As an American writer, why is the majority of your work inspired by incidents - crimes - that transpired abroad, particularly in the UK?

I've been asked this before, in fact, most recently when I was reading at The Horse Hospital in London. Before I got the chance to answer, some girl yelled out "bloody anglophile." But, just like then, I'm not sure this is especially true. I've written a couple books on JonBenet, for example. And I think Predicate, which is supposed to be about Thomas Hamilton, is just as much about Danielle van Dam and Samantha Runnion. You could say that Comfort and Critique is just as much about Megan Kanka as it is about Sarah Payne. But there are personal specifics that would diminish if I only examined the nature of the crimes or the social application of the reporting. The absolute truth is all the books are about what I look for, primarily, and what I find constantly, maddeningly lacking. In everything. In life. I certainly do not classify myself as an american writer to begin with. But, more importantly, this isn’t a true crime book. It is about sex. It is about the need for a semblance of sex.

(Can you address whether it's the prolonged shelf life of cases such as Sarah Payne, Thomas Hamilton, and Lesley Ann Downey in the UK press that make these events so captivating for you, and whether geographical and perhaps cultural distance somehow attracts you to these episodes.)

Obviously, the exposure the cases get is that which allows me to learn more about the things that interest me most. The phenomenal exposure and access the Sarah
Payne case received and produced has never been equaled. The Holly Wells case didn’t reverberate quite so viciously when some of the journalistic Payne cues were employed again. Significantly, the Sarah Payne murder is part of a direct line back to the Sidney Cooke case. It makes perfect sense to me that I would, personally, find a lot to indulge there. And, honestly, I wouldn't want to excuse the fact that I don't see these kids and victims and slobs as lumpen. I do think, however, that Comfort and Critique addresses the complexities that lead, in part, to giving Sarah's abduction and murder such a long shelf life.

What informs the reverse chronology of Sarah Payne's abduction and murder in Comfort and Critique?

There's quite a few reasons, more than I can try to simplify here. But that's why it's a book. Or three books. Or ten. A base fact ties at least the last three books together but splices this smaller subject into different, very separate, much more vivid and larger ideas and contexts. In Selfish, Little, there is an intense focus on the photos I've collected on one little girl, who I now know as an adult. Naturally, the process of gathering information from those photos goes backward hard. I grew into photos of Lesley Ann Downey but couldn't trust the information as it continued to spread and never fucking stop. In Comfort and Critique, one of the things I'm interested in is this concept of sexual juvenilia. How one would relate to the concept of childhood, hold it dear and require that it never deviates. The way a pedophile does and the way a newspaper reading public demand. Also, the devastated particulars in so many of these cases don't own the news. You can pretend to follow a case from beginning to end, start to apparent finish, when, in fact, you usually do the exact opposite. You fall in and backtrack. But the adults, who need to learn how to take and feed and sell and lie, absolutely do change. As they should, yes? The stance of the reporting is that they stay true to themselves and the audience that loves and supports them and did so unconditionally. Finally, in Predicate, Thomas Hamilton was someone who collected photos from the children he obsessed over and never touched. The history of him as a desperate lonely inadequate has been applied to a context that is also shockingly inadequate. The truth about him, and mono-maniacally, where I fiercely, desperately, connect with his bare memory, is in a backtracked history. Mick North, in his book written for his daughter Sophie, says he didn't need to know Hamilton's name. You can certainly understand the reluctance. In another book on Dunblane, the authors refuse to even mention Thomas Hamilton's name. The press and the needful comfort and care of the public, I'm absolutely certain, could explain this impulse immediately. It is contrary to my interest, however and I address that. Various examples of breathing, responding, demanding proxies. And all of it ends up somehow in some faggot bar or cabin sucking on parts of strangers.

Why did you choose to include photos with this text?

No titles, no advertising something other than their looks. It should be explained that I gave you a huge pile of the things and let you select from there. I thought it made sense, for once, to issue the information as it stands rather than merely referring to them in the abstract. The photos are not gory or tacky. They are functional. They do represent the characters I interest myself in and the way I see them. I look as hard as you do for personality and complicity and uniqueness. The intention was to issue them as part of a magazine that carried Sarah’s name. Better than the way a newspaper does. There are things I can do with these very small, limited publications and I intend on following those possibilities through as best as I can. I do see the book being released without the badly xeroxed photos at some point. I do see the book as text full stop.

Certain descriptive passages in Comfort and Critique and the forthcoming Predicate may strike readers familiar with your work as surprisingly impartial. Can you comment on the documentary-like structure of these texts?

I think this would be a mistake. I am not impartial. There would be no point in writing an expose or an excuse. You yourself said that Comfort and Critique seemed to have a moral code but were then upset about the lack of one in Predicate. As far as the documentary style goes, I see no reason to paraphrase the material I choose as pertinent. In the case of the Thomas Hamilton bits, I saw no reason to put that information in an explanatory context. I don't think it's worth wasting my time on and I can't imagine anything outside of true crime readers who would need it. I'm not reporting and I don't construct cut & paste true crime books or weblogs. These books are not jobs, though they may seem like that for those looking to discount the material offhand. I'm not weaving a history or tale about the people involved. Facts need to be questioned and picked apart, details need to be sifted out. But I'm using material that exists to get as far beyond that shit as possible. Not trying to manipulate text or interview the assholes in the holes next to me. Lies are rudimentary. It would be insulting to everyone involved with me to use the same moral, protective, concerned language as is the limp norm.

What for you were some of the highlights of your recent trip to France?

I enjoyed doing the readings more than I ever have done in the past. I showed films that I had badly edited and got the material I had prepared presented in a way that I thought added to the idea of the book, especially in what formed the spine of the thing. It didn't seem like promotion and it didn't seem like it hoped for a little more than drunken chaos where you apply the meaning afterwards. I’ve always tried to take a rather personal approach to readings and often enough, it would end miserably. I used to try to get the people who showed up to talk and I also tended to be pretty fucked up. There were different requirements in France because of the translation and Waitress and it worked, as far as I’m concerned, much better. Mainly because Laurence Viallet and Desordres who made fucking sure it did with translators, actors and amazing venues.

Tell us about your Waitress project.

The photos in Comfort and Critique and the films I showed in France are products of this system. It's an attempt to over-explain things. To take the details out and put them in an even more specific context. To try very hard to nail a context down and not let the details get in the way, oddly enough. It's a product of the work I do and it operates in a way that’s separate to what I write. I like them very much but see them as a starting point of sorts. It has a lot to do with the way that some carefully edited audio I put out long ago were received. I realized the context was cheap and the audience limited in their expectations. Selfish, Little explained the redress. I hope that doesn't sound bitter. Pretentious but not bitter ... It was entirely my fault.

Can you give us a preview of your next book, Show Adult?

No, not really. Every time I mention there’s a book that’s finished and not sitting with a publisher and a date, then the thing gets bogged down in limbo. It’s happened at least three or four times in the past. Do you know what “show hard” means … It has a lot to do with that.

You wrote that [Harry] Harlow is possibly “the most important artist ever.” Can you tell us about this individual?

You can look at his work and see it as science and art. I think you can look at his intentions and see them as uniquely genuine and giving and the application as sexual and intemperate and as cruel as the need to understand such things would necessarily twist. The devices he used and the way he presented the material is what comes from a real artist’s mentality. The scientific angle he worked under is now considered trite and, sadly, needs to be explained in terms of contemporaneous mores. The same way that
Kinsey gets to be reduced and cleaned and excused, the same way that Laud Humpreys gets to be seen as a brave and conflicted crusader. It’s difficult to discuss the idea of inhumanity and cruelty and affection and nurture when you’re dealing with baby monkeys. But, as sculpture, as film, as theory that involves real people in real circumstances with real opinions and tests and screaming barking proof, you can’t look away and just keep hoping.

Questions by Alex Kasavin