David Gilmour's Open Book, Part Two
© Paula E. Kirman
Kirman: I think you are too. It's not your best one but I didn't hate it.
Gilmour: But you know what I think the problem is? The central guy in it, he was my best friend. He really did kill someone, and he turned into a real sordid asshole, just a rich, spoiled druggie. I think by the time I wrote that book I had forgotten how much I loved him as a kid and I really dispised him, so I felt that there was a huge forced effort into trying to like him again. Maybe I am the only one who can feel it in the book but I can feel the strain of trying to like this guy who in fact, very disappointingly turned into a real, not just a creep, but a bullshitter, and a bullshitter to a degree that everything, it all bled back into our past. I had one of those little epiphanies where you suddenly see someone some day and you really go, "oh, God, that's what they're like?" Well, it bled back twenty five years and suddenly it transformed everything we had done together for twenty five years into this particular vision which was not a nice one, and then I started to write the book which was probably a mistake.
Kirman: I can understand then why you would feel that way about it because you have that personal association.
Gilmour: Yeah. So I am probably not seeing the same words on the page that you are.
Next Time: David Gilmour discusses his process of writing.
