Caught by the River

Pleasures of… March

2nd April 2009

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Author John Niven hits the road…

Flew to Leipzig for the launch of the German audio book of Kill Your Friends. KYF is big in Germany, as they say. Me and Hasslehoff, man. (And German success puzzling given Stelfox’s fondness for a holocaust/Nazi metaphor.) The book has been read for audio by a fellow called Bela B, who is in a band called Die Artze, who are U2 big in Germany, and we did the reading together; him doing sections in German, me in English (and a lovely chap he turned out to be). Cue hundreds of kids queued round the block for the event and then us signing books and CDs for an hour afterwards. Obviously all reflected glory from him of course, but I am more than happy to bask in whatver glory is reflected my way. Later we wound up in the penthouse bar of a very trendy hotel with fifteen different vodkas on the table in front of us…

Then to New York where I did some Kill Your Friends press, the book only having come out there last month. Downside – I got asked the question ‘Have you ever killed any of your friends?’ Urrrrrrr…. Upside – dinner at Commerce, the old Grange Hall. Steamed Sea Bass tae die fur, as my mother would say. Great restaurant. As Paul Oakenfold would say – even if you readers can’t afford to go there you should check it out on the web (Paul stayed in the Marie Antoinette suite).

An odd sensation doing all this promotion for a book you wrote three years ago, especially when you have a new novel about to come out in the UK (The Amateurs, £12.99 William Heinemann, he plugged ruthlessly). Ian McEwan put it best: ‘Going on book tours is like being an employee of your former self.’

Another anomaly of publishing – next month (Wed April 8th to be exact) I have to do a reading from The Amateurs at Waterstone’s in Notting Hill. If there is anyone there at all (big if) it will only be people who have read Kill Your Friends. A bit like going to see a band whose album you like and they play all brand new material.

I am Neil Young on the ‘Tonight’s The Night’ tour. I fucking wish…

Listening to – new Manics album, the sequel to ‘The Holy Bible’. The opening track ‘Peeled Apples’… fuck me. Butcher Boy – React or Die LP. Belle and Sebastian-esque Glasgow music that me think of walking through Hillhead in springtime. Plus a whole bunch of deeply unfashionable eighties indie music I’ve been downloading from iTunes. Another reason not to get on with any work…

(Signed copies of ‘Kill Your Friends‘ are on sale in the CBTR shop. ‘The Amateurs’ is available next week.)