SUCCESS STORY
IF WRITERS were like film stars, Graeme Macrae Burnet would arrive at our meeting in an enormous 4x4 with tinted windows.
After almost winning the Man Booker prize last year with his second novel, His Bloody Project, Graeme is a literary hot property.
Had he come within a millimetre of an Oscar, he would be wearing something so plain that it must have cost more than a sofa. His latest-model iPhone would buzz and hiss with important messages and lucrative offers.
But an author’s life – even a really successful one – is not like that. Graeme arrives at a cafe in Glasgow Central off the train from Barrhead.
He got his first smartphone earlier this year, an update of his Nokia flip-top model. It remains silent throughout.
His new book, The Accident on the A35, is published by Saraband, the tiny firm who produced his previous two.
Saraband were based in Glasgow until their founder Sara Hunt moved to Manchester earlier in the year.
She got behind Graeme’s first book, The Disappearance Of Adele Bedeau, after 12 bigger names knocked it back.
Graeme said: “We have such a brilliant relationship. She did such an amazing job with His Bloody Project, the book sold in so many countries, it sold a lot of copies. Staying with Saraband was a no-brainer for me.
“I’m sure if I wanted to tout the new book around I could have – but I didn’t want to.”
What matters to Graeme is that he can now, aged 50, finally write full-time.
He said: “Before the Booker I was not even close. The idea of reaching the tax threshold [currently £11,500] was an unattainable dream for me for years.
“I had what I think you call a portfolio career. I did some editing work for academic journals and bits of painting and decorating. I liked doing that, it’s physical, different from sitting in front of a laptop.”
Pre-Booker, his problem was being able to write and pay his rent. Now it’s about finding a bit of mental peace and quiet among the clamour that comes with being a successful author.
Luckily, he finished the first draft of The Accident on the A35 a week before the Booker madness started.
It’s only like His Bloody Project in that it’s a literary detective novel. Instead it’s a companion piece to his first book which is set in the sleepy French border town of Saint-Louis.
In the first one, the disappearance of a waitress reveals the truth about a much earlier murder. In the second, a solicitor’s