Rupert Thomson,

FRSL The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820, by King George IV, to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK, the RSL has about 600 Fellows, elec ...

(born November 5, 1955) is an English writer. He is the author of thirteen critically acclaimed novels and an award-winning memoir. He has lived in many cities around the world, including Athens, Berlin, New York, Sydney, Los Angeles, Amsterdam and Rome. In 2010, after several years in Barcelona, he moved back to London. He has contributed to the Financial Times, the Guardian, the London Review of Books, Granta and the Independent.

Biography & Literary Career

Youth & Education

Rupert Thomson was born in

Eastbourne Eastbourne () is a town and seaside resort in East Sussex, on the south coast of England, east of Brighton and south of London. Eastbourne is immediately east of Beachy Head, the highest chalk sea cliff in Great Britain and part of the l ...

, East Sussex, on November 5, 1955 to Rodney Farquhar-Thomson, a War Disability Pensioner, and Wendy Gausden, a nurse. His mother died on a tennis court when he was eight From the age of ten, he attended

Christ's Hospital Christ's Hospital is a public school (English independent boarding school for pupils aged 11–18) with a royal charter located to the south of Horsham in West Sussex. The school was founded in 1552 and received its first royal charter in 155 ...

, a charity boarding school that offers children from humble backgrounds a better education. While at Christ's Hospital, he began to write poetry. His early influences were Thomas Hardy and TS Eliot. When he was fifteen, he rode his bicycle 150 miles on a "pilgrimage" to Hardy country. He was also influenced by a series called Penguin Modern European Poets – in particular, Montale,

Rilke René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke (4 December 1875 – 29 December 1926), shortened to Rainer Maria Rilke (), was an Austrian poet and novelist. He has been acclaimed as an idiosyncratic and expressive poet, and is widely recog ...

, Yevtushenko, Pavese, and

Zbigniew Herbert Zbigniew Herbert (; 29 October 1924 – 28 July 1998) was a Polish poet, essayist, drama writer and moralist. He is one of the best known and the most translated post-war Polish writers. While he was first published in the 1950s (a volume titled ...

. In 1972 he was awarded an Exhibition to

Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge Sidney Sussex College (referred to informally as "Sidney") is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in England. The College was founded in 1596 under the terms of the will of Frances Sidney, Countess of Sussex (1531–1589), wif ...

to study Medieval History and Political Philosophy. While at Cambridge University, he published poems in several small magazines, including The Windless Orchard. He graduated as a Bachelor of Arts in 1976.

Early Travels (1976 – 1977)

After leaving university, Thomson flew to New York. He has stated that there were cultural reasons behind choosing America as a destination, since it was linked with artists as diverse as

David Bowie David Robert Jones (8 January 194710 January 2016), known professionally as David Bowie ( ), was an English singer-songwriter and actor. A leading figure in the music industry, he is regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the ...

and

Alexander Trocchi Alexander Whitelaw Robertson Trocchi ( ; 30 July 1925 – 15 April 1984) was a Scottish novelist. Early life and career Trocchi was born in Glasgow to Alfred (formerly Alfredo) Trocchi, a music-hall performer of Italian parentage, and Annie ...

Thomson spent six weeks living in Hell's Kitchen with a 63 year-old alcoholic and his family. Afterwards, he travelled throughout the United States, principally by Greyhound bus. He also visited Vancouver and the Canadian Rockies, and travelled through Mexico. Thomson returned to Eastbourne in November of that year and worked in the Birds Eye factory. In January 1977 he left again – this time for Athens. Once in Athens, Thomson rented a flat on Iliados Street and made a living by teaching English. He began work on a novel. He met WH Auden's secretary,

Alan Ansen Alan Ansen (January 23, 1922 – November 12, 2006) was an American poet, playwright, and associate of Beat Generation writers. He was a widely read scholar who knew many languages. Ansen grew up on Long Island and was educated at Harvard. He wo ...

, who read his poetry and gave him encouragement. Thomson completed a 160-page first draft of a novel, but it was never finished.

Working in London (1978 – 1982)

In 1978 Thomson moved to London and found a job as a copywriter. He was employed by Robin Wight's Euro Advertising. Later, he worked for FCB (Foote, Cone and Belding). While working in advertising, he kept notebooks and wrote 50-word short stories. After four years in advertising, he gave up his job, moved a friend into his South London council flat, and set off for Italy in his Vauxhall Viva. From now on, he would devote himself to writing.

Seeing the World (1982 – 2000)

In November 1982, Thomson took a job as winter caretaker of a converted Tuscan farmhouse that belonged to

Miriam Margolyes Miriam ( he, מִרְיָם ''Mīryām'', lit. 'Rebellion') is described in the Hebrew Bible as the daughter of Amram and Jochebed, and the older sister of Moses and Aaron. She was a prophetess and first appears in the Book of Exodus. The To ...

. In the Italian countryside that winter, he wrote the first draft of a book that would become Dreams of Leaving:

There was no heating in the house, and I worked in the kitchen, huddled against a free-standing gas stove. I typed on sheets of yellow foolscap, using a maroon Olympia portable I had inherited from my last agency. I was disciplined about the hours I put in: I would start at three in the afternoon and finish at one in the morning. The routine felt natural, comfortable, even seductive.

The following year, he moved to West Berlin, where he rented an apartment on Sanderstrasse in

Kreuzberg Kreuzberg () is a district of Berlin, Germany. It is part of the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg borough located south of Mitte. During the Cold War era, it was one of the poorest areas of West Berlin, but since German reunification in 1990 it ha ...

and continued to work on the novel he had started in Italy. He was on the point of taking up a job as a cleaner in the Olympiastadion when his father died. He returned to

in February 1984. The seven months Thomson spent with his brothers in the house where he grew up would provide the inspiration for his award-winning 2010 memoir, This Party's Got to Stop. At the end of the year he moved to New York, where he worked at the

Strand Bookstore The Strand Bookstore is an independent bookstore located at 828 Broadway, at the corner of East 12th Street in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, two blocks south of Union Square.

, running the outdoor bookstall in Bryant Park In the summer of 1985 Thomson moved to Japan, inspired by his grandfather who lived there for more than thirty years. He spent several months in Tokyo, redrafting his first novel. By 1986, he was back in London. Dreams of Leaving was picked up by Liz Calder and published by

Bloomsbury Bloomsbury is a district in the West End of London. It is considered a fashionable residential area, and is the location of numerous cultural, intellectual, and educational institutions. Bloomsbury is home of the British Museum, the largest mus ...

in June 1987. It prompted the New Statesman to say: "When someone writes as well as Thomson does, it's a wonder other people bother", while Nicholas Lezard of the Guardian called it "one of the most haunting, resonant and clever parables about England you'll ever read". One of Thomson's fan letters came from Budgie, the drummer of Souxsie and the Banshees. Three months after publication, Thomson flew to Sydney. While there, he received a phone-call from a film production company in Los Angeles, optioning Dreams of Leaving. He spent two summers in West Hollywood, writing an adaptation of his novel. The film was never made, but he was paid the sum of $50,000 for the screenplay, which financed his second novel, The Five Gates of Hell. This was followed by four more novels – Air and Fire (1993), The Insult (1996), Soft (1998) and The Book of Revelation (1999). In 1998, he and his girlfriend, Katharine Norbury, entered the world of IVF. Their daughter, Eva Rae, was born in 2000.

Up North (2000 – 2004)

In the spring of 2000, Thomson moved to a village in Cheshire to be close to his father-in-law, who was dying of cancer. While up north, Thomson wrote in a caravan, which he towed into an orchard next to the cottage where he was living. He was working on the book that would become Divided Kingdom. Following a review in the New York Times, Thomson received more than a dozen faxes from film-makers and film producers all over the world, including

William Friedkin William "Billy" Friedkin (born August 29, 1935)Biskind, p. 200. is an American film and television director, producer and screenwriter closely identified with the " New Hollywood" movement of the 1970s. Beginning his career in documentaries in ...

, wanting to option The Book of Revelation . He sold the rights to Australian writer/director, Ana Kokkinos. The film of The Book of Revelation was released in 2006.

The Barcelona Years (2004 – 2010)

In 2004, Thomson moved to

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ...

, renting a house in Sarrià. A year later, he married his long-term girlfriend, Katharine Norbury, in Las Vegas. While in Barcelona, he published two novels, Divided Kingdom (2005) and

Death of a Murderer Death is the Irreversible process, irreversible cessation of all biological process, biological functions that sustain an organism. For organisms with a brain, death can also be defined as the irreversible cessation of functioning of the whol ...

(2007), which was shortlisted for the Costa Novel of the Year. He also ventured into non-fiction for the first time with his memoir, This Party's Got to Stop (2010), which won the Writer's Guild Non-Fiction Book of the Year. In his final weeks in the city, he wrote the first draft of

Barcelona Dreaming Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...

Return to London (2010)

In 2010 the financial crash forced Thomson and his family to return to London. Three years later, in 2013, David Bowie selected The Insult as one of his 100 Must-Read Books of All Time. Thomson has stated that being chosen by Bowie felt like an affirmation:

I'm not a writer who has had much luck with prizes, but as Lionel Shriver said to me the other day, when we were talking about not being celebrated: "That Bowie accolade, though. No one can take that away from you." She paused. "You can take that to your grave."

That year, Thomson's ninth novel, Secrecy, received overwhelmingly positive reviews. Boyd Tonkin, in the Independent, wrote: "Thomson has merged the pulse and pace of a thumping narrative heartbeat with an eerie and visionary gift for mystery, puzzle, and surprise…Scene after scene trembles with breath-stopping tension on the edge of bliss or dread", while Stephanie Merritt called Thomson "a writer of exceptional skill, though his work has perhaps not been as widely celebrated as it deserves" and added "his finest novel to date: exquisitely crafted, and with the power to possess and unsettle the reader in equal measure". Thomson's next novel, Katherine Carlyle (2015), was feted by writers and artists as diverse as

Jonathan Lethem Jonathan Allen Lethem (; born February 19, 1964) is an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. His first novel, '' Gun, with Occasional Music'', a genre work that mixed elements of science fiction and detective fiction, was publi ...

, Lionel Shriver,

Samantha Morton Samantha Jane Morton (born 13 May 1977) is an English actress and director. Known for her work in independent cinema, she is the recipient of numerous accolades, including a BAFTA Award and a Golden Globe Award, as well as nominations for two ...

Richard Flanagan Richard Miller Flanagan (born 1961) is an Australian writer, who has also worked as a film director and screenwriter. He won the 2014 Man Booker Prize for his novel '' The Narrow Road to the Deep North''. Flanagan was described by the ''Washin ...

, Deborah Moggach,

Anne Enright Anne Teresa Enright (born 11 October 1962) is an Irish writer. She has published seven novels, many short stories and a non-fiction work called ''Making Babies: Stumbling into Motherhood'', about the birth of her two children. Her writing expl ...

James Salter James Arnold Horowitz (June 10, 1925 – June 19, 2015), better known as James Salter, his pen name and later-adopted legal name, was an American novelist and short-story writer. Originally a career officer and pilot in the United States Air ...

, and KT Tunstall. "Katherine Carlyle is the strongest and most original novel I have read in a long time," Philip Pullman wrote. "It's a masterpiece." In 2016, Thomson's short story, "To William Burroughs, from His Wife", was shortlisted for the Costa Short Story of the Year Award. Katherine Carlyle was followed by Never Anyone but You (2018) and NVK (2019), which Thomson published under the pseudonym Temple Drake. Thomson has this to say about the creative process:

It's a headlong plunge into the unknown each time, with no framework, no plan, no end in sight…I'm trying to pin down some kind of psychological truth. I'm after an undertow – the flow of something fresh and unexpected. There's no need to be afraid, or even wary. No one will ever see my first attempt. I have a number of metaphors for how this process feels. I'm a sculptor with a piece of marble. I'm a driver on a motorway at night who turns his headlights off. I'm an actor, but without an audience. I chip away at something formless. I can't seem to remember any of my lines. I take wrong turnings, scenic routes. I get lost. I crash. But somehow I make progress. The marble gradually resolves itself into a shape. My characters slowly come alive. When day dawns and the road appears, I'm never where I thought I would be. The journey is always unpredictable. There is always risk, exhilaration, mystery, and panic. There is also, hopefully, the discovery of something that feels both recognisable and new.

He has never won any prizes for his fiction, and is often referred to by literary critics as having been criminally overlooked. In 2021, he released his book, "Barcelona Dreaming", a literary work he had been working on for over 10 years.

Works

Novels

* 1987 –

Dreams of Leaving A dream is a succession of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that usually occur involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep. Humans spend about two hours dreaming per night, and each dream lasts around 5 to 20 minutes, althou ...

* 1991 – The Five Gates of Hell * 1993 – Air and Fire * 1996 – The Insult * 1998 – Soft * 1999 – The Book of Revelation * 2005 – Divided Kingdom * 2007 – Death of a Murderer * 2013 – Secrecy * 2015 – Katherine Carlyle * 2018 – Never Anyone but You * 2020 – NVK (as Temple Drake) * 2021 – Barcelona Dreaming

Memoir

*2010 – This Party's Got to Stop

Short Stories

* 1988 – Look, The Monkey's Laughing * 1989 – Other Things * 2014 – To William Burroughs, from his Wife

Essays & Articles

* 2009 �
The Lost Boy
* 2009 �
Call Me by My Proper Name (Granta 107)
* 2010 �
Park Life (Granta 110)
* 2011 �
Truman Capote: an introduction to In Cold Blood
* 2013 �
A life in writing by Nicholas Wroe
* 2013 �
“Fugitive Pieces”: Rupert Thomson on Gaetano Guilio Zumbo
* 2014 �
Patrick Modiano: an appreciation of the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature
- * 2015 �
“In the Wilds of Industrial Russia for Research I Will Not Use”: Rupert Thomson on researching Katherine Carlyle
* 2015 �
James Salter: Write or Perish
* 2015 �
Rupert Thomson: “My Fear of Becoming a Father”
* 2015 �

* 2016 �
Rupert Thomson: On trauma, death, and the power of fiction versus non-fiction (Part One)
* 2016 �
Rupert Thomson discusses his latest novel, Katherine Carlyle (Part Two)
* 2018 �
David Bowie: How my novel ended up on Bowie's Must-Read list
* 2019 �
Rupert Thomson: Books that made me
* 2020 �
Flannery O'Connor: I even mis-spell intellectual
* 2020 �
Rupert Thomson: Novels about Women on Their Own

Bibliography

Rupert Thomson – Critical Essays: foreword by Rupert Thomson
edited by Rebecca Pohl and Christoper Vardy

Awards and Distinctions

* Air and Fire: Shortlisted for the 1994 Writer's Guild Novel of the Year * The Insult: Shortlisted for the 1996 Guardian Fiction Prize and chosen by David Bowie as one of his 100 Must-Read Books of All Time * Death of a Murderer: Shortlisted for the 2009 Costa Novel of the Year * This Party's Got to Stop: Winner of the 2010 Writer's Guild Non-Fiction Book of the Year * Elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2015 * To Williams Burroughs, from his Wife: Shortlisted for the 2015 Costa Short Story of the Year * Never Anyone but You: Shortlisted for the 2018 American Library in Paris Book Award

External links

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Thomson, Rupert 20th-century British novelists 21st-century British novelists Living people People educated at Christ's Hospital 1955 births Alumni of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge People from Eastbourne British male novelists Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature 20th-century British male writers 21st-century British male writers