Jonathan Payne
Citizen Orlov
DOSSIER: The idea of the story behind CITIZEN ORLOV, in which the non-spy Orlov is unceremoniously pulled into the world of espionage, is something that you believe isn’t exactly beyond the realm of the possible, is it? Be honest, Jonathan. Are you Orlov? (You can admit it here. The Dossier is only really popular in Uzbekistan and Tibet.)
PAYNE: No! Also, yes. Orlov is a middle-aged, balding fishmonger who never married and spends all his waking hours selling fish at the market. Only one of those things applies to me. So, in that sense Orlov is not me. But the kernel of the story is based on a dream, and the dream was a twisted version of something that actually happened. Toward the end of my government service, my boss summoned me to a meeting and asked if I’d be prepared to serve in Afghanistan (which I did). In the dream, he sent me to an unknown foreign location (somehow I traveled there without knowing where I was) and, on arrival, someone started shooting at me. I remember the sense (still in the dream) of indignation; I was only following orders, so being shot at was decidedly unfair. Readers will find the bones of that dream in the early chapters of CITIZEN ORLOV.
DOSSIER: When you say you worked on national security issues for the British government, did you perform sensitive work stenciling “Mind the gap” reminders on the floors around the London tube or were you the modern version of the wildly popular George Lazenby interpretation of James Bond? (We’re hoping for an answer that involves a kilt and a crazy bald guy.)
PAYNE: If I had five quid (as we say in the olde country) for every time someone asks me if I was a spy, I could buy an Aston Martin. I never did anything remotely Lazenby-esque. I may or may not have worked closely with people who did. Those of us who love On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (both novel and film) are having the last laugh at the expense of all the Lazenby haters. The darker tone of that story stands up so much better than most of the flimsy Moore / Dalton period. Discuss.
DOSSIER: When and where do you write, and what kind of environment do you prefer? (An obscure coffee shop at Vauxhall Cross/absolute silence/Union Station listening to The Cure through headphones?)
PAYNE: Most of my writing is done at my desk in my basement at home. I always write to music, but it has to be instrumental. Lyrics get in the way. My number one favorite artist to write to is Four Tet, plus other electronic / dance music like Squarepusher, Aphex Twin, and the like. This is very much not the soundtrack to the adventures of Orlov (which are set in the interwar period), but it’s the music that works for my writing process.
DOSSIER: In your blog about The Absurdity of Espionage where you discuss ridiculous answers to real world events such as the Chinese claiming the spy balloon was a “civilian airship used for mainly meteorological purposes.” Did anything there remind you of today’s publishing process? Like, what kind of crazy responses did you get when you started querying for CITIZEN ORLOV? Did you have any interesting exchanges with agents, editors, or publishers that made you think they were reading off a canned script that made no sense?
PAYNE: I’m a big fan of the writings of Franz Kafka (as many readers and reviewers of CITIZEN ORLOV have spotted) and anything Kafkaesque. I think that term could certainly be applied to both the national security business and to publishing, in different ways. Someone once told me in a meeting that I needed to demonstrate some writing pedigree but also that I should, at the same time, pitch my debut free from any history that agents or editors might not appreciate. Many fellow writers will be familiar with this riddle: you need pedigree but not history. I’ve decided just to focus on writing the next book.
DOSSIER: You hold a Master of Arts degree in Novel Writing from Middlesex University, London, you’ve worked for the British government as either a subway worker or a George Lazenbyesque-level spy (The Dossier is still investigating), and your work has been published in many European magazines … yet you live in Washington D.C. Why are you in America, Jonathan? Our fish & chips aren’t even that good.
PAYNE: This is an easy one: breakfast food. I love a diner. The chrome, over-easy eggs, retro furniture, bottomless coffee. Once I had eaten breakfast at a New York diner on my first visit to this country, I knew I was going to have to become an American. By contrast, have you ever eaten a so-called full English breakfast? My fellow Englishmen will disagree, but it’s full of things that have no business on a breakfast plate, including baked beans. Who wants to eat baked beans for breakfast? Not me. Hence, I dragged my wife and kids across the pond. We all became US citizens a few years ago, so now you’re stuck with me.
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Jeff Circle 