Mike Gayle has been writing unputdownable novels for 25 years. He talks to Tina Jackson about the his music-themed new novel, pop music and popular fiction and refusing to be put in a pigeonhole.
For 25 years, Mike Gayle has been delivering bestselling novels that demonstrate there’s no such thing as an ‘ordinary’ life’; that prove that the emotional highs and lows of relatable characters can power a book that’s all the more involving because readers might be able to see their own lives and problems reflected in it.
His new book, though, adds a fresh twist to idea of a ‘second time around’ love story. In A Song of Me & You, one of the reunited former lovers is a Manchester primary school teacher, Helen. The other, her first love, Ben, has become one of the world’s most famous rock stars – not only the last person Helen expects to see when someone knocks on her door, but a character whose existence in an ‘everyday romance’ might well stretch the boundaries of credibility. In Mike’s empathetic hands, though, the reader is drawn into an immersive rollercoaster of a story where even the problems of stratospheric celebrity become emotionally involving as Ben and Helen reunite at a point where both are at their lowest ebb.
‘Everyone’s got to come from somewhere and it’s easy to forget that,’ says Mike. His voice unmistakeably conveys his own Birmingham roots. ‘You kind of assume celebrities have always had that glorious life but they all have beginnings in their own way,’ he continues. ‘Most of my books are about ordinary people and I really loved the idea of the clash of these two worlds, Ben the world-famous rockstar and Helen, an ordinary person living in an ordinary home. But they are both going through a crisis and they help each other through that crisis.’
Mike has an unerring ability not just to get under the skin of his characters, but to make sure readers do the same. ‘Everyone thinks being famous is the answer to everything – and it was that, that drew me to the ideas of looking at celebrity,’ he says. ‘I wanted someone experiencing the rarefied life of a celebrity and telling you it’s not everything. Everyone believes it is, but I wanted to look at it and suggest ways it might not be the answer you think it is. Your life changes in ways that are unexpected. You can imagine that at the beginning of celebrity life it is all consuming – but Ben has reached a crisis point and realised it’s not everything. By disappearing and ending up in suburban Manchester he gets to experience an ordinary life – or a little sample of the things he
