Norman Spinrad is a ’trans-genre’ writer. Themes of manipulation, sciences, politics, media, sex, music and drugs melt into some twenty dangerous books that led him to exile himself to Paris in 1988. This interview deals with literature, cinema, his project of a rock opera based on his cult novel Little Heroes, drugs, Philip K. Dick and being a rock star.

Norman, in your opinion, what should the role of science fiction writers be in contemporary society ?
I don’t even like to think about SF writers. I detest genres and everything connected with it. I think that society would be a lot better if these categories didn’t exist. The larger part of the society is isolated from the material SF deals with, and all you really have for the general public is movies - few of which are good - most of which are bad and oversimplified. I think that the place of literature of speculative fiction that’s called SF should be central to society, especially now. But to consider some writers as SF writers or to call a certain kind of literature science fiction works against that. That’s why I don’t really see myself as a SF writer.

But weren’t you influenced by the so-called "roman noir" for instance ? Don’t you think that "roman noir" has a meaning in itself as a genre ? And what about all that beat-generation stuff ?
I wasn’t so much influenced by "roman noir" actually. There is a kind of literature which is called "roman noir", but again, this is another arbitrary category. Norman Mailer is a very big influence, but is that "roman noir" ? Some of it could be classified that way. Les Racines du Mal by Maurice Dantec, is that "roman noir" or not ? Well, it’s published that way. With the beat-generation, it’s a whole different thing, it was a movement, with people like Kerouac and Burroughs - who was a figure close to SF within the beat literature. These definitions are publishers’ definitions and they are not very good. I guess the point to me is that the books, both my own and other people’s, interface in the middle of two or three of these different definitions or genres. To expand them into more than one is the most interesting thing to me. All that crosses these categories like Les Racines du Mal, Pictures at Eleven or Mind Game, writers like Thomas Pynchon for example, these are the most interesting things. For example Paul Di Philippo. Here’s a writer that nobody here has probably ever heard of. He is a really great writer. His books are certainly SF and his work is better than 95 per cent of what you would have heard of. Particularly Cypher, beautifully written with all kinds of ideas. I think he’s one of the best at writing this stuff today. It’s Di Philippo and nobody else.

What were your main influences then ? Like Philip K. Dick, was it classic books from 19th century French literature, Flaubert, Zola, etc... Or were you more into comic books for instance ?
It’s more 20th century novels, stuff like Jack Kerouac, Norman Mailer, William Burroughs, Thomas Pynchon, Henry Miller, Mark Twain, turn of the 20th century literature more than earlier stuff, but with exceptions of course. To me, there were two big comic book influences. The earlier one was the EC comics, a horror comic by Bill Gaines. These were very sophisticated edgy things and weren’t super hero-comics at all. They were into horror and SF with a political content, back in the 50’s. And then, afterwards, the French "bande dessinée", which reached the States and became very popular through the English version of Métal Hurlant, which was Heavy Metal. Those were the interesting comics to me, not the super hero stuff which came afterwards.

Wouldn’t you like to participate in the creation of a comic book ?
Well, I have been involved in trying to do this a few times, it never worked. The first time was a real pity. This was in the late 70’s, with a fantastic project. There was a French Canadian guy who was putting together the comic book history of the 60’s. He already had some artwork, pieces written by Burroughs, etc., and a big portfolio to show me. I met him because he wanted me to do a thing for him. I wrote a thing about what would have happened if Bobby Kennedy hadn’t been shot. But the guy disappeared, the project disappeared, it was never published even if artwork had existed and I don’t know what happened to it all.

What about cinema ? And what about the rights to Bug Jack Barron ?
I was one of the main writers for Jacques Dorfmann’s Druids and I also did a lot of work for La Sirène Rouge, a movie based on Dantec’s novel that just came out and flopped just as bad. So I have written two feature films, they have been made and they both stink. Concerning Bug Jack Barron, that’s a long hideous story. Basically, Universal owns it for eternity. They wasted millions of dollars not making it, on scripts that weren’t good, on development deals etc. So far, nothing has worked. It’s a complicated business which I don’t even pretend to understand. But the more money they have spent not making a movie, the harder it is to get it away from them.

Don’t you regret not having been more adapted like Philip K. Dick was ?
It’s just about luck. This is always the wrong question. It’s not "Why hasn’t your stuff been adapted ?" It’s rather : "How come anything gets done at all ?" You’re in Hollywood, you’re going into somebody’s office and say : "Give me 15 million dollars !" When something gets made, that’s what’s unusual. In the case of Phil Dick, he was broke you know, his car wasn’t working and that just came all over. Dick didn’t hate Hollywood. It’s just that the movie can never be the book. You have to do more than cut, you have to extract the essential story and then make a film. That’s why Blade Runner was good, whereas Dune was a horror. It was terrible because David Lynch tried to make a literal adaptation of the book. With Blade Runner, David Peoples - who wrote the second script, the one Ridley Scott shot - extracted the real essential story and wrote a movie. Phil understood that when he saw the rough cut of Blade Runner. He said to me that the movie captured the spirit and the essence of the book. There was a scene at the end of the movie where the replicant saves Dekerd instead of killing him, which is not in the book at all. And Phil said "that" captured the spirit of the book, even though it was never in the book. As a good example, take Minority Report. That wasn’t adapted from a novel, that was adapted from a short story, a novelette. That is a much more manageable length of a story to make a movie from, that’s the natural length to adapt into a movie, not a great big novel. Sure I’d like to have some more of these adaptations working out, if nothing else for the money ! And for getting the books more known. But the book also is going to be separate from the film, I think.

Which director do you think would make a good adaptation of your books ? What do you think about David Cronenberg, Videodrome... ?
Yeah, if he wanted to do it. Cronenberg, Ridley Scott, Spielberg maybe. I’ll tell you something. What I’ve learnt from writing about movies is that the author theory is bullshit. I could write a really detailed script, and if it’s good, that can be turned into a good movie by a competent and technical director - a lot more easily than a bad script can be turned into a good movie by some genius director. I think Spielberg is a good maker of these SF films. And so is Ridley Scott. Cronenberg, that’s an "auteur". And Videodrome is an interesting movie, very Cronenberg. Cronenberg, generally speaking, directs it, writes it, gets the money together. What he did with Naked Lunch, that’s genius stuff, and with Crash too. Cronenberg is very, very good at this, but I don’t know if he might be good for any of my stuff in particular. Cronenberg makes very Cronenberg films. He’s a real film maker, he’s a real "réalisateur". His films are not usually expensive, he has control over them, he writes them, with his ideas, he does what he wants. Maybe because he works in Canada, it helps, he’s not part of that system. Yeah, Cronenberg... I would trust something being made by Cronenberg. I’ve also come to think that I would probably write the script myself for an adaptation of any of my books.

You mentionned Naked Lunch and William Burroughs. Can you tell us about your relationship to drugs in regards to the writing process ? How did it evolve with the experience ?
It’s a complex question, and also some of the fairly recent scientific research has an interesting bearing on it. Basically, what these things are doing for the most part is stimulating your pleasure centres. At a certain period I used lots of grass as I was writing first drafts. I went through a period like this - and Phil went through a period like this too. Phil was writing a lot of stuff on speed because he had to : "I need the money, I need to do something in four weeks". I never used that stuff. Phil went through a period when he had to get off it. He thought he couldn’t write without it and then, he found out he could. I had some similar experience with writing first drafts on grass. What I realized is that you can do the same without it. It just doesn’t feel as pleasurable. But what I found over a long period of time is that you’re in control, if you’re a writer. I went really experienced after a very long time because I’ve gotten more in control, or let’s say I got more access to the creative process, more integration. I think certain drugs - grass mainly - can be really good for conceptualizing, but not so good for doing continuous work over a long period of time, like a novel. I mean you can do it, but in the end it becomes maybe more difficult. I’ve never written anything on a psychedelic drug and I can’t imagine writing anything on acid or something like that. A regular travel with tobacco would do, that’s a drug too. A lot of writers can’t write without smoking tobacco. I don’t think alcohol is a drug for writing and I can’t imagine keep writing drunk. It’s a very complicated question. As far as SF goes, one of the useful things about drugs is that it gives you kind of a binocular vision. If you do it sometimes, I mean. You see something this way, you change your biochemistry to see it in a different way. If you write on drugs all the time, you no longer have the binocular vision, it’s as if you’re not doing anything. The effect that’s useful is the changes, and if you’re doing the same thing all the time, you’re just habituated to a situation. Burroughs wrote really under the influence of heroin. I don’t know, but I can’t imagine much work getting done like that.

In Little Heroes, you wrote that in order to find inspiration, people take cybernetic LSD. Do you think it’s more helpful to take drugs when making music ?
I’ve had some experiences as a performer now, and most of the time you’re backstage and you’re doing something. It’s an individual thing. Some famous musicians and singers who have stage fright need some drugs you know, but I’ve never had that. It depends. On some performances, you’re stoned and it’s just as good. It’s not terrific for remembering lyrics... (laughter)

Is that why you sometimes have notes ?
Yeah, I do that. It’s like when you go to school and you’re writing answers on your hand. Since I’m doing my own lyrics, nobody knows I’m screwing up except me. The only stage fright I really have is when I forget the lyrics. Drugs are a different thing in performance than in creating something.

Speaking of rock’n’roll, are you a rock star ?
Well, occasionally. Who wouldn’t like to be ? Having it done once in a while, it’s much more exciting than writing something. It’s really like the ultimate Art. One of the current projects is to do Little Heroes as a kind of grandiose rock opera cum street theatre extravaganza for the Stade de France ! It’s a project, no contract’s been signed or anything, but we’re talking to the Stade de France.

Something like a musical ?
No, nothing to do with that (laughter). The project is this big street theatre acts, then combining that with Little Heroes, write some songs and do like a rock opera, as a stadium show. Whether it’s going to happen or not remains to be seen because it has to cost a minimum of 5 million euros or God knows how much more. So to break even, you have to fill a minimum of 50,000 seats. But it’s possible, we’re working on it. This would be even more than a rock opera, turning the stadium into an environment, using everything - video, light and lasers. It has to be huge because if it goes to the stadium, you have to have something that people seating way up here have a reason to be seating here for. I’ve been to rock concerts in stadiums. What do you see if you’re not right up on stage ? You just know there’s a live performance way over there somewhere and you’re watching it on a TV screen, so you might as well be home, especially because the sound is usually rotten. A big stadium is not an ideal place for a rock concert, but there should be something designed as a stadium show. Nobody’s ever done this.

Norman Spinrad, Greenhouse Summer, Mass Market Paperback