The basis for Others came about ages ago when an elderly lady told me that thirty years previously, she had been working overnight in a children’s hospital. I have no proof, no firm evidence of the existence of these institutions, but I know they’re out there. Maybe the scepticism on my face is showing: “I’m being totally serious. What happens to kids who are born really malformed. There is a serious aspect to all this that I wanted to bring out into the open. “These children are based on real case histories – I could show you pictures but they’d turn your stomach – but I did let my imagination run wild at the end. Jim is dead serious when he discusses the background to this latest work.
Others is the story of a group of severely deformed children who are being kept out of public sight in a private institution, and the book follows the investigations of the physically deformed private eye Nick Dismas as he is led towards an epiphany of his own, apparently through supernatural means. I rarely drink during the week, especially when I’m working, but I had to go and pour myself a couple of stiff vodkas while working on the book because it was really getting to me.” It’s so dark and because of the subject matter it was so unappealing. “You know, I didn’t enjoy writing Others, and maybe it’s all the better for it. Jim leans forward, a conspiratorial glint in his eye. Soon these binders will be joined by another, this time bearing the title of his latest novel Others.
These contain the original manuscripts for the novels, still hand-written by Jim before being typed by his wife Eileen.
As we go through to his large study, which also doubles as a business meeting room, I note the familiar cover paintings to some of his earlier novels hanging on the walls, and also a bookcase containing two shelves of black ring binders, each neatly labelled with the titles of his books, every one of them a best-seller. His good humour is infectious, and his love of writing is unmistakable. It’s hard not to like Jim, as he likes to be called. The door behind me clicks open and there he is, beaming widely. I’m standing in an upstairs foyer in James Herbert’s home waiting for the man himself to appear.
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