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Angst and Anger on the Page 26 The Argus, Monday, September 6, 2004 woman INTERVIEW The Argus, Monday, September 6, 2004 27 Lesbianism, ill-fated affairs and bad friendships: Julie Burchill has drawn from personal experience for her new novel Angst and PICTURE: SUSANNAH BINNEY 94926-DG-2 IT’S the August Bank Holiday and the sun is out. But instead of soaking up the last of the summer’s rays on anger on the beach, I’m in suburban Hove, feeling somewhat anxious as I repeatedly ring a door bell that the page doesn’t seem to work. Fortunately, the door is quickly answered, not that this entirely quells FOLLOWING my nerves. After all, it is Julie Burchill Julie Burchill’s who opens it. Just novel, Sugar Perhaps one of our most celebrated Rush, we’ve columnists, Julie’s reputation for discovered that outspoken comment, caustic wit and a little teenage apparent disregard for anyone whom she rebellion can be hurts with it makes her a fairly a good thing. formidable companion for lunch. Here are some She is, however, surprisingly disarming other books and apologises about the broken bell. to dip into for “I just haven’t got it fixed,” she says. “I inspiration: got so many weirdos and stalker-types ringing my door, I thought that might help put them off.” ON THE ROAD Sleek in black and high-heeled stiletto boots, Julie is a lot taller than you by Jack Kerouac imagine and a lot thinner too. THE classic tale of a road trip through Then like most things about Julie, it’s America, this book has been the bible hardly any secret that a recent diet has of many an angst-ridden teenager meant that she’s lost loads of weight. looking for This was apparently inspired by a fear some direction of getting so fat she would have to be in life. Dean airlifted out of her house to get hospital Moriarty and treatment. Sal Paradise Before we get into the waiting cab, she speed through disappears back inside to say goodbye to the desert her son Jack, who’s now 18. consuming Julie’s marriage to Jack’s father JULIE vast quantities Cosmo Landesman ended ten years ago, of alcohol. A before which she was married to fellow thinly disguised NME journalist Tony Parsons, with It takes a very particular kind of friend seller but more recent forays into fiction to go, ‘Mum, please don’t show me up autobiography, whom she had a son, Bobby. But while to really impress Julie. have sold less well. again.’ this book is Bobby and Julie apparently don’t speak, “I need someone even tougher than “I thought a teenage book would be “It’s like I’m psychopathically touched filled with a Jack and Julie clearly seem close. me. Then I can hide behind them as well, easier to write than an adult one. It only by music in a way that other human cast of More recently, Julie got hitched to which probably isn’t a great thing to say took me ten afternoons but that’s because emotions just can’t get to me. characters Daniel Raven, her partner of nine years BY but it’s true.” I really enjoyed writing it. “But I still can’t work out if it means from Kerouac’s life and has influenced who’s not only 13 years her junior but LOUISE Julie is certainly shy. It’s rare to see “Some people have said that means I’m a really emotional person or just a American fiction since its publication in also the brother of Charlotte Raven, with pictures of her and the reason is she I’ve ripped off the publishers by taking cold monster.” 1957. whom Julie had a very public affair just RAMSAY doesn’t like having her photograph the advance and not putting in the work. She then admits she actually bought before she and Daniel got together. taken. Then as we tuck into lunch But what’s the good of working hard per Coldplay’s first album, Parachutes. THE CATCHER IN THE RYE Lesbian love also happens to be the The book’s also a deliciously comic and and guzzle down wine, her eyes rarely se? It usually means you don’t enjoy what Either way, Julie’s love of music, by JD Salinger subject of Julie’s latest novel Sugar enjoyably salacious read that resounds make contact with mine. I am uncertain you’re doing and it’s a slog. But you can’t whatever it really might be, hopefully how much of this shyness is actually sell a book on a slog. means she’ll enjoy writing the next book. JD Salinger’s tale charts the journey of Rush, which is what we’ve met up to talk with the kind of language we’ve all come an American teenager in the depths of about. A teenage novel set in Brighton, to love Julie Burchill for. an act. “With most of the other books “I’ve got to enjoy it,” she says. “Or I “I was pathologically shy as a teenager. I’ve written, I’ve been glad when I’ve won’t be able to do it. depression. Lonely it tells the story of Kim, a nice middle- It also seethes with detail about Holden Caulfield class girl from Preston Park who falls Brighton in a fantastically observed Trouble is, once you’ve been shy, you finished them. But with this one, I’m “After all, I’m not driven to write any never think of yourself as an former shy wondering what I’m supposed to do next, more through ambition and I get all the struggles to come to for her new best friend Sugar, a girl from vignette of this City Julie so clearly loves. terms with his life the other side of the tracks in East While the lesbian love story is the bit person. particularly when I come in drunk after money I need from my Times’ column. So “My friend asked me how I could think lunch. cash isn’t exactly a motivation.” as he wanders Brighton. that grabs the headlines, the various the suburbs Positively bursting with all the relationships in the book also reflect the of myself as shy because he walked into a “I’ve got a habit of doing things well Other projects Julie’s involved with restaurant to see me performing Big the first time, then the second time, I’ve include plans to turn Sugar Rush into a of New York. elements guaranteed to put Middle intense peer-rivalry that can operate in Teetering on England into a spin, it carries a label female friendships. Spender and I wasn’t even drunk. lost interest so it isn’t as good. serial for Channel 4, though the project “Thing is, now I think I’m just lazy “Hopefully, though, I’ve now found a has yet to be greenlit. the brink of warning about explicit content. Julie say: “I had quite a lot of friend- adulthood, Holden “That’s just on there to get people ships like that at school. But while and use my shyness as a way to pull form in which I can excel more than She’s also had a play written about rank.” once.” her called Julie Burchill Is Away, is trapped in a going,” says Julie as we’re shown to our you can be forgiven for doing it then, I world he doesn’t table at seafront restaurant Due South. don’t think over-intensity is appropriate By this, she means doing things like Julie is already planning another which has already gone down well at getting me to pick her up from her house teenage novel, this time about a girl Edinburgh and is coming to Brighton in understand and “I knew it would get people hopping in an adult friendship. Women can makes the most of up and down. I like doing that. It’s so easy get really possessive, particularly when in a cab rather than meeting me at Due who’s unhappy at school and, as a conse- the Autumn. South by claiming that she didn’t want to quence, loses herself in music. “I was so flattered when the writer it by uttering as many expletives to do. they’re single. I can’t be doing with as he can to shock the reader. “You’ve just got to push a few buttons that. I’ve even had to let some of my walk in there on her own. “I am completely obsessed with approached me,” says Julie. “Though, so lightly and, bang, they’re like a bunch women friends go. This whole female Perhaps she hasn’t got over all those music,” says Julie. “Though my taste is at first, I thought it was one of my of jack in the boxes. But to be honest friendship thing has got a bit too big for adolescent-style friendships quite as well really unrefined. I love dance music, real ex-husbands playing a trick on me, just ROMEO & JULIET there’s more sex in a Beatrix Potter novel its boots. as she thought. handbag house. to try to show me up for being egotistical.” by William Shakespeare “See, if someone’s trying to make you Julie got married a few weeks ago at than this one.” “All this Sex And The City s*** gives “Me and my best friend have managed PERHAPS the greatest tale of teenage feel stuff, like Coldplay or Radiohead, it’s Brighton Town Hall.
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