Violent Disorder – Mark Barry
Further to my recent interview with Mark Barry, as part of my Author Spotlight section (if you haven’t yet read it, you can do so by clicking here), I’ve gleaned some extra information about his newly released book ‘Violent Disorder’ and Mark’s thoughts behind it.
Sport fiction, crime and its own genre, colloquially known as Hooliporn.
How did you come up with the title?
It’s the sequel to the first book, Ultra Violence, and it is one of the most common offences in football hooliganism. It is also extremely catchy. I am surprised no one has thought of it.
What are your expectations for the book?
Well, I sold an awful lot of copies of the first book and I would like to repeat that. I would also like sales on both titles – and my other mainstream titles – to continue to rise.
Not today.
Not down here, in 2013, the regenerated canalside, full of upmarket brasseries selling champagne at a hundred quid a bottle. Chain wine bars, chain eateries, chain charcuteries, chain hairdressers where grown men spend thirty seven pounds on a Danny Craig haircut; student chain comedy clubs full of tedious student comics taking the piss out of people in wheelchairs and making prehistoric observations about the Battle Of The Sexes. One hundred and thirty five quid a month gyms with mixed saunas.
Running through the opulence is the reanimated canal, once biologically dead; stinking of death and shit, and the lethal chemicals that fuelled the British industrial revolution, won us the Second World War and left behind a toxic disaster area replete with piles of unguent, softened, semi-dissolved hybrid fish. Once a waterway bursting with the rusting detritus, and the vile leftovers of the narcissistic sixties generation (our parents and grandparents, who took all the money for their houses and pensions, and thus, looted our futures, swapped our future well-being for idleness and a non-stop retirement holiday abroad), now, in 2013, scrubbed, scoured, eviscerated, defenestrated, strained and drained, pristine blue, full of frolicking fish.
The occasional brightly painted barge passing by. A cyclist wearing an ill-fitting rose-pink helmet rode past on a mountain bike costing four thousand seven hundred quid. Young, self-assured, self-aware, politically neutral, trans-metropolitan, fit, with communication skills honed at a redbrick university, empathetic, health conscious, green, gender sensitive, racially relaxed and already a three star cook in his own fitted kitchen (with metallic oven and granite worktops), he was heading toward Trent Bridge on the tow path running all the way past the heat station and the old caves.
Past Meadow Lane.
The canal is his. The world is his.
Amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk
My thanks to Mark Barry for agreeing to be interviewed. If you’d like to find out more information on Mark, you can check out his website at:
http://www.greenwizardcarla.blogspot.co.uk
What genre do you consider your latest book – Violent Disorder?
Violent Disorder – Mark Barry
How did you come up with the title?
It’s the sequel to the first book, Ultra Violence, and it is one of the most common offences in football hooliganism. It is also extremely catchy. I am surprised no one has thought of it.
What are your expectations for the book?
Well, I sold an awful lot of copies of the first book and I would like to repeat that. I would also like sales on both titles – and my other mainstream titles – to continue to rise.
Is there a message in ‘Violent Disorder’ that you want readers to grasp?
No. I’m not much of a message writer. My books are madness.Which of your characters is your favourite and why?
I like the narrator in the book. He’s the complete liberal writer, ironic, laid back, with no experience of the fighting. He is slowly drawn into the violence going on around him through his friendship between two nutty brothers who are supposed to be going straight. He’s a nice man. Vulnerable, clever, a decent writer and you get the sense that he doesn’t know why he’s writing these books, but also that he cannot quite stop himself. Order into chaos…Which of your characters is most unlike you?
Any of the characters in the book who work for the Police or the Judiciary.Are experiences based on someone you know, or events in your own life?
It’s a complete work of fiction. I made it all up. None of the characters exist in real life and none of the stuff ever happened, guv.Can you share a little of your current work with us?
Adjacent to the courthouse opposite, a wagonload of yellow-jacketed Police watched the situation develop on canalside. Twenty years ago, it would already have gone off down here, Coventry on one side, Notts on the other. A blaze of colour, a flurry of fists and boots. A berserker cry (c’mon then, c’mon then), back and forward, back and forward, twenty-on-twenty, fists connecting with shallow sockets, thumbs in eyes, teeth parting from gums, yelps, cries, boots upside your head, trainers stamping, conscious, unconscious, running about, always running about.Not today.
Not down here, in 2013, the regenerated canalside, full of upmarket brasseries selling champagne at a hundred quid a bottle. Chain wine bars, chain eateries, chain charcuteries, chain hairdressers where grown men spend thirty seven pounds on a Danny Craig haircut; student chain comedy clubs full of tedious student comics taking the piss out of people in wheelchairs and making prehistoric observations about the Battle Of The Sexes. One hundred and thirty five quid a month gyms with mixed saunas.
Running through the opulence is the reanimated canal, once biologically dead; stinking of death and shit, and the lethal chemicals that fuelled the British industrial revolution, won us the Second World War and left behind a toxic disaster area replete with piles of unguent, softened, semi-dissolved hybrid fish. Once a waterway bursting with the rusting detritus, and the vile leftovers of the narcissistic sixties generation (our parents and grandparents, who took all the money for their houses and pensions, and thus, looted our futures, swapped our future well-being for idleness and a non-stop retirement holiday abroad), now, in 2013, scrubbed, scoured, eviscerated, defenestrated, strained and drained, pristine blue, full of frolicking fish.
The occasional brightly painted barge passing by. A cyclist wearing an ill-fitting rose-pink helmet rode past on a mountain bike costing four thousand seven hundred quid. Young, self-assured, self-aware, politically neutral, trans-metropolitan, fit, with communication skills honed at a redbrick university, empathetic, health conscious, green, gender sensitive, racially relaxed and already a three star cook in his own fitted kitchen (with metallic oven and granite worktops), he was heading toward Trent Bridge on the tow path running all the way past the heat station and the old caves.
Past Meadow Lane.
The canal is his. The world is his.
Where to Buy Mark Barry’s Latest Novel – ‘Violent Disorder’
Mark’s latest novel, entitled ‘Violent Disorder’ is available now on Amazon – just click on the links below!Amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk
My thanks to Mark Barry for agreeing to be interviewed. If you’d like to find out more information on Mark, you can check out his website at:
http://www.greenwizardcarla.blogspot.co.uk
Great spotlight for Mark Barry. Loved the 'behind the scenes' info! n x
ReplyDeleteI agree, Ngaire - I find behind the scenes stuff fascinating.
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