Denise Mina was born in East Kilbride in 1966 and now lives in Glasgow. Her novels include The Long Drop, which won the Gordon Burn prize, and The End of the Wasp Season, winner of the Theakstons Old Peculier crime novel of the year award. Mina also writes short stories and plays, and is a regular contributor to TV and radio. Her new novel, The Less Dead, tells the story of Margo, who discovers that her birth mother was a murdered sex worker.
Can you tell us about the title of your latest novel?
“The less dead” started to be used about victims who don’t attract a huge amount of emotional outpouring, such as street sex workers and the homeless. A lot of cases are cold cases because eyewitnesses didn’t bother coming forward. I wanted to write about the murders of sex workers that happened in Glasgow in the late 80s and 90s. The last victim came from a really lovely family and they went on Crimewatch and people really cared about it, but the other cases were not treated like that. It’s a wider societal value system about how you prioritise victims. In a time of Black Lives Matter, acknowledging that some people are perceived to have value attached to them and others aren’t is really important.
Hope is a strong theme. Are you a hopeful person?
Yes, I am. I think it’s a choice, rather than innate – you can choose to look at the good or bad stuff. These are such grim times that looking at just the bad is not great. I think my books have become more hopeful and that’s because things have got so depressing. It’s such a fucking grim time. I think, what are people reading for? What am I reading for? I’m reading to escape. I think people read because they need a place to go.
Place is a powerful character in the novel...
A lot of it happens in 80s Glasgow – that’s when I came to Glasgow from south London. Glasgow is such a strange mix of beautiful architecture and unspeakable violence. It’s a really weird place. My dad was in the oil industry so we moved around a lot – Norway, Paris, Amsterdam, parts of Scotland. When I left school aged 16, I got fed up moving. I came to Glasgow and loved it as it was very cheap. I really wanted to be a writer, then started doing a PhD. I wrote the first three chapters of a novel and sent it off and told all sorts of lies in the covering letter: that I was a massive extrovert and had done standup comedy, which was not true – I’m incredibly shy.
Is it important to you to write in a range of forms?
I realised you can write in the same form or you can have a laugh – and I’m having a laugh, so I’ve written comics, plays, I’ve done telly, and they all inform each other. I particularly wanted to make this a novel as the audience engagement is so intense.
I like how you don’t write goodies and baddies, but more nuanced characters…
Quite often when you read about goodies and baddies you enter into a eugenic world where you know someone is going to be a bad guy because they have a facial deformity. Readers are much more sophisticated and want to think about the ethics, rather than just who the murderer is.
What books are on your bedside table?
I’ve been reading a lot of Zola and Balzac. I’m reading [Hilary Mantel’s] The Mirror and the Light, which I’ve been saving, and am finding it a bit boring to be honest. I’m also reading a book by Geoffrey Robertson called Who Owns History?
Which writers influenced you?
So many. Orwell was a real gateway drug. I was working as a waitress and going to night school to get A-levels. If you’re self-educated and don’t really talk to other people about books, you read whatever comes to hand.
What kind of reader were you as a child?
I couldn’t read until I was about nine, and couldn’t write for a long time. I think it was because we moved around all the time. I remember coming back from Paris and being able to read shop signs and driving through London shouting: “WH Smiths!” Things made a lot more sense. If you can’t read as a kid, it’s a huge source of shame. I remember being at school and I was told you had to read aloud a story and I couldn’t, so I made one up.
And that’s how you became a storyteller?
Definitely. I had to make up a story and make it good.
Do you have a writing routine?
I panic. Then spend six months in pyjamas making stuff up. I just write whenever I can. I just write. When people say: “How do you write a novel?” You just sit down and write your novel. You have to be prepared to fail – or you’ll never achieve anything in writing. You have to be prepared to fuck up.
Have your writing or reading habits changed during lockdown?
Yes, I’ve been listening to more audiobooks, as I’ve been quite anxious. I’ve been painting every wall in the house and can’t sit still or focus – but if you’re moving around and listening to a book, that’s a good way to try [and focus]. I love true crime podcasts.
It’s 22 years since your first novel was published. What changes have you seen in crime writing?
Crime writing is taken quite seriously now; it didn’t used to be. Festivals have also boomed. A lot of people who used to write literary fiction are now writing crime. Labels are just marketing ploys – Crime and Punishment is a crime novel.
Do you have a favourite classic?
The Master and Margarita. I reread it often and can’t make sense of why it works so well.
What’s next?
I’m writing a follow-up to Conviction – it’s called Confidence and is about the international artefacts market. I want to explore the idea of art being a confidence trick.
Are you a confident person?
No. I think that I might make a fool of myself, then I remind myself I’ve done something before and it’s been OK.
• The Less Dead by Denise Mina is published by Harvill Secker (£14.99). To order a copy go to guardianbookshop.com. Free UK p&p over £15
August 30, 2020
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Denise Mina: 'I couldn't read until I was about nine' - The Guardian
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