Belle & Sebastian frontman Stuart Murdoch’s aptitude for storytelling is far from unknown. Knowingly or unknowingly, the Scottish musician and author forms some basis of his new novel Nobody’s Empire over decades of being creative. A writer of diaries, stories, lyrics, blog posts as well as the script for God Help the Girl, the film from 2014, which he directs, the writing is already in full swing.
“I have been dabbling with some form of semi-public writing ever since the band started,” he begins. “Because we used to put little stories on the record covers, and that was almost like a little extension of the songs, giving people a snippet, a little picture of the world.”
“I remember when everyone suddenly started getting laptops in 2000. I actually went home, and immediately start blogging, which I’d never done before, and everybody is blogging back. That was great, because that’s when I found my writing voice.”
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Having seen the half-drama, half-musical feature film at the time, it now seems obvious that a connection is made back then. There is a significant gain of experience and technical know-how. As an author, it’s the start of something more focused, a deeper commitment to the process. Murdoch believes the work with American film producer Barry Mendel on God Help the Girl has played a vital part in his own development as a writer of fiction.
I meet him in a green room in Camden, during his freshly launched UK book tour. Sipping herbal tea, he walks Clash through the idea and working method behind the compelling literary project. “Mendel said, ‘When you write the script, you have to decide where it starts, and where it ends. That was his advice.”
The book tackles chronic fatigue syndrome, or myalgic encephalomyelitis, commonly referred as ME. Stephen, the main character in the novel, gets ill. When Murdoch starts writing, he is tackling a flare up. A turning point, it’s a key moment, where he looks back at his experience, the health system at the time, and the decision to mirror some of it in the storyline.
“I told myself that once you have a plan, then you’re off to the races, the next thing you need to do is think about who you’re writing for. I had a picture in my head of the community from back in my day, thirty years ago.”
“I wanted to write the kind of book that I wished was around then, almost like a playbook, and I wanted to make it as hopeful as possible. That was what I had in my mind, I was telling the story to the ME community.”
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With a thematic key component in place, the decision on whether to commit to fiction or non-fiction happens naturally, and is taken with ease. “I didn’t really know it was fiction when I started, I just wrote. Obviously, I was giving the characters different names, I knew that it wasn’t just biography, but I didn’t really know how different it was going to be.”
The use of fiction to tell the story offers flexibility. “The great thing about fiction is that you can just tell a story,” he says. “You don’t have to worry about getting things in the right order, or worry about who said what. Even though a lot of what happens in the book, happened in real life, some of the conversations are fabricated.”
The truth is that Murdoch chooses to deal with a transformative event in his life. He believes that a first time writer needs to have gone through or seen something major in order be able to produce a standalone work. “It wouldn’t be a decent book, if it hadn’t been life changing. Especially when you’re starting out with a novel, or the first proper work, you’re always going to be writing about your own experiences. That was the big thing that happened to me, it set my life on a different course, and I’m still on it.”
There is more openness about mental health now, but also more work to be done, people with conditions such as ME need access to services and various forms of support. In the story, Stephen’s symptoms get worse, his condition deteriorates, and he is hospitalised.
Discovering, forming and being part of an ME community, writing and playing music along with faith, it’s the broad combination of solutions that provide him with the tools to cope and feeling more equipped to manage the condition.
The symptoms of ME do not necessarily lessen with time. Being prepared is useful, so you can let the effective mechanisms kick in as and when. “I’ve got all sorts of little tricks that I use. I’ve been coping for years, you get good at knowing your limits, and then sneaking off when you need to.”
“Even when we’re doing a band rehearsal, I’ll always take a break at lunchtime, and I’ll do my tapping. Tapping the meridian points just serves to settle the body down, it’s restorative and really works.”
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Meditation, a fairly recent addition to the toolbox, is proving effective. The choice to include a part about Buddhism in the novel comes from his wish to give it the same weight as Christianity. A journey of faith is traceable in the book, he sees the inclusion of them, and showing both strands, as paramount.
Murdoch has seen how analytical Buddhism is. “You look at yourself, you look at your mind. We don’t really do that in church, which is a side of things that the Christian church is missing out on. Let’s face it, people need help.”
Music, and more specifically indie, has a groundbreaking part to play, however. Stephen’s passion for it has been simmering underneath the surface, but it comes into full force after he leaves hospital. The realisation that he can write excellent songs goes on to change everything.
“This time was pivotal, because everything stopped. But in the void, that’s when I started hearing music. That was the first time I realised I could write a song. Just like that. It was pretty incredible, a bit like when know how to ride a bike, you have to learn it, but you remember that moment when your mum or your dad lets go off.”
As for his route to becoming a published author with Faber & Faber, it appears to have been smooth enough. It is also the result of magnificent team work, he maintains. “I’m used to being in a team with the band, and this felt like a team. It’s just been a great process. Because that’s half of the battle, I’d imagine, if you’re working with good people.”
A super accomplished storyteller and writer, Stuart Murdoch’s Nobody’s Empire only cements the exact same notion. He can now add published novelist to his biography. Things are looking pretty good.
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Nobody’s Empire is out now, find it in all good book shops.
Words: Susan Hansen
Photography: Rachel Lipsitz
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