Jeffrey Archer on books, cricket and India

Jeffrey Archer stormed back onto bestseller lists in India and worldwide, with his latest book, A Prisoner of Birth.

The book tells the story of Danny Cartwright, a young mechanic from Eastend who's convicted of a crime he did not commit; convicted because the system is often stacked against those who are marginalised.

And the celebrated author, who’s currently in India, spoke to CNN-IBN and revealed his love for writing, reading, cricket and, most importantly, what inspires his writings.

Amrita Tripathi: Your latest book A Prisoner of Birth hit the bestseller list within a couple of days of release in the UK.

Jeffrey Archer: That was a surprise because the lists come out on a Monday to a Saturday and then they tell you on a Sunday. We'd actually come out only on a Thursday, so we had two days’ sales to go on but A Prisoner of Birth went straight to number one. That’s something I've never done before. Even Kane and Abel didn't go to number one in two days.

Amrita Tripathi: You've written somewhere that it's your first number one in 10 years.

Jeffrey Archer: It's the first one in every country. First time, right round the world, it has gone to number one very quickly. Back to the old days!

Amrita Tripathi: Yet you weren't really sure. You say you couldn't predict?

Jeffrey Archer: I thought in my own heart, is this the best thing I've ever done? Is it better than Kane and Abel, but you lose your confidence with just a few weeks to go before the release. You think will anybody buy this book?

Amrita Tripathi: Danny Cartright, the protagonist of A Prisoner of Birth, is loosely based on someone you met in prison. Tell us a little bit about that.

PAGE_BREAK

Jeffrey Archer: Yes this is a story of a young man who takes his girlfriend out for dinner, asks her to marry him, gets involved in a fight, which has nothing to do with him. He's arrested, put in a prison for 22 years for a crime he didn't commit but then he escapes and seeks revenge for the murder of his best friend and against the four who put him there. I met a person, who unquestionably was innocent, and unquestionably, the fact that he wasn't well-educated went against him. So I took my man and educated him, I put him in a cell with Nicholas Moncrieff, who’s a clever and educated man. So when he escapes to seek revenge, he's a very different human being to the one who went in.

Amrita Tripathi: That's right and he's sitting for A levels. I believe the person you met did pursue education.

Jeffrey Archer: Yes, there was a man I met called Billy Little, who was a murderer and doing a 22-year sentence. When I left I told him I’d give him any books or equipment he needed to advance his career. He now has three certificates, two degrees — a BSc and a BA. He's currently pursuing an MA and the just the other day he told me that he will be doing a PhD too. He'll end up Dr Billy Little.

Amrita Tripathi: In the book, there’s someone else in the cell with him, who educates him. He, too, is someone who writes everyday and maintains diaries. Is that based, at all, upon you or your experience?

Jeffrey Archer: Yes there's bound to be bits of any human being in any book you write. If you look at the work of Jane Austen — arguably the greatest novelist that ever lived — she lived in a small town, had four sisters who couldn't get married. So she writes a book about four sisters who couldn't get married, a story about three sisters who couldn't get married, a story about two sisters who couldn’t get married, and a story about one who couldn't marry herself off. All of them are masterpieces. So you write well if you're an author who writes about what he has an experience of. When young people come to me and say, “Jeffrey I want to write a book. Should I write a ghost story, should I write a thriller?” I say write what you know about, because if you get that over to the public and if it's a good story, they'll want to turn the page.

Amrita Tripathi: That's interesting. Do you think that's got something to do with the universal appeal? Your writings, Jane Austen’s writings, as you mentioned earlier — does writing from life experiences help? Do you think these kinds of writings transcend when people read them?

Jeffrey Archer: Oh yes. A classic example is A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth. It wouldn't matter if he was Indian, Australian, Chinese, Japanese or English. He's a genius. He gives you a brilliant piece of story-telling. It doesn’t matter where it’s set. If he'd been born in America, he'd have set it in America and then A Suitable Boy would have been American. So it doesn't matter where you were born. As long as you can tell a tale, people will read it.

Amrita Tripathi: I want to ask you a little bit about a difficult phase of your life — the time that you spent in prison. You have said that your fans remained loyal throughout that phase. You wrote three volumes of prison diaries. Tell us a little bit about that.

PAGE_BREAK

Jeffrey Archer: Well, they are three diaries of the experience I had while I was prison. The advantage I had was that I only needed a pad and a paper and get on with it. It’s very easy to get on with it. I wrote a million words in one year — all the three prison diaries in one year. I'm currently writing 150,000 words a year, but I’m doing many other things like touring India. But there are no distractions when you’re in a prison. You can head down and get on with it. Of course, what I discovered afterwards was that many of the things I’d witnessed could be used in a novel. Some of the extreme stories could be picked up and advanced into a novel like A Prisoner of Birth.

Amrita Tripathi: And that's an experience you wouldn't have had, had you not been in a prison?

Jeffrey Archer: I met a thousand people I'd never have met. I heard a thousand stories I would have never been told. There I was at that particular age, perhaps, looking for new ideas.

Amrita Tripathi: Did the writing those prison diaries help you deal with the situation your were in?

Jeffrey Archer: I'm a very impatient person. I hate wasting time. I wrote a million words in one year; that sure helped me kill the time.

Amrita Tripathi: What was your reaction towards the media? You were in the headlines for all the wrong reasons. Was there any bitterness?

Jeffrey Archer: I'm not a bitter person by nature. I'm a person who says you’ve made a mistake, get up for heaven’s sake and fight back. If you grumble, that’s looking backwards and wasting time. You're only on earth for a short time. Don’t waste any of it. So what if you’ve made a fool of yourself, dust yourself down and get back on.

Amrita Tripathi: But isn’t going to prison something that you regret in terms of your political career?

Jeffrey Archer: I love politics and I enjoyed being a Member of Parliament. I enjoy being a member of the House of Lords. It’s an extraordinary privilege but very few people succeed in politics. If you ask a politician what they want to achieve, it's always something higher. But I’ve had a very interesting political career. I've had the privilege of working with Margaret Thatcher for 11 years and John Major for seven years. So I had the privilege of working with two prime ministers. But the books have always been the most important thing. Now my whole life is devoted to writing, other than charity work and the auctions that I do. A Prisoner of Birth has occupied the last two years.

Amrita Tripathi: Two years and 17 drafts you said...

PAGE_BREAK

Jeffrey Archer: 17 drafts, yes. I rise about at 5.30 in the morning. I write from 6 till 8, take a 2-hour break, write from 8 until 10, take a 2-hour break, from 2 till 4, take a 2-hour break, 6 until 8, take a 2-hour break, bed by 9.30, sleep by 10 and up at 5.30 to do it again! First draft probably took about 8 weeks, ie, probably 300 hours. The final version that you have there, the 17th draft, took 1000 hours of work. I mention this because a lot of people, particularly young people think that they're going to knock off a book this weekend. But it's damn hard work! And the only thing I'd say to those young people watching this show is when you've finished the first draft, you've only just about started.

Amrita Tripathi: Not many people know that your first book Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less has a story behind it.

Jeffrey Archer: I left the House of Commons when I was 34 and that’s when I wrote my first book. I mention this because a lot of people think you should be a writer at 18 and that you should be a writer whole your life. That’s not necessarily true because you don't have a great deal of experience. When I left the House of Commons, I was in a lot of debt. I had invested in a company on the advice of the Bank of Boston, which turned out to be fraudulent, and I lost a lot of money and I had to get a job but I couldn’t. So I sat down and wrote Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less. To my surprise, that was the beginning of a career. The shock was that the public bought it. You can write your book, get amazing publicity, put it in book stores, but if no one likes it, they won't buy it or your next book.

Amrita Tripathi: You have millions of Indians buying your books, not just from book stores but from traffic lights too. Do you take that as compliment in any way?

Jeffrey Archer: Yes, it’s a great privilege that anybody reads you. I am bound to say, I will now add to being number one on the NYT bestseller list, number one on Sunday Times bestseller list. The fact that I am sold at traffic lights of India, seems to me, as someone told me earlier today, a sign that I’m super seller and is certainly better than being number one on the best seller list.

Amrita Tripathi: Your wrote Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less in 1976. Tell us about your journey after that.

Jeffrey Archer: After my first book, I was getting impressions from the publisher that they wanted me to do another book, which incidentally did quite well too. It was called Shall We Tell the President. But Kane and Abel was the real breakthrough moment. The moment I handed it to the publishers, there was a sort of atmosphere I hadn’t experienced before. The Americans, the film people, everyone was chasing you every few minutes. But I didn’t realise all that until after it was published. I guess I got really lucky there.

Amrita Tripathi: Kane and Abel is like a saga. It is a big book. Was that a conscious decision on your part because you do short stories and here was this massive tale?

PAGE_BREAK

Jeffrey Archer: I like to do different things. I enjoy my short stories immensely because with a short story you have to know the ending. You have to know the last line even before you sit down to write the first one. So you build towards it. With novel like A Prisoner of Birth, I knew a third. I knew he'd escape from prison but hadn't got a clue what would happen after that. When the writing starts, don’t forget that’s a third of the way through the book. By the time you reach there, you probably got another 30 or 40 pages. So you write through till the end. A genuine storyteller, I think, probably knows the rough outline of the book, probably knows the details till about a third, and then puts his hands together and pray it'll be alright.

Amrita Tripathi: And pray that the readers sit on the edge of their seats?

Jeffrey Archer: You can't do anything about your readers. I could be on TV every night for the next year but if the public doesn't like the book they won't buy it. It’ll sell a few copies but what matters with books is word of mouth. That's real advertising for a film, a play or a book. It's word of mouth that puts you to number one.

Amrita Tripathi: Does that help you deal with critics who try to box your writing?

Jeffrey Archer: I'm a story teller but the critics have been very generous and some very scathing. But then, it's true of everybody. Some critics even said Charles Dickens couldn’t write. That’s the thing that you have to deal with you get on with it. Of course, if you're a great writer, which I’m not, you win Nobel prizes. But you could win a Nobel prize and have no one read you. I always quote the example of Patrick White and Nadime Gordimer because they’re longer with us — both won the Nobel Prize but can you find anyone who's read them? I want to be read. I'd much rather people turn the page and read me.

Amrita Tripathi: Tell us a bit about your blog

PAGE_BREAK.

Jeffrey Archer: It's been going for 18 months. A friend of mine who has a very successful blog said you should have a blog. You have 135 million readers. Let them know you are out there, so I put it on the book. Last month we had 5,42,000 hits. I get emails every morning and 25 per cent of them are from India. Indians are great writers; they want to tell you what they think, they want to tell you the mistakes you've made, and ask about the next book. That’s good fun and I have wonderful stories to tell. For example, I had a lunch today and 20 to 30 people turned up to have lunch with me. One of them was Nawab of Pataudi, who was captain of Oxford Cricket while I was president of athletics. Then at the lunch there was Kapil Dev. So I’ll let my readers know about all that through my blog.

Amrita Tripathi: You also like cricket? I noticed on your blog that you like cricket.

Jeffrey Archer: I’m mad about cricket. But I do think cricket is a test match and not Twenty20. Twenty20 is entertainment but test match is when you have Sachin Tendulkar at the crease and you have Englishmen, Andersen or Broad, trying to get him out. And by the way, Sachin got robbed at 93 runs at the Lords, England. Despite his great record, Sachin has never scored a test century at Lords. 39 test centuries and not even one at the Lords! He was at 93 when he was given out and he wasn't out. Absolute disgrace! That’s the lovely thing about cricket — we English wanted him to get a 100 but we wanted him out at 101. Sadly, he got robbed at 93.

Amrita Tripathi: That probably just added to your fan base here in India.

Jeffrey Archer: Well, Sachin and Rahul Dravid and many of the team have written to me about my books. To my pleasant surprise, I found they'd all read Kane and Abel and that they'd all read all the books. So I sent a copy of this to every member of the team when they were playing in the last test series.

Amrita Tripathi:You also interestingly say that you hand write your blog?

Jeffrey Archer: I'm incapable of using any machinery. I have a brilliant personal assistant. So I hand write everything. Books, blog, everything is written with a felt-tipped pen and I like the movement across the paper. They keep telling me I should get a one of those wonderful machines and tap away, but no thank you, I’ll stick with the writing.

Amrita Tripathi: So you've done those 17 drafts by hand?

PAGE_BREAK

Jeffrey Archer: Yes, 17 drafts by hand indeed. It's tiring and hard work but you gotta drive yourself. It is not as hard as it sounds because my PA types the first one, and then she triple-spaces it, and I work on it with pencil, on the top of the typing. So the second draft is a lot easier than the first one.

Amrita Tripathi: Its a system that obviously works for you. You’re not trying to change it?

Jeffrey Archer: The answer to this question and anybody watching this programme is if you want to write, do what suits you. If you want to eat bananas and jump over pigeons while you're writing, do it. If it works for you, it works for you. Hand writing works for me. J K Rowling sits in a cafe typing. I couldn't sit in a cafe typing, because, one, I can't type and, two, the noise would annoy me.

Amrita Tripathi: A lot of people read you. Who are the people that you read?

Jeffrey Archer: I'm a bit old-fashioned. I love F Scott Fitzgerald, Somerset Maugham, Charles Dickens, Eveleyn Waugh, Maupassant and O Henry. Even though I’m not big on modern writer, I really did like Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy a lot. I thought that was quite outstanding. Apart from that, I have a tendency to listen to people. If someone recommends a book to me, I’ll buy and read it the same day. So in a way, I’m another word-of-mouth person.

Amrita Tripathi: It’s interesting that you being a writer yourself, you trust recommendations more than bestseller lists or critics.

Jeffrey Archer: It often happens that the authors mentioned in the bestseller lists do not suit your taste. A lot of “chick-lit” books that are popular out there in the West these days may not necessarily be right for me.

Amrita Tripathi: We'll have to end on that note. Thank you very much for taking the time out for this interview.

Jeffrey Archer: It was my pleasure.