The Making of a Monster Blog Tour (Day 1) - Guest post by Chris Priestley

Yesterday I posted my review of Mister Creecher, Chris Priestley's brilliant 'filling in' of an intriguing gap in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein story. I have been a fan of Chris's writing ever since I first discovered his Tom Marlowe adventures, but my love of his writing increased hugely back in 2007 when I read his first volume of horror short stories, Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror. Today we are incredibly fortunate to be joined by Chris as he kicks off his Mister Creecher Blog Tour.

How Frankenstein changed my life 

I can’t remember exactly how old I was when I first saw James Whale’s famous 1932 adaptation of Frankenstein, but I would have been in my mid teens, living on a council estate on the western edges of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. I do remember the thrill of it though.

There is something about Boris Karloff’s creature that sears itself into your soul. I already knew that cadaverous face, of course. It is one of the most famous faces in the world, as well known as the Marilyn Monroe or the Mona Lisa.

It was only later that I read the novel and discovered a very different creature; one who could express his feelings and talk about his desires. I loved the arctic scenes that frame the novel and was amazed to discover that Frankenstein and his creature come to England and go to London, Oxford and the Lake District; places I knew well.

I learned of the story behind the novel - that the teenage Mary Shelley came up with the story in a Swiss villa rented by Lord Byron. Mary Godwin as she was then, was there with her lover, Percy Bysshe Shelley and her half-sister Claire Clairmont and Byron’s doctor John Polidori. A ghost story competition was initiated and Mary’s resulting nightmare spawned Frankenstein.

My fascination grew and grew. When I went to art college in 1976, I submitted a proposal to do a graphic novel of Frankenstein, but my tutor saw how much work was involved and talked me out of it, saying I should return to it later in my studies. I never did.

When I left college I tried making my way as an illustrator and a chance meeting in a pub on one of my visits home, led to me doing some work for a theatre company called The Dog Company. The man at the centre of this theatre company was Clive Barker and he had written a play called Frankenstein in Love for which he needed a poster.

Unbeknown to me, Clive was writing a collection of horror short stories - a collection that would be published as The Books of Blood and, thanks in part to to a famous Stephen King quote, would make his name and propel him from Crouch End to LA.

I nervously showed Clive a story I had written about my grandfather and I was thrilled to find that he immediately spoke to me as one writer to another. He made some suggestions, and even said that he knew of places who might publish it. Maybe I was a writer after all.

But I was also an illustrator and a painter and I was struggling to build my career as an artist. Wanting to be a writer as well seemed greedy. And frankly, it seemed more difficult, more unattainable.

I moved out of London to Norfolk and commuted in to work for The Economist and later The Independent, working as a cartoonist. On the long journeys home, I found myself writing again, filling notebooks with ideas and the occasional short story. And I kept reading about Mary Shelley and the Romantic poets, fascinated by their tragic, interweaving lives.

It was Chris Riddell with whom I worked at The Economist who first suggested that I write for children, and he who took the resulting story to his editor at Random House. Luckily they liked it, and though they didn’t publish that one, they published the next, and I have been a full-time writer ever since. That first book was for younger children, but my books have been getting darker ever since, my latest book follows on from a series of books exploring my fascination with Gothic horror and uncanny fction.

Mister Creecher imagines a meeting between Frankenstein’s creature and a teenage boy on New Year’s Day, 1818, the date of Frankenstein’s publication. It is the fruit of a forty year long obsession, and I fervently hope that readers of Mister Creecher will be drawn to reading Mary Shelley’s strange and thought-provoking novel.

And maybe they will begin a life-long obsession of their own. 

~~~

Huge thanks to Chris for taking the time to wrote this for The Book Zone. Tomorrow Chris will continue his blog tour by be stopping off at Bart's Bookshelf.

Review: Mister Creecher by Chris Priestley

Billy is a street urchin, pickpocket and petty thief. Mister Creecher is a monstrous giant of a man who terrifies all he meets. Their relationship begins as pure convenience. But a bond swiftly develops between these two misfits as their bloody journey takes them ever northwards on the trail of their target ...Victor Frankenstein.

In recent years a number of authors of books for children and young adults have written books that focus on the early years of famous, well-established characters. Notable examples of this are Charlie Higson's Young Bond, Andrew Lane's Young Sherlock Holmes and Andy Briggs's Tarzan reboot. In Mister Creecher YA horror supremo, Chris Priestly, has done things a little differently, by taking a famous character, in this case Frankenstein's monster, and added to Mary Shelley's original story. In that story there is a brief mention of Victor Frankenstein visiting London and other parts of England with his friend Henry Clerval, but no mention at all of the monster. And yet, later events suggest that the monster must have been tracking the pair through their journey up through England. Fascinated by this, Chris Priestley decided de would fill in the blanks, and you can read more about this decision over at his blog.

The book opens with Billy, an orphan and pickpocket, discovering what he thinks is a corpse, lying in the street. As he is about to check the body for any valuables he is interrupted by Fletcher, a fellow ne'er do well to whom Billy owes money. As Fletcher pulls a knife on Billy the supposedly dead body comes to life, and comes to Billy's rescue. This newly reanimated body is a huge monster of a man, who makes short shrift of Fletcher and his cronies. This man is none other than Frankenstein's monster, and so begins a rather unlikely partnership between the two.

Due to a mishearing of the creatures response to one of his questions, Billy comes to refer to his new associate as Mister Creecher. Creecher needs Billy to help him to follow Victor Frankenstein, who has promised his monster that eh will make him a bride. In return, the monster helps Billy with a variety of muggings that soon have him living a life a of luxury compared with the life he was living prior to their meeting. The story eventually takes the pair on a road trip like no other, as they follow Frankenstein and Clerval from London to Oxford and then on to the North.

The story examines a number of themes, most notably what it means to be human. Creecher is wants to be seen as a human being, and is desperate to fit in with society instead of being feared as a monster due to his ghastly appearance. To this end he spends hours reading books, studying the way the characters in the stories interact and trying to understand the nature of human emotions. Billy on the other hand is human (obviously) but has few morals and little interest in any form of traditional education. This leaves us asking ourselves who is the most human of the two?

Issues surrounding friendship are also a key element of the story. Initially Creecher uses fear and intimidation to get Billy to help him, but over time their relationship develops into something much greater than master and servant as they become firm friends, despite their differences. However, as a reader we can only view this friendship as it grows with a deep sadness, as we know that as Priestley's story is part of a story where the ending has already been told, we know that the friendship simply cannot last and somehow things will fall apart for the duo before the end of the story.

Whilst I am on the subject of the end of the story, if you have read anything about this book you will already know that Chris Priestley injects a surprise twist at the story's close. I did not see it coming at all, and I had a face palm moment before a huge smile broke out on my face as a number of dropped clues fell into place all at once.

I loved this book and I am sure that any horror-loving 11+ child who picks it up will share these feelings. It is a while since I read Mary Shelley's original, but from memory I felt that Chris Priestley's story matched the tone very well. His descriptions of the historical settings in the story, from the sordid streets of regency London to the other, more rural, locations the pair travel to are so well written that I was drawn completely into the time and place. I would expect that many young people who read this will be intrigued and/or excited enough to go out and get their hands on a copy of Mary Shelley's book.

Mister Creecher was published by Bloomsbury in a hardcover edition last year, but the paperback edition has only just been released. My thanks go to Bloomsbury for sending me a copy to review. Please come back tomorrow when Chris Priestley will be visiting us to tell readers of The Book Zone about how Frankenstein changed his life.