Book Talk: Andrew O'Hagan on killing characters, visiting Afghanistan

By Nicholas P. Brown NEW YORK (Reuters) - In "The Illuminations," by Scottish novelist Andrew O'Hagan, former photographer Anne Quirk battles creeping dementia while her soldier grandson, Luke Campbell, fights a brutal war in Afghanistan. It is the fifth novel by O'Hagan, who is a creative writing fellow at King's College London and a former ghostwriter for WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange. O'Hagan spoke to Reuters about killing characters, visiting Afghanistan and photography. Q. Why did you combine the stories of Anne and Luke? A. I saw them as kindred spirits. They offer an enlightening commentary on each other's experience. I felt these two people belonged in the world together. They both have their struggles with reality, with what's happening to them. All of us, to some extent, have fictional energy at the center of our lives. We don't just live as committed realists who want the truth all day. We spend a lot of our lives rather brilliantly avoiding the truth. Coping with life as it appears is often as much as people can do. And I think people who don't know that, who are always coming at us with the disillusioning truth, are pains in the ass. Q. Was your research in Afghanistan harrowing? A. The British army were nervous about letting me in because they'd read some stuff I'd written and felt I was perhaps anti-war. I love the idea that a writer can be officially and professionally pro-war. But anyway, I got in through charities and they helped me. Q. Is it emotionally draining to kill characters? A. Yeah man, I get really upset. But when you're writing a book, a sort of moral arbiter intervenes and makes decisions for you. There's a quivering hysteric under every paragraph called the author, but a novel isn't just an authorial will. There's a moment when you feel characters' deaths are foretold. If they're real, then, like all of us, there's a death in there for them somewhere. And we don't get to decide entirely how it happens. Q. Anne is inspired by the photographer Margaret Watkins. What about photography inspires you? A. Photography takes the appearance of a moment and gives it to the future. It's the most like our lives. It's the most like our minds, second by second. Now we have photographic devices on us at all times. That wasn't always the case. I'd love to read a great novel one day about the selfie. (Editing by Patricia Reaney and G Crosse)