Sally Wagoony meets a new author who is literally a literary criminal mastermind.
You’ve probably never heard of George Smedge but critics are raving about his debut novel Heroes and Heroin. “Unmitigated masterpiece” said The Telegraph, “a sea-change in the life of the novel” commented True Review and “a new dawn in intellectual thought.” proclaimed The London Review of Books. It is almost certain to claim this year’s Man Booker Prize, not to mention the first novel award at the Costa Book Awards and the newly created Sketchers Shoes for Literary Merit Award. Still not impressed? Well, this nine hundred page epic is amazingly enough written entirely in iambic pentameter with a Joycean stream of consciousness style. It really is the best thing since sliced Nabokov. Now you maybe wondering why you’ve never heard of the author. Well, Smedge is not your runofthemill Upper-Middle, Oxbridge educated, occasional Journalism dabbling, West London dwelling novelist. In fact the novel’s story of a young man’s battle with drug addiction in Glasgow’s rough Possilpark area is largely autobiographical and was written while Smedge was serving time for murder!
I caught up with this astonishing character at his recently purchased Miami penthouse to find out more about the man behind the masterpiece. “It’s been a wild ride.” He says while gazing out at the mariner view from his balcony. And he ain’t kiddin’. Two years ago today Smedge was still languishing in the clink and ten years before that he had never read a book in his life… Born in Possilpark, Glasgow in 1977 to a Heroin addicted Mother and unidentified father Smedge was in many respects a typical casualty of James Callaghan’s “chunky glasses approach”. At thirteen he himself became addicted to heroin and spent the rest of his adolescence thievin’ and dealin’ until things came to a head during a badly planned house burglary. “I was somewhat of a naughty boy” he smirks, but that is to put it somewhat mildly. While looting a house in one of Glasgow’s more desirable districts Smedge was interrupted by the untimely return of the owner and her seven year old daughter. Panicked, he decided to batter them both to death with a half full kettle. “I am not entirely proud of that.” He chuckles. “It was a crime and punishment moment. I was pretty shaken up for days.”
Smedge was naturally given life in prison but unlike many of his cohorts he did not spend his fifteen and a half years idly. Taking up an English Literature class run by the prison, the then barely literate junkie-murderer soon developed an insatiable appetite for all things high minded and began devouring the classics one by one. “I did some terrible things back in the day and I felt I needed to better myself in order to pay respect to the people whose lives I’d blighted.” He then took multiple language courses including Latin and ancient Greek to get closer to his newfound heroes. “I found solace in the works of the great philosophers: Plato right through to Baudrillard. But I especially liked the ideas of Nietzsche and Heidegger.” He also picked up German, French, basic Spanish and a smattering of Russian.
With two years of detention still to go he decided to write a novel and in his final months he sent some rough drafts out to publishers. “I knew it was good, I just didn’t know quite how good.” Hoping at best for an encouraging response or two, Smedge was bombarded with letters from every publishing house in the land not to mention wheelbarrows of money and deeds to large swaths of Scotland.
Now at the age of thirty-seven he has a glittering literary career ahead of him and is about to embark on a speaking tour of the US with a promotional slot on Oprah. “I feel like Oscar Wilde. I have nothing to declare but my incredible genius.” And Hollywood is also a knockin’. “I’ve been speaking with Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio about adapting Heroes into a movie” Paramount Pictures are rumoured to be offering $7 million for the rights. “Well, I’m not at liberty to talk about the financial side of things” he says smugly “but meeting Leo was marvellous fun. We went partying in Manhattan and then again in Malibu. And the women, the women, good lord!”
Smedge is also currently working on a modern retelling of Romeo and Juliet. “It’s about two people from rivalling London gangs who fall in love. I’m calling it Cracking the Post Code.” It seems the exosphere is the limit for this major talent. Heroes and Heroin is available now from Spineless Publishing.
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