Profiles of local people

Birmingham author Mike Gayle has come a long way from his student years spent dreaming of a career in journalism and writing for local listings magazines.

Not only did he achieve his ambitions, having written for everyone from Cosmo to GQ, by way of Bliss and Smash Hits, he’s also the proud author of eight books that have featured on various best sellers lists.

His latest novel, The Life and Soul of the Party, received five stars from Heat Magazine, along with high praise: "Packed with drama, friendship, love and tragedy, this is a brilliant, touching tale about what happens when real life catches up with us.'

Mike Gayle

Taking the initiative

Before he started his degree in Salford, Gayle wanted to be a social worker. It was only when he took up writing for his university magazine that he discovered his way with words. Never afraid of taking the initiative, Mike got his hands dirty:

“I wrote a fanzine while I was in Manchester, which I co-edited with my mate Jackie. We typed up the first issue on my dad’s old typewriter and then literally cut and pasted on to A4 sheets using scissors and glue. Over the three years of its existence, we interviewed many bands and artists including Smashing Pumpkins, The Cranberries, Pavement, Bill Hicks and Blur.

“It was at that point I realised I wanted to be a music journalist, so I moved back to Birmingham and started writing for a listings magazine. After about a year, I got the opportunity to go on a post graduate diploma in journalism in London, and it was really there that things took off.”

"Anyone can write for the Guardian"

Gayle has a starkly pragmatic outlook on journalism, and is quick to point out what he sees as snobbery in the media.

When his fellow journalism students were clamouring to write for the Economist and the Guardian, he unapologetically chose Smash Hits and Just 17. In answer to anyone who sees this as wilfully opting out from the hard graft of journalism in favour of an easier, dumbed down route, Mike points out that the likes of Miranda Sawyer started out on teen magazines:

Mike Gayle

“Anyone can write for the Guardian, the Telegraph or whatever, it’s not that hard to do- you don’t have to hold anyone’s attention. You can write a 1000 page review of a book about Tolstoy in a broadsheet, and no one’s going to give you a hard time about it.

“In the teen market, you have to grip your audience straight away and maintain their attention for the whole article, or they’re not going to finish it. People who write for tabloids can write for broadsheets, but people who write for broadsheets very rarely write well for magazines or tabloids.”

Venus and Mars

This forthright, unromantic approach to journalism obviously served Gayle well, landing him freelance work all the way across the magazine aisle. Over a decade ago, when the teen magazine industry was at its height, he was Agony Uncle for Bliss.

When he was picked out by the Independent as one of the nation’s best ‘Advice Gurus’, he described agony columns in typically unsentimental terms: "They serve a purpose, even if it's only writing down a problem. It's nice to see what neuroses are floating round."

The step from journalism to authorship is a logical one, and Gayle’s books, like his columns, deal with relationships. They explore the hinterland between men and women, where Venus and Mars collide.

Mike Gayle

"If I had a penny..."

He is keen to distance himself from the Lad-Lit pigeonhole that bloomed in the nineties with writers like Nick Hornby, and describes his work as “very unisex”. Despite this, his writing is often described as "male confessional", and his success in this genre led to his description as "a publishing phenomenon".

This may sound like heavy stuff, but the author is adamant that his work is far from po-faced: “If I had a penny for every time I’ve had an email from someone saying, “I don’t normally read, it’s not my thing, but I picked up your book and I really enjoyed it,” I’d be a millionaire.

“There seems to be this idea that reading has to be a chore, that books can’t be entertaining, but there are lots of books out there that are fun to read, about real life and real situations.”

Birmingham's "one of the best cities in the world"

Gayle has always championed his home city, resisting the permanent move to London that many in the media feel forced to make. He lives in Edgbaston with his partner and children.

On his website he describes Birmingham as, “one of the best cities in the world with the best people too.” When I ask him why he thinks Birmingham is often overshadowed by its showier neighbours, such as Manchester, he becomes visibly irate:

“I’m absolutely outraged about how Birmingham is treated. Manchester’s always had a bee in its bonnet about not being the second city, even though it definitely wants to be. It annoys me that everything is getting slowly moved to Manchester, so, for instance, we have no drama being filmed in Birmingham anymore.

Mike Gayle

"Everyone looks down their nose at us!"

“It’s outrageous that on television you’ll be able to see London, you’ll see loads of things set in Manchester, you’ll see things in Scotland, Doctor Who set in Cardiff, but it’s as if the middle of the country doesn’t exist.

“When they were trying to build the new Wembley, even people in Manchester and Scotland were saying, “Build it in Birmingham- we don’t want to come down to London.” Despite this, they still built it in London. I think everyone just looks down their nose at us all the time, and it’s wrong.”

Despite this, Gayle's latest book, Life and Soul of the Party, is set in Manchester, not Birmingham, which he has depicted in earlier work. It deals with his favourite theme-relationships- from the point of view of three very different couples. The rarefied atmosphere and borderline chaos of various house parties provides more than just the backdrop for the novel’s plot.

A formidable reputation

As Mike explains, parties serve as the perfect laboratory for examining the minutiae of relationships: “You take people, you put them in a confined space, turn out the lights, add alcohol and music, and things happen.”

As a novelist whose career has centred around picking apart the dynamics that attract people to each other, and in turn break them apart, Gayle must have a formidable reputation among his friends.

Thus far, however, he insists they have no problem confiding in him about their relationship troubles: “My friends talk to me about their relationships all the time, they can’t wait to get in my books!”

Click the link below for more information on Mike Gayle.