impresses themselves upon another. Maxine touches Tammy, Jerry, Todd, and you know, I just take her as an example. And each of the relationships she has is a necessary one for the development of her or the other person. And what I wanted to do was make sure that this kind of jigsaw worked throughout the entire book, so that everybody got some transformation of some kind. Even a relatively minor character like Jerry is saved from his cancer.
Revelations: I think Jerry's a fascinating character - was he based on Roddy McDowall?
Clive Barker: I couldn't say... All I could say would be that that was a very smart guess!
Revelations: The interesting thing about Roddy McDowall is that we read that, after he died, he asked for his diaries and personal effects to be locked up for 100 years before they were read. I'm just wondering whether any of it's going to be like
Clive Barker: Well, I've read a lot of that stuff and I knew Roddy really well and I don't believe
Revelations: How did you come to know him?
Clive Barker: We met at a Fangoria convention!
Revelations: Of all things.
Clive Barker: And he said he loved what I did, and he was very familiar with the books; I obviously loved what he did. I went to his house dozens of times to dinner and met Gore Vidal, Elizabeth Taylor... and so on and so forth, the list is endless. And a lot of the time, I was just the observer, very quiet, I was
Revelations: And then report back afterwards from wherever it is -'the furthest reaches of our imagination...' - however the quote goes!
Clive Barker: Hopefully so! The fun thing about this book is that it matches the furthest reaches of our imagination with things that we all know are going on all of the time, and I think if the book has a different kind of chance in the marketplace to previous books it's because Hollywood is fascinating to everybody. Because everybody knows that people are having face-lifts and tummy-tucks and ass-tucks and all kinds of other things all the time and here I am just simply saying what people already know is the case. And there's
Revelations: Right, it resonates as a real story on those levels.
Clive Barker: Thank you! Thank you - that is the most important thing you could say. Thank you, Phil, I appreciate that, because, obviously the fan part of it I know about. I know a lot of people who work in the 'body improvement' business and I got hold, through them, or through one person in particular, of some descriptions of protocols for what happens if things go wrong, which were... chilling isn't the word. And there are so many things I could have had happen to Todd which were so much worse than what actually happened to him. You only have to think of Michael Jackson to see a man who took a journey for which there is no return - so that part, I supported all that. I supported all the stuff with fact and information and interviews. And the stuff about the movies themselves - that's my experience. The stuff about Oscar night, y'know, where he's sitting there at home, wishing he wasn't there, at the same time despising every minute of it - that is completely my experience of Oscar night and, having been there as a guest, as it were, that whole thing of fake smiles and... Yeuch!
Revelations: There is some marketing to do around this book. It's almost in a genre of its own; it's another of those
Clive Barker: It
Revelations: And what we saw from
Clive Barker: Yes, but I think the audience in literary terms, the reading audience, is much more willing to accept crossovers than a cinematic audience - it's a smarter audience - and I have greater faith, I will say, in the reading audience than I do in the movie audience. Maybe that's a misplaced faith but, you know, I've given my readers a whole host of very different kinds of books. Just over the last little while I've given people a lot of different kinds of things -
Revelations: And expecting to be rumbled any day now.
Clive Barker: Exactly, exactly. And so what it does, in terms of where the supernatural enters the world, is how easily... the number of people I know who have private tarot card readers or private astrologers or whatever. Why? Because, exactly right, Phil, people expect to be rumbled tomorrow. People are living from day to day, afraid of what tomorrow will bring. Afraid that tomorrow will bring a complete bomb and that their careers will be over. And so you look to do what you can to keep those horrors at bay, the horrors of failure. And some of things you do are supernatural things. You pray to unhealthy gods, you are overly preoccupied with astrology, with the tarot card readings, with the ouija board.... The other thing that people do here, they use physical means as a means to aid their chances in the world. They get little nips and tucks, they get their teeth taken out so that their cheekbones protrude more, all of these various things. They get collagen injections in their lips and that's a particularly naked one right now which just drives me nuts! .
Revelations: So you're not tempted into any of these beauty parlors yourself?
Clive Barker: No, I'm a writer and I'm allowed to get old and grey and wrinkled and crinkly.
Revelations: You 're still too much of the Brit at heart.
CB: I think I am, but I also think it’s just a different feel if you're a writer. I think if you're a writer, the marks of age are part of the proof that you've been in a battle. A battle with deadlines, a battle with your imagination sometimes.
