The wonderful Adams fan site, Obrigado Pelos Peixes (Thanks for all The Fish), helmed by the fabulous May Santos, sent me a series of questions for an author Q&A about being a Douglas Adams fan and creating Douglas Adams’ London. You can read my answers in Portugese here, or in English below.
When was your first contact with Douglas Adams?
The answer to this question makes me a little sad because I managed to just miss meeting Douglas Adams in person during his lifetime. Despite the fact that I loved his books as soon as I read them in the 80s, and that he coincidentally lived in my hometown for several years, and that I have met many people who knew him and were even friends with him during that time…I never met him.
Through Jr. High and High School (ages 12 – 18), I read all of his published works and loved them. My favorites were So Long and Thanks For All The Fish (because I was a romantic young woman), and the Dirk Gently Series, because I love gods, ghosts, and other mysterious supernatural fiction.
The realization that he had been living in my hometown while I was away at college only hit home when word of his death in Santa Barbara reached me 250 miles up the coast of California. I felt like I had been punched in the gut. My first shocking thought was, “My hometown killed Douglas Adams.”
If I had known he was not in England, I definitely would have tried harder to meet him or at least attend his lectures at UCSB.
How did that Guide idea start?
The idea for the 2015 trip that became the map & guide, the upcoming book, and the iPhone App (in progress), was from a friend I met during college. She told me that she and her husband planned to travel for 40 days and 40 nights for his 40th birthday. I was about 25 at the time and thought that seemed like a really cool idea. But what would be even cooler, I thought, would be to travel for 42 days for my 42nd birthday.
Those thoughts were in my head for over ten years before it got close enough to my 42nd birthday that I started to think, Uh Oh. If I’m going to travel, I’d better come up with a plan. I was probably 38 when I realized “travel” meant you had to pick a place to go and usually, plan on something to see and do. Up until then, I had been on my honeymoon and trips with friends, but I had never traveled solo.
My 42-42-42 trip was kind of a present to myself: I would travel to 42 places from Douglas Adams novels, over 42 days, for my 42nd birthday. For 42 days I would travel to London, to Cornwall, to Manchester, to Cambridge, to Dorset, to Austria, and then back home to Santa Barbara, which counted because it’s a setting in Douglas Adams’s fourth book and he lived here until his death in 2001. For my Ultimate Answer birthday, I would go on a 42 Places Pilgrimage.
After writing about my experiences and not finding an immediate publisher for the whole book, I researched smaller publishers and pitched to Herb Lester Associates. They were not interested in a whole book, but they were very excited about the map and guide.
I am considering whether to publish the book as a How-To-Guide, A Memoir, or multiple smaller guides for the places I have been in order to properly share the rest of my research and experiences from the 42-42-42 trip.
From the places that you added in your book, which one is your favorite (fictional and real one)?
I have two favorites. Both are real-world places AND fictionalized locations. I think that’s where the magic happens; knowing a place you’ve visited is both in your reality and somehow in the imagination of millions of other fiction lovers. It gives a place a unique, enticing energy.
Both places are also from The Long Dark Teatime of The Soul, which is my favorite work of fiction by Adams. The first is what I call “Kate’s Corner of The Park.” It is the location described several times by Adams in the book, but not so specifically that it can be definitively pinpointed. Finding it required a lot of research and walks around Primrose Hill and Regents Park, which made the finding all the more fun.
The second place is the “Archway of the Winged Dogs.” That one is a favorite because I took a tour of the building, the renovated St. Pancras Rennaisance Hotel, which in Adams’ day was the derelict Midland Grand Hotel. Adams’ details are so specific, his description of the winged dogs so direct, that I knew they had to be there….but the tour guide told me I must be mistaken! He said the animals used for decor were wyverns. I was disheartened, but sure enough, after the tour, I found them by following the descriptions in the book! That made me feel like I knew a little secret about the building that even the tour guides didn’t know…and that makes the place extra fun.
We know that Douglas Adams was also a very musical guy, do you have a soundtrack when you are reading/writing a book? Any of Douglas Adams’ favourites? (This is a playlist qwe made with some of his favorites, some that are quoted in his books and artists who made reference https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0z4F2FMv0wBUXBU3eLvjXf?si=uVcr2MElSZ2Q5zY55uMxEQ&nd=1)
I love your playlist! I am not musical, but I am so auditory that when I am writing, it is more like dictating to myself. I hear the words as I compose them as if I was speaking them. I write them down just like I hear them. Music when I’m writing makes it too loud in my head to “hear” myself talking, and therefore, I can’t type!
I do use some white noise-generating apps to help me focus. Noisli is probably my favorite because it allows me to layer sounds like beach waves, wind, and my favorite: the sound of riding on a train. The sounds are repetitive and comforting and I can stay undistracted by outside sounds that would otherwise interrupt me.
Thinking as a traveler and hitchhiker: which country would like to visit and explore?
I’ve been to New Zealand and would go back in a heartbeat. They serve beetroot with everything! Other places on my list are Australia, Poland, India, and Mauritius. I prefer to travel with native or local guides and stay with friends and family or friends-of-friends when I can. Hotels are nice, but they are so similar everywhere you go that it adds a barrier to getting out and getting to know the country. Even when I visit London, I prefer to have an apartment or flat of my own as a base for exploration.
Which book would you recommend for Douglas Adams’ fans?
For fans, I recommend giving another read to whichever book you liked THE LEAST and then talking about it with someone else-ideally someone who really liked it. My least favorite book for a long time was Mostly Harmless because it opens with the loss of Fenchurch and ends with everyone else dying. I didn’t want all my favorite characters to die, and I definitely didn’t want the Vogons to win!
I went back and read it with our Works of Douglas Adams Book Club and realized that the rest of the book has a wealth of beautiful language, funny jokes, and some of the most relatable characterization Adams ever wrote. Talking about it with other fans helped me appreciate the book for what it was (instead of just being mad at it).
For Adams newbies, I tend to recommend Last Chance to See because the writing is so funny and so accessible. Or The Long Dark Teatime of The Soul if they like a little bit of the fantastic because Adams got much better at the craft of writing as he did more of it.
What is one of your favorite things about Douglas Adams’ books?
This is pretty nerdy, but I was a literature major in college (just like Douglas Adams) and I feel like his incredible language reflects his own love for classic English novels. His contribution is that it is mega-funny. He spent a lot of time collaborating on sketch writing and his humor and skill at seeing ridiculous situations and writing humor into every scene is the unique thing I think we all love.
Do you have a favorite quote?
So many favorites. I feel like any book of Adams’ that I open at random opens to my favorite quote. But if I have to pick one, it would probably be a quote about tea, because I believe Arthur, Adams, and I share a deep love for the beverage and the rituals that go with it:
“He told the Nutri-Matic about India, he told it about China, he told it about Ceylon. He told it about broad leaves drying in the sun. He told it about silver teapots. He told it about Summer afternoons on the lawn. He told it about putting in the milk before the tea so it wouldn’t get scalded. He even told it (briefly) about the history of the East India Company.
“So that’s it, is it?” said the Nutri-Matic when he had finished.
“Yes,” said Arthur, “that is what I want.”
“You want the taste of dried leaves boiled in water?”
“Er, yes. With milk.”
“Squirted out of a cow?”
“Well, in a manner of speaking I suppose …”
Douglas Adams, The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe
What do you think?