Personality
Street Roots
Feb. 24-March 2, 2017
worried I’d break it. And it wasn’t until I was
If I really wanted to show off to teenage
48 and m et my wife (American artist
Neil I’d show him my five Hugo awards.
Amanda Palmer) that I thought, oh, you run
Those awards for science fiction would
your life completely differently to mine. You
m atter more to him than the Carnegie
fill it with doing the things you like, and
medal or any other award. The fact that I’ve
collaborated with Harlan Ellison or had
meeting the people you like and eating the
dinne r with Lou Reed, that would be cool.
things you like. I suppose I could try that
But the idea that grown-up Neil has Hugo
too.
awards, the younger me would think, wow,
I still worry. I suspect it’s how I’m built.
yeah, I came through. And if I could tell the
The fear I can’t do it is probably the driving
12-year-old Neil one day h e’ll write a “Doctor
force that keeps me writing. That part of me
Who” episode ... wow. Especially as the The
is actually in my books too - 1 do a really
Doctor’s Wife came from an idea I had
good “menace is just around the com er.”
watching it when I was about 8.
In 2009 my father died in the middle of a
My novel, The Ocean at the End of the
business meeting when I was on my way to
Lane... it’s not actually autobiographical but
New York to do a book
that kid is me. I was
signing. I got a phone call
going back to the 7-year-
from a sister when I was in
old me and giving
the taxi, saying dad had a
myself a peculiar kind of
h eart attack and died. I
love that I didn’t have. I
stopped, walked around a
I a h w r feel the past Is
was
saying to him, it’s
bit, then I w ent on to the
dead or yonag Well a f l
QK, everything’s going
signing. There were about
a ro a n d a n y s to re ,
12,000 people there and I
to be fine. I never feel
s t ill th e ro F h id in g la a
sta rte d signing a t one
the past is dead or
n m ^ a ^ u g n t T n e n I w ent
PHO TO BY KYLE CASSIDY
Neil Gaiman
The comic king writes to his younger self: “Stephen K in g
gave me the best piece o f advice - but I ignored it ”
COMPILED BY JANE GRAHAM
C O N T R IB U T IN G W R IT E R
t 16 it was 1977 and I was a punk. I
talked three school friends into
forming a band called XXX - I was
the singer and songwriter. I was -
“blossoming” is the wrong word but I was
moving out of geeky. Many years later I
went to a recording of a BBC Radio 4
comedy and I ran into Steve Punt
afterwards. He said: “Oh, you’re Neil
Gaiman!” $o I waited for him to say, my kids
loved “Coraline” and instead he said: “I was
at your gig.” I saw this little moment of
starry eyes. I wish I could go back and give
that moment to the teenage Neil doing his
first gig in the school hall. And I wish I
could also tell the young Neil, who
eventually gave up all fantasies of rock
stardom, that there will be weird times in
the future when he’ll be onstage in
Tasmania reading his poetry to an audience
with a backing band which includes David
Byrne. Or that he’ll sell out Carnegie Hall
for a gigwhich, after readings," lie’ll sing th e*
A
Neil Caiman's book Norse Mythology is
out now. The TV series “American
Gods,” adapted from Gaiman’s Hugo-
winning novel, premieres in April
country song Psycho with a string q uartet
So he’ll get to fulfill those rock star fantasies
after all.
It’s been really interesting talking to
friends I’ve had since I was a teenager. My
friend recently drew a comic that shows all
this monstrous chaos going on all around
the young me and I’m just calmly walking
down corridors reading “Stranger in a
Strange Land” or “The Left Hand of
Darkness.” Happy to be living in the land of
books. I definitely didn’t feel I fit in. I was
awkward, uncomfortable, not terribly happy
in the real world but incredibly happy in
books. I used them as a survival guide and
also as an escape. I dreamt of becoming a
writer but it seemed complexly impossible,
like dreaming of having invisibility or super-
sjteed/~
. .lib ra ry sontewbere^
lo o k in g fo r a doorway
young Neil isn’t around "
any more. He’s still
home. There was a
that w ill lead him to
there, hiding in a library
message from my dad on
somewhere safe where
somewhere, looking for
the answer machine. It
everything works»
a doorway that will lead
was a cheerful message
saying: “It was your
him to somewhere safe
m other and my 50th
where everything
wedding anniversary
works.
yesterday - beautiful
If I could live one day
w eather and you know, it
again, I’d take my 50th
was a lovely sunny day 50 years ago too.
birthday party in New Orleans. In the
Anyway, just calling to say hello. And you’re
morning
my wife, who was still my fiancee
not there.” And that was the first time I
then, inveigled me into a hat shop and
cried. I just heard his voice and fell apart. If
bought me a top hat. Then she said she was
I’d known it was going to happen like that,
there are so many things where I look back
off to find a tea shop and she’d text m e
and think, I wish I’d asked you that, I wish
when she found one. Ten minutes later I
I’d written that down, I wish I’d taped that
headed off to m eet h er and crossed a big
conversation.
square on the way - there was Amanda,
There are friends I thought would be
dressed as a bride, posing as a human
around forever who just went. Douglas
statue. And then a load of our friends
Adams. I loved Douglas, he was big and
stepped out of the crowd and my friend
complicated and irritating and wonderful in
Jason performed a non-binding marriage
equal measure. So many people who were
part of your life and your landscape - I wish
ceremony between an author in a top hat
I could go back and encourage myself to
and a human statue dressed as a bride. The
spend more time with those people, learn
whole thing was wonderful.
more from them. Whenever somebody dies I
Amanda is an amazing thing. There was
feel I’m kicked up the arse by the universe.
this point where I thought, I think I want to
Time is a beef. I wish I’d known how fast
m arry you because I’m never going to be
it goes. I wish I’d enjoyed it more. Stephen
bored again. She’s enough like me. Well,
King - and again, I wish 16-year-old Ned had
we’re from the sam e planet. But she does
been able to be there, he’d have been in
these amazing, surprising, peculiar things
complete joy - he showed up at a book
signing of mine in Boston in 1992 and
that I would never think of doing. These
afterwards we went to his hotel. He gave me Amanda things where you think, really?
the best bit of advice. He said, you know,
You’re really going to do that? Okay. I’ll
you’ve got to enjoy this. This is magic. You
stand here and hold your clothes and if you
do a signing and hundreds come. You’re one
get
arrested I’ll bail you o u t I love you.
of the most beloved comics writers in the
world. Enjoy i t But I never did. I just
wbrried.T worried I t would all'go' away. T
Courtesy o f IN SR ngo / The B ig Issue UK
bigissue:com @BigIssne
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