Christopher Nosnibor in conversation with Stuart Bateman


In tandem with the release of the collection Clinical, Brutal... An Anthology of Writing with Guts Christopher Nosnibor will be interviewing some of the contributors to the book about their contributions, their writing methods and their outlooks more broadly.

Stuart is the man who is Clinicality Press. A writer and multi-media artist, he's far from prolific and rather reserved, preferring to operate behind the scenes. Being the technical brains behind the publishing house (quite literally, as he essentally runs the thing from his back bedroom) he's the perfect foil for my ideas-based approach. With the book finally unleashed, it was time to celebrate over a pint, and it seemed only right to take the oppirtunity to conduct an interview of sorts.


CN: In the words of Captain Sensible, I’m glad it’s all over. Although having got the book to print and in the public domain, this is, in many ways, just the beginning. How do you feel about the book?

SB: Well, we did it. There were times I really didn't think it was going to happen, and others when it was incredibly arduous, but Clinical Brutal is out. You must be pretty pleased?

CN: I am. I'm also immensely relieved. There were times I too was worried that it wasn't going to happen and found aspects of the process immensely stressful. So to have it all come together – and have the look and feel I'd envisioned – is a really big deal. And a weight off.

SB: I still have to pinch myself occasionally. The standard of work is something else.

CN: I know! I'm in a similar state of shock, you know. One of the first things I did was draw up a wants list. I got pretty much every last one of them.

SB: Did you really approach Dan Fante and Henry Rollins?

CN: Who's interviewing who here? And yes, I did. They both declined, but then, I'd not really expected anything else. They don't know who the hell I am, and the terms weren't exactly lucrative.

SB: No, well, we haven't got any money!

CN: Exactly, and I didn't want to be in a  position of negotiating different deals for different writers based on their 'importance' or whatever. It was a gamble, but then again, the authors all appreciate our socialist, egalitarian principles, and also appreciate that we're not about the money.

SB: True. It's going to take a lot of sales just to recoup. Even author copies, review copies and press releases all rack up in terms of expense.

CN: ...and that's why we're all about the art. As are the authors featured in the anthology. They're staunchly uncommercial, and that's what drew me to their writing in the first place. Better still, they're all really cool people. Those who didn't contribute, I still think they're cool too, and I still admire their work. As for Fante and  Rollins, they were both very swift and very polite in their declining of my approaches.

SB: Are we really sending Rollins a complimentary copy?

CN: Yeah! He said he thought it sounded an interesting project and wished us all the best with it, and he's a real hero of mine. The passage in The Portable Henry Rollins, which I think was from Get in the Van, where he describes punching a guy in the head or whatever, and says how it felt – and sounded – like a melon getting squashed, was one of the starting points of Clinical Brutality. We should probably say that in the letter or on the postcard we put in with it.

SB: Do you worry about how the book's received, and your contributions in particular?

CN: Not as much as with previous works. I know my pieces are in the company of other stellar works. My pieces, I'm pleased with and all, but the biggest thing for me is putting all of that great writing out there. I only hope it shifts as many copies as it deserves, because the other contributors, well, I feel I owe it to them, we owe it to them.

SB: I agree. It's a hell of a leap from C.N.N.

CN: Yes, it does look a bit rough and ready in comparison. But then, we were fumbling around with this newfangled POD technology and book design and all that then. We've had some practice since then. I mean, look at what you did with The Bastardizer!
 
SB: That's a cracking cover, and I'm really happy with the way it turned out. THE PLAGIARIST isn't too shabby either.

CN: Very kind of you to say. There are things I'd have changed about that, but left because the spirit of the book was all about spontaneity, and besides, I needed to give myself a cut-off, a point at which I had to declare it 'done' whatever. Otherwise I could have spent a lifetime tweaking and sanding the edges. But the cover just happened, and I'm really pleased with it.

SB: So how are the interviews going?

CN: Great. I know they weren't part of the initial plan, but the project just gripped me and I thought that promoting the book would be a great excuse to ask some of the contributors about things I've always wanted to. Without exception, they've all delivered some fantastic, detailed, interesting and illuminating responses and opened up much more than I'd ever anticipated or dared to hope. On the subject of which... I really didn't know exactly what to make of your piece. I like it, but...

SB: That was kind of the idea. More of a nonplussed response than anything readily defined by a gut reaction. I wanted to produce a piece that was short, to the point and completely devoid of any emotion. To that end, it's the pinnacle of clinical. There aren't even any characters. It's just words. What could be more detached, more clinical? At the same time, the words are brutal as of and in themselves. I've also used the language clinically, brutally. I've done violence to the very essence of poetry. There's so much poetry out there, but it's essentially bad prose broken into lined to create some shitty half-arsed take on 'free verse.' In this sense, it's an attack on that. But as you know, I really don't like to talk about my writing. I write, I put some – only a very small, carefully selected amount – out in the public domain. I delete or destroy much of the remainder. And then I try to forget about it. I need to keep that distance, that separation, in order to produce anything. So... subject closed. I see you've mentioned the possibility of a book that compiles these and other interviews. Were you being serious? 'cause I think it's a great idea, if we can get the time and the funds and all the rest...

CN: I was hoping you'd say that! Yeah, I reckon there's a future project there, or at least potential or a starting point. But that's a way off. We're both pretty busy at the moment, and for me, at least, that's not likely to change for a while.

SB: Same here. Work and life have a habit of taking over.

CN: No shit. But are you still good to stick with the plan to put out further titles this year?

SB: Oh yes, absolutely. There's the short book of fairly nasty writing that came our way, we still need to decide exactly what to do with that.

CN: I've been talking to Karl van Cleave about doing the cover for that...

SB: Excellent. Then there's the trade paperback of The Bastardizer to sort out, and Bill says he's working on a follow-up, and wants you to have a look at the draught he's pulling together.

CN: Ace. Does that mean I've got until 2011 to complete the remix of THE PLAGIARIST?

SB: I reckon so. Busy times.

CN: So, what does 'clinical brutality' mean to you?

SB: Well my idea has certainly changed and expanded during the assembly of the anthology. I think you did a good job of summarizing the developments in your intro. The scope's definitely broadened, and that's a good thing. But it was also really gratifying and exhilarating to see the other writers pick up the baton and produce works that really did subscribe to the basic principles...

CN: Yeah, there were a fair few pieces that really pushed the absurdity of the contradictions inherent in the form, the style and the very terminology.  I mean, take the words clinical and brutal. They don't obviously sit together or compliment one another. And yet, at the same time, they absolutely do. Revelling in those contradictions is very much the spirit of clinical brutality, at least as I see it.

SB: Do you think it'll take off?

CN: In many respects, it already has. It doesn't require an annual anthology or a regular publication or official channel, and it's not about a clinical brutal collective. Clinical brutality permeates the writing of many writers, not just those in the book. With the whole fascination for all things CSI and so on, it really captures the zeitgeist. Turns out we were a decade ahead of the times when we first came up with the concept. Story of my life, really. Anyway, point being clinical brutality is everywhere. What would be really cool would be for the term to catch on, though. That would be really cool. Not because it would make us rich or famous – it wouldn't – but it would be a real achievement. If clinical brutality earned a footnote in a history or dictionary of underground, cult or postmodern literature, I would feel that it was all worth it, and could die happy.

SB: That's the whole point, isn't it?