I catch up with Iain Brimswall at the publication of his latest novel The Shepherdess and ask him his feelings on having completed the Zoo Keeper trilogy.

“One of release, in a way,” he replies. “Things I needed to say have now been said. I feel better for that.” He is also pleased that his writing style is coming along nicely. “Words behave better. They arrange themselves in proper lines instead of rushing me or hiding.”

As regards the final Zoo Keeper instalment, I suggest that the storytelling is significantly more creative than that of the first instalment. For a start, it opens on the coast of west Africa; secondly, there are themes of extreme attitudes to religion, and the distribution of illegal drugs. What’s the writer’s experience of any of these?

“I’ve left my writer’s comfort zone. I’m not merely close reporting. Experience isn’t essential to expansion. It’s perhaps well worn but no less correct in the repeating: someone writing a crime novel doesn’t need to have murdered anyone, or to have personally investigated a murder, in order to be plausible. Common sense, though, is important, along with attentiveness to other people’s experiences. The episode at the end of Missed Chapters is based on an actual case. All right, this might be viewed as reporting, but I work the event to explain the Su Gardeen character. For The Shepherdess, there is no writer experience of the themes. I give the space to creative storytelling, as you remark. Concentration is necessary in order to get it right. I think I got it right. Narration may be a form of reporting, I suppose. I place myself in the scene, as an invisible observer. I see and hear and feel what the characters see, hear, feel. Almost any writer of fiction will understand how the characters take on a life of their own. Mine definitely lead the process.”

The characterisation interests me. If the first book of the trilogy was in part autobiographical, and the protagonist of the second book was a composite of women known to the author, then who is – or was – Fiona Kemp-Davies, anchor character of the final book? Brimswall smiles and tells me there was a certain someone brought out of memory from a long time ago to serve as a sketch for Fee. The image on the cover of The Shepherdess is a treatment of a photograph of that same young lady. I ask about the character of Craig Mains, who in the second and especially the third books of the trilogy successfully markets the atheist stance. Who is Craig Mains in the flesh? My host alludes to the laws of libel.

“Totally made up,” he winks.

But Mains is a name I press him on, and not for the first time. Some might say Mains is a distancing character, a third party position, inserted by Brimswall because the topic is a difficult one. Do I detect a momentary hint of indignation from across the table?

“I write about the paedophile condition, in Missed Chapters, without a distancing character. A difficult topic, I think you’ll agree. Throughout the trilogy, I cannot be more direct in my trenchant cynicism of urban community development as it is practised in this country. In the debate concerning religion versus there being no deity, I use Mains as a counter argument against Fee, and vice versa, because they’re at opposite ends of the faith spectrum. I’m not using either of them as a distancing character; rather, I’m setting one against the other in mischievous fashion. Later, it’s Fee and Ellis Carmichael.”

Is Brimswall a believer? I exercise the question. He shakes his head.

“Su puts it rather well in the monologue she delivers beside Fee’s grave. Morality’s an in-house thing.”

But why is religion in there in the first place – pulled apart by opposing views?

“That’s the point. There are those who are completely enveloped by religion, and those who completely oppose its continued application. Which side is making the mistake? My approach is one that says let’s explore – yes, let’s pull apart. Let each be allowed to decide for themself. Polarisation is intellectual abuse. If you think about it, abuse is the common theme of the Zoo Keeper trilogy – abuse of the individual, abuse of the community, abuse of much else.”

On to future plans. What’s in the Brimswall pipeline? Well, a summer break spent with the manuscript for the satirical Brownland, which is spelt ‘brwnlnd’. Like blrlnd, it’s being written in the free flow style, which means ideas and the occasional news item are allowed to run straight out on to the paper.

“When I began the writing last year, I thought the current political show would soon be over. My concern was that not enough might happen to justify the title. I put the project to one side. Since then, we’ve had the rupture of the banking system followed by the MPs’ expenses fiasco. The reality is far more bizarre than anything I could have possibly conceived. We’re suffering satirical overload. However, I’m sure the resourceful Janice will cope.”

If I recall, on the last page of blrlnd Janice is walled up for ever. Mentioned.

“Don’t believe everything you read, especially in fiction. Janice is back – and how! She’s running the country from the wings. Someone has to.”

And after the summer break?

“I’ve a story on climate change which is simmering, so to speak.”

A prompt for more receives more. I’m told the proposition is that the interglacial period which we presently enjoy can come to an end very suddenly, as a natural function. Industrial emissions are bringing the event forward by boosting the warming which precedes a big freeze – something to do with moisture accumulation in the atmosphere. We’re being arrogant if we believe we can halt a mighty natural cycle. Instead of trying to reverse the effects of the last two centuries of human activity, which even if successful will only slightly retard the inevitable, we should focus on preparing for conditions as they one day will surely be.

“My advice is, buy a plot of sand in the Sahara,” grins Brimswall. “As northern lands ice over, the desert will bloom.”

Anything else?

“As I say, it’s simmering. Has been since the nineties. Someone may beat me to it. For all I know, they may already have done so, although they’re unlikely to share my slant. By the time I submit to the publisher, the next ice age could be outside on the lawn. Now there’s a storyline...”

Simmering since the nineties doesn’t sound like a plan of action. I convey this impression.

“As a matter of fact, there is a plan for a next ‘socio-novel’, if I could be sure what the description means.”

I reply the term’s flexible (Brimswall has never really taken to it) and I request more detail. He informs me that’s as far as he’s prepared to go for the moment. There’s an outstanding responsibility in connection with source confidentiality, or something. Briefly back to The Shepherdess. A great story but the conclusion – for the trilogy – is hardly optimisitic. What’s that about?

“In the exploitation of the poor, there is no happy ending, not for the poor. The best deal that’s offered is acceptance through dependency. Society is a mesocracy; everything is tuned to middle-class values driving a middle-class agenda. Meanwhile, the estate class falls further away from the mainstream than ever. No one in a mesocracy is going to change that. There you have the message.”

My time is up. I give my thanks, wish Iain Brimswall well with his future catalogue, and say my goodbye. Though I’m sure I’ll be back.

Reader

Iain Brimswall