An Interview with Derek Landy, Author of 'Skulduggery Pleasant'

By Sarah Webb

In December I had the great pleasure of meeting and talking to debut author Derek Landy in the Central Hotel in Dublin, especially for Inis. His forthcoming book, ‘Skulduggery Pleasant’, is an engaging and compelling detective story set in Ireland and featuring a skeleton detective with razor sharp wit, the wonderfully named Skulduggery, and his sassy teenage sidekick, Stephanie.

Derek was looking very suave and sophisticated in a well cut black shirt and full length black coat, very Skulduggery in fact. A charming man with a gentle, easy manner, he’s on the cusp of becoming a household name and deserves all the success that his first book will undoubtedly bring him. Rights have already been sold to over twenty countries, including Russia, Poland and Korea. And is a film also on the cards, Derek was very coy about that so we’ll have to wait and see. It’s certainly going to be one of the biggest books of the year. Oh and did I mention that I love it? Please read it, I know you’ll love it too.

Some background facts -

Derek is from just outside Lusk, in North County Dublin and was born in 1974. His mother is a college professor, who teaches English in Dun Laoghaire, his father a farmer. And now for the interview:

Derek, were you a reader as a child?

Yes. There were books all over the place, it was a completely natural thing to pick them up. I’ve never had a problem with reading. But I’ve always had a problem with actually speaking. Since three I’ve had a stammer. But I loved reading.

What did you read as a child?

I bypassed the whole fairy tale, gnome genre and went straight to the Three Investigators and the Hardy Boys. I was reading comics at the same time, and comics bridged the gap between the Three Investigators and the horrors that I read from about thirteen on. James Herbert, some Stephen King, Dean Koontz, all the slasher stuff. It kind of wore off after a few years.

Were you also into horror films?

Yes. As a kid I used to stay up late to watch all the Hammer horror movies. And as a teenager my room was covered with posters of Freddy, all that. Derek laughs his deep, fruity laugh. I’m a huge fan of Buffy. I want to be one of those vampires. They’re so cool.

After a year studying animation in Ballyfermot, Derek dropped out and began working on the family farm. ‘I was good at art, but it turned out I wasn’t that good at animation,’ he says wryly. And it was during this time that he began to write.

I spent six years on the family farm really hating every second of it. A small farm, we didn’t have animals, just crops. It was hard work but it taught me to be a fast writer. I’d be working on the farm for eight hours a day and writing in my head while I was working. Then I’d sit down at my computer in the evening, and write my screen play.

‘Dead Bodies’ (2003) was your first screen play. Did you study screen writing?

Derek laughs. I did a course after that. When we were developing Boy Eats Girl( 2005 his second screen play, a teenage zombie film starring Samantha Mumba) I went to a week long seminar which was interesting. Boy Eats Girl had a wonderful cast and the day to day making of it was hysterical.

With your background in film, why did you write Skulduggery as a book and not as a screen play?

Skulduggery popped into my head in the summer of 2005. I was over in London dealing with producers; I was in my hotel room and the name Skulduggery just came to me. I realised that the name identified the character – Skulduggery. And the Pleasant – well he’s urbane and he wears nice suits. There was a difference between this idea and the ideas I was getting for films. It had a life beyond the visual. Something deeper. It was an immediate thought. In the hotel room I came up with Skulduggery, I came up with Stephanie as his natural foil, and I immediately wrote a scene in which she’s asking him what it’s like to be a skeleton, which actually survives intact in chapter four.

How long did it take you to write the book?

It was finished by the end of December 2005. The first version of the book was twice as long as it is now. Most of the other half is in the second book now, and some of it is in the third. Whenever I write a book, I write too much; too many subplots.

Will it be a series?

I’m contracted for three. If it sells well maybe I’ll do more.

And why Stephanie? Why a girl?

Teaming him (Skulduggery) with a girl seemed pretty obvious. Most of the characters in my screen plays have been male. It just seemed right.

Friendship is a strong theme in the book. It’s obviously important to you and your characters.

Yes. In fact my Italian publishers were asking the same question. The friendship between Stephanie and Skulduggery is like a friendship between two old souls who were friends in a previous life and who have met again.

The dialogue in the book is very strong. Did you screen writing help?

Yes, I love writing dialogue. Because Skulduggery’s a detective, I wanted to imbue it with as many characteristics of films of the forties as I could, like the Howard Hawks (the American director and screen writer, famous for his rapid-fire dialogue in films like Bringing Up Baby and The Big Sleep), the Cary Grants where they talk really fast and are impossibly funny and insanely smart. With Skulduggery it was easy. But I decided with Stephanie I wasn’t going to sink into the cliché of not having a twelve year old as smart and witty as the adults. I trained kids in karate for years so I know a lot of kids that age. In fact a few of the girls have read it and see bits of themselves in her.

How have your family and friends taken the news of your success?

I’m constantly telling my family and friends how great I am, but now they finally have proof. He laughs.

Have you read any other children’s authors and what do you think?

I’ve read all the Harry Potters which I love. Clive Barker’s Abarat, Neil Gaiman’s Coraline, and obviously Philip Pullman.

Will Skulduggery be made into a film like the Rowling and the Pullman books?

I’m not allowed to say. He smiles enigmatically. When I wrote films Hollywood was the big ambition, the Holy Grail. And now I’ve actually got to Hollywood in a completely different way, talking to literally the biggest people. It’s amazing.

Derek, will your dog, Ali, ever appear in any of the books?

My parents have been asking, because I dote on Ali, ‘Does Stephanie get a dog?’. We’ll see. He laughs again.

It’s been quite a year for you. Has it changed your life in any way?

It’s been absolutely staggering. At the start of the year I had literally no money at all. I had twenty cent in the account before I got the first chunk for Skulduggery. Then my bank manager asked me to pop by and talk about it. It’s changed my life, but not on the surface, as in I haven’t bought a house yet, or even a new car. But I’ve suddenly found where I am.

I’m very lucky. The name Skulduggery just popped into my head. But if it hadn’t I’d still be looking at the rest of my life going this is all kind of uncertain. I think the book was a gift to myself.

Thank you, Derek for taking the time to talk to me. It’s been most enlightening.

 

Skulduggery Pleasant is published by Harper Collins.

This interview first appeared in Inis Magazine, 2007.