KEVIN PARKER is a literary agent in London, but his is not a glamorous life. Professionally and personally, everything is falling apart around him.
When his girlfriend Eve is killed in a hit-and-run, he thinks he has suffered the worst. Haunted by this tragedy, as well as his past, he throws himself into his work. However things become only darker, and stranger, when he receives a random submission from a young, aspiring writer.
The more Kevin reads of her manuscript the more he realises that the story is really about him - all of which leads to a fatal and disturbing finale. This is Between The Lines, the debut psychological thriller novel from Claremorris author, SJ Butler, published by Accent Press Ltd.
'I laughed and cried for different reasons'
The origins of the book, and the story within it, may derive from Butler's own frustrations with dealing with literary agents, and his initial attempts to get published.
"I had given up on getting an agent and started sending my book directly to the publisher," he tells me. "In fact I was beginning to take an irrational dislike to literary agencies – it was probably due to their power, and of course the identical, stock, standard refusal letter you receive."
However, it was in the midst of personal sadness, that Butler finally made the breakthrough. "My family tells me I’m always lucky, and I was on this occasion," he says. "The week of my mother’s funeral a publishing house emailed me to say they found my writing ‘edgy’ and wanted to publish – that was the week I laughed and cried for different reasons. When they asked to see my other writing that then turned into a three-book deal."
Inspirations
Butler cites Joseph Conrad, George Orwell, Pat Barker, and Tony Parsons ("good story tellers" ) as influences. "After leaving Uni - when I could read what I wanted - I read a lot of bestsellers and they weren’t always the page turners I craved," he says. "That’s when I decided I wanted to create fast, gripping stories which engage and intrigue the reader. I didn’t want to bore them for a hundred pages, give them a taster, and then leave them hanging to the final chapter, which quite often was an anti-climax."
His passion for the visual arts also comes through in his writing. "My writing is littered with art references," he says. "I approach writing in the same way a painter prepares a canvass. I’m a visual writer. I like to layer a story in exactly the same way a picture is constructed. When I create a landscape in my stories, I quite often see them in my mind as fuzzy watercolours, streaming down a page."
Between The Lines is available from Charlie Byrne's Bookshop and Dubray Books Galway. Signed copies are also available from both stores. It is also available from Easons and Amazon.
