Authorgraph No.238


hospital,’ writes Muchamore. ‘I met my characters Georgia and Julius there, or at least troubled teenagers who were very much like them…When I left hospital I wanted to write about my experience and the people I’d met, but it took me five years to figure out how to find a way.’


R


The result is his latest novel, Arctic Zoo. The split narrative follows the story of two teenagers, thousands of miles apart, who live very


obert Muchamore’s latest YA novel has an unusual beginning. It takes the form of a direct letter from the author to his readers, and talks about an attempted suicide back in 2012 – his own.


‘I wound up spending three months in a psychiatric


Robert Muchamore Interviewed by


Damian Kelleheri


Best known for his fast-moving, high octane thrillers, there are some seriously strong themes in Robert Muchamore’s new YA novel Arctic Zoo, as Damian Kelleher discovered when he interviewed him for our Authorgraph.


different lives. Georgia lives in Leighton Buzzard, a straight A student with a love for Japanese stationery and a seriously talented drone pilot since she was seven. Julius goes to St Gilda’s High School in Akure, Nigeria, and comes from a privileged family – his uncle is state governor but it’s his high-flying, power-obsessed mother who’s pulling all the strings. As his world becomes more hostile, Julius finds refuge in an abandoned zoo where he strikes up a friendship with Duke, a skater kid with a talent for breaking rules. The sexual attraction between them is instant. Eventually, through very different routes, both Julius and Georgia will form a close bond in the Walter J Freeman Adolescent Heath Unit in Sussex.


‘It was quite an interesting book because after I wrote it, I wasn’t sure if I’d overdone it,’ explains Robert. ‘I thought maybe it was about too much that it was too complicated. But the most interesting thing is what has happened since I wrote it. It’s really weird.’


In Muchamore’s story, through a series of serendipitous events – including the suicide of her sister, a junior doctor – Georgia becomes the pin-up girl for a direct-action protest group; comparisons with Greta Thunberg have already been made.


‘A lot of the book is about the protest movement and the school protests and I was writing that two and a half years ago,’ says Muchamore. ‘I was doing all this research and when my editors were reading it, they said you need to explain it. They said there hadn’t been any school protests since the Iraq war, that kids would think it was completely incredible, they won’t believe this could be happening. I wasn’t deliberately trying to predict things.’


But why a protest movement? Had he sensed that something was building among teenagers?


‘I guess it comes from a sense of frustration. I definitely sensed that more and more young people I was talking to were frustrated so it had to come to something.’


In Arctic Zoo there are echoes of the mental health issues that Muchamore writes about in his opening letter. At the time of his illness in 2012, Robert was topping the bestsellers’ list with his Cherub series, enjoying massive success and all the trappings that go with it. But suddenly he found himself in the grip of depression so all-consuming that he ended up suicidal. How did it all happen?


‘I think that’s one of the things at the heart of depression,’ he explains, shaking his head. ‘There’s no rationality to it. The most horrible thing can happen to someone – their child dies, for instance – and they won’t become depressed. And then another person will become depressed, a bit like I did, because two or three smallish things happen, and you don’t really feel good about yourself and you get a bit anxious. There is a level at which you’re not in control of your own emotions. It’s not just that you’re sad about something; you are sad, but your body is responding to it in a completely abnormal way.’


Robert’s honesty and candour about his illness back then was brave and unprecedented. For many writers, working on their own, his


8 Books for Keeps No.238 September 2019


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