The inspiration behind: The Shame of John Slade

Following a recently published post in which I collaged some of the people and things that inspired my book The Reputation of Booya Carthy, I enjoyed it so much that I’ve done it again for my second book, The Shame of John Slade.

In this image are some of the musicians, books, people, films and TV shows that helped in the creation of the book, to a greater or lesser degree. For example, John Slade’s daughter is named Ella after Ella Fitzgerald, after a cover song played by a support band on the night she was conceived. Here is a scene from the book that explains a bit more:

If Kirsty and I hadn’t met, then this little thing wouldn’t exist at all. There was that exact moment when we did the business, too tipsy to bother with contraception after rolling back from a Gary Numan gig. The support band had covered Imagine My Frustration, which is how Ella got her name. (It would have been Harry if we had a boy – that was non-negotiable. There was no way that we were going to call it Gary, Kirsty and I were agreed on that.) But those incidental moments did happen, and here is the only real thing to show for my years of doing not a lot.

That scene didn’t actually make it into the book! But in that is a great lesson, on how not everything has to be shown to readers to make it absolutely essential to the story. Such is the magic of drafting. (Even the choice of the song played by the covers band is intended as a subtle little joke, which I sadly had to let go.) So Ella Fitzgerald is one most essential parts of this collage; even though she doesn’t feature once in the book, she’s there on most pages.

Some of the other musicians get no more than a mention in the book, but they would all feature on John Slade’s playlists – if he had any clue on how to make one – and are big inspirations behind his ongoing ambitions – if he had any drive to realise them.

Or there’s John and his brother Paul – I probably don’t need to explain that one; nor the fact that two of his band members are called Mick and Brian (who I’ve just realised aren’t featured on the collage ☹️. Imagine my frustration).

Every one of the writers in the image played a huge part on influencing the tone of the story, inspiring both me and John, and our voices. All of them are masters at the subtleties of good humour – where and how to use it. There’s no point at all in trying to write like any of these authors, but you can definitely write to try and impress them. It’s not a coincidence that my favourite writers of the interior monologue feature here.

Every one of the things and people pictured played their part – and this is in no way exhaustive; I definitely would’ve overlooked some influences, and some of those that were subconscious, no more than a passing thought. And again, as before, please look past the fact that I’m no collage artist. This is nothing more than a mood board of some of my inspirations.

And as for Craig David, bless him, he’s probably the only stooge on here. I’m not going to explain why. If you’d like to know, you’ll have read the book. You can download a free sample here, if you’d like a taster.

If you can’t identify them all and would like to, here’s the who’s who . . .