Interview

Talking With
Neil Gaiman

Stories are mirrors,” says 40-year-old British-born Neil Gaiman. “They are more than true,” he says, quoting G.K. Chesterton, “not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be defeated.” Gaiman—whose “dragons” are likely to be ghosts, gods, primeval archetypes and serial killers—understands the warpings and weavings of storytelling like few men his age.

Gaiman came to international attention in 1989, while in his late 20s, when SANDMAN, a monthly DC comic book that he scripted, became a runaway bestseller. A dark fantasy about Morpheus, the brooding lord of dreams, SANDMAN was more likely to attract theologians, academicians, and women than the prepubescent boys who typically haunt comic shops. Comic books and audiobooks, Gaiman suggests, “are very, very similar. The word balloons and captions (in comics) are meant to be heard on some kind of strange subliminal level. It’s very much a hearing thing.”

Born in Porchester, Hampshire, Gaiman grew up listening to radio drama on the BBC. “As a small boy I remember listening to LISTEN WITH MOTHER, then moving on to THE NAVY LARK (with Jon Pertwee who later went on to play Dr. Who) and ROUND THE HOME(with Marty Feldman).” In America, radio drama went into hibernation with the advent of the television. “I suspect that if it weren’t for Douglas Adams having done Hitchhiker’s Guide, no one in America would ever know there still was radio drama. Whereas in England, radio drama has unbroken continuity. It was never assumed in England that once the television came in, the radio was rendered superfluous.

“One of the things I’ve done that I am most proud of was working with BBC Radio Three on SIGNAL TO NOISE” In 1996 the BBC broadcast the adaptation of his graphic novel about a dying film director. “I was incredibly lucky,” he says, recalling the time he spent at historical Studio Number 7 of Broadcasting House. “They have sound effects props around back. It’s filled with stairs that go nowhere and five or six hundred doors that slam in different ways. It was marvelous.”

That year, Gaiman wrote another script for the BBC, this time for the television series NEVERWHERE, an adventure set in a strange subterranean London. He later adapted NEVERWHERE as a novel that became an international bestseller and a successful audiobook. The abridgment of NEVERWHERE left Gaiman uncomfortable. “I’m listening to it, thinking, ‘what a fine, sensitive, brilliant abridgment.’ Then I get to tape three, where the abridger realized that she has to fit the last half of the book into 3,000 words. Huge swatches got thrown away. It’s deeply frustrating for me. I’d hate for anyone who listens to this to think that this is the story. On the good side, there’s Brian Eno’s music and Gary Blakewell’s lovely reading.”

In 1995 Gaiman narrated several of his own short stories and poems onto a two-CD set entitled WARNING: LANGUAGE SPOKEN. He plans to reissue that collection and continue recording more stories. The SciFi Channel’s “Seeing Ear Theater” adapted two of Gaiman’s short stories as radio dramas: “Murder Mysteries” features Brian Dennehy as an angel on a park bench telling the narrator about heaven’s first murder, and “Snow Glass Apples,” in which Bebe Neuwirth tells the story of “Snow White” as a dark tale of vampirism from the sympathetic viewpoint of the stepmother. Harper Collins plans to bring these out in the next year.

Gaiman’s latest novel, AMERICAN GODS follows an ex-convict named Shadow, who travels America as the bodyguard of a man who may be an ancient Norse deity. Harper Audio has published an unabridged recording of American Gods to which George Guidall adds a haunting tone and an air of authenticity by providing the many ethnic accents that fill the American melting pot. “I started listening to tape one from a quality control point of view, thinking ‘I hope this isn’t embarrassing,’” Gaiman admits. “Ten tapes later I’m still listening. I think George did such a great job. I was so lucky getting somebody who, given the size of the cast of characters and how different all those characters are, could actually do it. As a writer I’m comfortable writing 70 different American accents, but I wouldn’t want to perform them.”

“Listen to AMERICAN GODS,” Gaiman asks, “not just because I wrote it and it’s a really cool novel and I’m incredibly proud of it, but because I’m not sure you’re going to get another audiobook that good. George (Guidall) is an American god. His reading is wonderful. As the author I get to beam. I want people to hear it.”—Steven Steinbock

OCT/NOV 01
© AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine