
Tower of the King's Daughter (first volume of Outremer series)
Shelter

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