When a London ad agency’s client is murdered, its star creative team attempts to solve the mystery but inadvertently gets into deep water. Author Alex Pearl takes time from his busy schedule to tell us about his new release, A Brand To Die For, share his insights on the future of advertising and publishing, and tell us how he once got locked in a record store on Christmas Eve.

Interviewer: Christina Hamlett

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Q: Tell us a bit about your journey as a writer and the first time you were ever published.

A: I was an advertising copywriter for an unhealthy number of years and started writing my first work of fiction – Sleeping with the Blackbirds – while waiting to be made redundant from a large agency that was undergoing a huge global merger. (Someone at the time wittily referred to the merger involving two lumbering giants, as the Hindenburg coming to the rescue of the Titanic.) It took the agency the best part of a year to give me my marching orders, by which time I had almost finished the book. The book was eventually long-listed for the Millennium Book Awards 2018 and was selected by The Indie Author Project for distribution to public libraries across the US and Canada.

Q: What do you know now that you didn’t know when you started?

A: First of all, I didn’t know if I’d be able to write a book that anyone would want to read. Getting longlisted for a book award and then being selected by The Indie Author Project suggested that perhaps I could. Then, of course, I didn’t know much about the process of publishing (all my books are self-published). Like all writers, I have been down the conventional path of approaching agents, but am not particularly inspired by the timidity of the industry right now. Self-publishing is, as far as I’m concerned, rather more satisfying, rewarding and empowering. Over time, I suspect that the old publishing model will crumble.  

Q: Who are some of the authors whose wordsmithing influenced your own approach to storytelling?

A: The first book I read as a child was Stig of the Dump by Clive King. The book is a charming story written from the point of view of a young boy who discovers a caveman (or more precisely, a cave-boy) living at the bottom of his grandparents’ garden. The book explores those universal themes of friendship and trust, and had me hooked from a young age. So it was obviously an important book as it got the ball rolling. And interestingly, my own first book was written from the perspective of a young boy. One of my Creative Directors, a lovely man named Ken Mullen is a great writer and lover of literature. He introduced me to writers like Mervyn Peake. I was also very privileged to get to sit next to Beryl Bainbridge at an awards dinner. Beryl had written one of several press ads written by novelists for a campaign for real fires devised by Ken and his art director. She was very easy to talk to and rather inspiring.

Q: If you could invite any three authors—living or dead—to a dinner party, who would they be and what would you most like to ask them?

A: Charles Dickens, Scott Fitzgerald, and Clive James. I’d ask Dickens and Fitzgerald to explain their particular approaches to writing stories, and whether they believe in meticulous narrative planning. I’d then ask Clive James to ask his questions of them, because he’d ask really probing and smart questions, and he’d almost certainly make us all laugh in the process.

Q: There are a number of advertising copywriters who have become novelists. Do you think you’d have turned to writing fiction had you not been a copywriter first?

A: It’s a good question to which I don’t have a definitive answer. I suspect the answer is quite possibly not. After all, the advertising business gave me an opportunity to hone my skills as a writer and to also build my confidence. Advertising also teaches you the art of brevity and the ability to think visually. Over time these become instinctive skills.

Q: If you weren’t writing fiction, would you still be in the advertising business?

A: No. I left the industry when I did as I had to be around for my wife who very suddenly became ill with a spinal tumor. Fortunately, I was able to retire early. Writing novels is a hobby.

Q: From your perspective, how has the advertising world changed or remained the same since the 1980s?

A: Gosh… How long have you got? The industry has changed out of all recognition. The period from the 70s through to the 90s was something of a Golden Period for creative advertising in the UK, and particularly London. TV and cinema advertising were the most desirable media to work in and the most creative agencies that won the lion share of the awards every year would generally be the agencies that also won most new business. Agencies like Collett Dickenson Pearce were creatively led. Its creative director John Salmon was also its chairman. If the client didn’t accept the agency’s work or tried to water it down in any way, the agency would simply fire the client – no matter how large they were. In fact, they fired Ford who may have been one of their largest clients. This would never happen today. The boot is very much on the other foot. Today the internet and digital technology are becoming increasingly important and TV advertising is becoming far less so, particularly for brands that appeal to the younger generation who spends more time online than in front of a TV. Humour also plays a far smaller role in advertising than it used to. Most clients seem to believe that humour is flippant and denigrates the brand. The truth of the matter is that humour has sold more products than almost any other attribute the creative team has in its armoury. But try telling that to a young client who has never seen a Heineken commercial from the 80s. Advertising can still be creative and fairly sophisticated, but my feeling is that there’s just an awful lot less of it. And what there is lacks soul. For me, creative advertising has lost its way; it’s just not as daring and witty as it used to be. And it takes itself far too seriously.

Q: Where do you see the book publishing industry in the next 10 years? Next 20 years?

A: I think self-publishing is going to continue growing. Platforms like Smashwords are going to become increasingly important, and e-books are going to become King. As a result, there’ll be more hybrid publishers and the old traditional literary agent/publisher model will eventually become outmoded and disappear. We are already seeing the huge explosion in the number of books being published. The democratisation of publishing through technology is clearly a good thing and we are now seeing terrific writing from authors who would otherwise have no voice.

Q: Tell us how the premise of A Brand To Die For came about.

A: I wanted to write a murder mystery set in the advertising industry for two reasons. Firstly, because there hadn’t been one written since 1933 when Dorothy L. Sayers wrote Murder Must Advertise. And secondly, because I knew the world of advertising really well having worked in it as a copywriter for many years. So I didn’t need to spend endless hours researching it. It was all there in my head waiting to spill out on the page. As for the plotting, I was assisted a great deal by my brother who I credit in the Acknowledgment page.  Together we discussed the second half of the book at some length and hit on an idea that I still feel works really well and isn’t obvious to the reader.

Q: Are there any intersections in this work of fiction with real-life events and characters?

A: There are plenty of events in the book that are in fact based on true incidents. The quip at the end of the prologue during the funeral of Danny Deedes was actually uttered in real life at a memorial service for a famous advertising figure. (He will remain nameless for obvious reasons.) The story about furniture being stolen by an individual who then charged for the removal van on expenses is also a true story believe it or not. And the other story about the telescope installed in the office to spy on ladies of the night in Soho is also sadly a true one.

Q: Plotter or pantser?

A: I’m a plotter. I need a road map to work with otherwise I get hopelessly lost. But with A Brand to Die For I wrote the first half without actually having the second half worked out in my head. But once I reached the halfway point I knew I had to take a break from writing and concentrate on the road map, which with my brother’s assistance fell into place quite satisfactorily. Having said this, you can, of course, deviate a bit from the road map while the general thrust of the story remains in place.

Q: Do your characters ever surprise you?

A: Yes they sometimes do. In my previous novel, The Chair Man, one of my main characters is very unexpectedly murdered, and even I wasn’t actually planning on that. It just kind of happened. In A Brand to Die For the biggest villain in the book loves Charles Dickens and art and that wasn’t something I planned. Again it just happened. But in retrospect, there is something deliciously ironicabout that.

Q: What would readers be the most surprised to learn about you?

A: Possibly that I am generally shambolic and disorganised, and have a really terrible sense of direction.

Q: What’s the oldest, oddest or most sentimental item in your closet?

A: Quite probably a paperweight that used to sit on my grandmother’s sideboard. I wrote a piece about it ages ago. Here it is:

FAMILY REFLECTIONS

It was purchased before the war by a balding, stocky man with a warm smile and a booming, resonant voice. His name was Bertram Davis – though his original Russian surname was the more exotic Bolzwinick. He was the grandfather I never knew. By all accounts, he was the life and soul of the party; a witty chap with a story to tell and a joke to crack. Until, that is, life was cruelly cut short by asthma at the tender age of 54.
I was born into this world five years after his departure. According to my grandmother, Bert would spend many happy hours pottering in dusty antique shops in the Mile End Road, and was in the habit of buying things on a whim.
As a young child I remember setting eyes on my grandfather’s purchase and being drawn by its mesmerizing contents and the way it magnified and distorted itself. This shiny, glassy orb with its intricate geometry of bright lapis lazuli, pink and white sunk deep into a sea of solid glass, never ceased to fascinate my young eyes. How did the coloured glass get inside the see-though glass? And how could this iridescent globule of sheer beauty have no more meaningful a role in life than a mere paperweight?
For many years it was the family tradition for all my uncles and aunts and cousins on my mother’s side of the family to descend in droves on my grandmother’s house every Saturday afternoon for tea. It was invariably a jovial affair with lively children, lively conversation, a real fire sizzling and crackling in the grate and, of course, my grandmother’s famous apple and blackberry pie with its delicate coat of latticed pastry.
My grandmother was a fiercely independent woman with a heart of gold and a particularly soft spot for her short-sighted grandson. So when she passed away quite suddenly and unexpectedly when I was 14, Saturday afternoons never quite felt the same again.
I can recollect helping my father clear her large Victorian house and standing on the threshold of the sitting room where the fire once danced and laughter once filled the air. All that was left was a bare room with bare floor boards. A room stripped of its personality; stripped of life itself.
Some weeks later the paperweight that had sat for so many years on my grandmother’s sideboard, now found a new home on my bedroom desk. Sometimes I look into it and try and make out fleeting reflections of those joyful childhood memories.
Today, 35 years on my mother, now showing the early signs of dementia, lets slip the darkest of family secrets. Her father with whom she was incredibly close did not die from asthma. This jovial man who still laughs and smiles to this day from those black and white snap shots from yesteryear, actually took his own life – following a serious bout of depression.
It explains a lot. It explains why my grandmother’s top floor was always occupied by lodgers – since life assurance policies are never honoured in the event of suicide.
More significantly, it also explains our family tradition and why every Saturday afternoon all her grandchildren would descend and fill her house with laughter.

Q: You share a humorous story in your bio that you accidentally got locked in a record store on Christmas Eve. How did this come about and how long did it take for rescue to come?

A: I was searching for a piece of classical music in a part of the shop where few customers ever ventured, and while here, the staff locked up without bothering to check that there were no strange people browsing the classical music section. The odd thing was that all the lights and Christmas displays had been left on, so there was no way of me knowing that I had in fact been locked in. Indeed, when I finally did find the piece I was looking for and took it to the counter, I couldn’t work out why there was nobody behind the counter to serve me. I politely waited while coughing, which is very much the English way of doing things. When after several minutes, my coughing had had absolutely no effect, I took the bold step of going behind the counter and into the staff room behind, which was empty. It wasn’t until I marched over to the front door and nearly yanked my arm off in trying to pull it open, that it finally dawned on me that I was locked in. This, of course, was long before the invention of the mobile phone. But fortunately, the shop did have a working telephone, so I called my father who, in turn, called the police who, in turn called the caretaker. I remained in my temporary prison for about an hour and a half. Following Christmas, the staff were apparently fired.

Q: What are your three best tips for aspiring authors?

A: Write about what you know. Brevity is wonderful – learn from George Orwell. And heck, have a bit of fun, why don’t you?

Q: What’s next on your plate?

A: Possibly a sequel to A Brand to Die For that involves a cricket match. We will see.

Q: Anything else you’d like to share?

A: A plug for my previous book 100 Ways to Write a Book, which is raising money for PEN International. This is, as far as I can tell, the only book on the market written in English that explores the backgrounds, motivations and working methods of 100 authors around the world. Of the book, one reviewer penned the following: “This collection of interview responses by over 100 authors, who write about their craft, is not only fascinating, it may be a first. There are numerous nuggets here and it amounts to a large scale seminar in writing techniques, in book form. As they also talk about their early experiences and motivations, as well as hobbies and many other topics, there is much to delve into here. Highly recommendable.” The book is available in paperback and Kindle at Amazon here: https://mybook.to/stTSGI7