Audio: Andrew Pyper’s Circle of Influence
Andrew Pyper interviewed by Claire Cameron

In the latest Bookninja Magazine “podcast”, we bring together two great fiction writers to about this Andrew Pyper fellow. One of these two authors also happens to be named Andrew Pyper, the man at the helm of The Killing Circle, out this past week from Doubleday. Does he feel like a great Canadian literary success story? Why don’t his books win literary awards? Are we constipated toward categories of fiction? What does he think of sending up the literary scene? What’s the point of reading books? Why should anyone read stories that are made up? Are there similarities between Pyper and The Killing Circle’s main character? How does this book straddles the line between genre and literary fiction? And, perhaps most importantly, how has Pyper has squandered his huge advances? (Link to audio below)

Excerpt:

Claire Cameron: The Killing Circle is a work of fiction. It’s a story that you made up. So, why do you think anyone would pay to read the shit you pull out of your ass?

Andrew Pyper: Um…ah…you know? It…that…um…I shou…that, by the way, you…er…ah…is…is a line from the book.

CC: It’s one of my favourite lines from the novel…

AP: Yes. Claire isn’t being rude.

CC: …which I was hoping to steal from you.

AP: You’re welcome to it.

CC: Ha ha.

AP: That is a question that we, as writers, don’t ask ourselves enough, frankly.

CC: But we all should perhaps?

AP: We all should.

Andrew Pyper Interview
(13:12) (5.8mb)
(This is an audio mp3 file — please save it to your local drive (c:\, etc.) if you plan on listening to it more than once. It will save us the bandwidth. Right click, or click hold for Mac users, and choose “Save Target As” or “Save Link As” or whatever comes up that looks like that, and save it somewhere where you know how to get to it. Luddite.)

Andrew Pyper was born in Stratford, Ontario, in 1968. He received a B.A. and an M.A. in English Literature from McGill University in Montreal, as well as a law degree from the University of Toronto. Although called to the bar in 1996, he has never practiced. The Killing Circle, Andrew’s fourth and latest novel, is to be published in Canada (Doubleday) and the U.K. (HarperCollins) in August, 2008, and in the U.S. (St. Martin’s/Thomas Dunne) in September 2008. Translation rights have already been sold in Holland, Spain, Germany, Italy and Portugal. It is being adapted to film by producers Cowboy Films (Oscar-winning The Last King of Scotland), with Justin Chadwick (The Other Boleyn Girl) attached to direct.

Claire Cameron was born in 1973 and grew up in Toronto. She studied history at Queen’s University and then worked as an instructor for Outward Bound, teaching mountaineering, climbing and whitewater rafting in Oregon. Moving to London in 1999, she founded Shift Media, a consultancy with clients including the BBC, McGraw-Hill and Oxford University Press. Claire now lives in Toronto with her husband and son. The Line Painter, her first novel, was published in 2007 by HarperCollins Canada.