Paul Torday looks startled. Not by anything I have asked. The author looks surprised to find himself sitting in the office of a London publicist at a prestigious publishing house talking about Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, his debut novel, which has been published to acclaim and is to be broadcast on Radio 4. It all seems a bit overwhelming for the 60-year-old Tyneside businessman.
“I thought when I finished writing this book that I would really try to do something about getting it published, because I had tried to write other books before, but I didn’t feel they were good enough. This felt different,” he says.
He was right. Via a circuitous route the book was spotted by literary agent Mark ‘Stan’ Stanton. “Six months after sending him my manuscript I got a call. He thought there might be something in it,” he recall, and admits the call was “the best of my life”.
Salmon Fishing in the Yemen is a comic tale of political machinations, dreams, faith and fish, and is one of the much-anticipated literary debuts of 2007. By turns funny, satirical and moving, the story concerns hapless fisheries scientist Dr Alfred Jones, a dried-up stick of a man, who is coerced into managing an impossible project to bring salmon fishing to the desert country by political apparatchiks keen to use the scheme to deflect criticism of the war in Iraq and boost their own careers.
It all goes horribly wrong and along the way everyone from a mystical Yemeni sheik to Al-Queada and a self-serving spin doctor – even Andrew Marr – gets involved. In the middle of the chaos, Alfred discovers there is more to life than routine and order.
The inspiration for the novel came from Torday’s 15 years as a keen fisherman and 10 years travelling for business and pleasure in the Middle East. “At the time I started writing it I was chairman of a local environmental trust and had to go to meetings where there were lots of fisheries scientists who would talk about salmon as ‘migratory salmonids’ or ‘in-stream organisms’,” Torday recalls, eyes twinkling above ruddy outdoor cheeks. “It rather amused me to think of myself fishing for ‘in-stream organisms’.”
He adds: “The other strand came out of travelling in the Middle East.” On his travels, he was struck by the contrast between Arab culture and the West. “Over a 10-year period travelling to Oman one could see change going on and one could see the pressure on the religious and tribal world from money, Westernisation and tourism,” he says.
He also noticed a failure by Western cultures to appreciate what the Arab world has to offer, both in terms of learning (hundreds of years ago the Arabs invented everything from spectacles to air conditioning) and mysticism. “It is a very sophisticated and ancient world and it is really super-patronising to think that we can bring ideas to them that they haven’t already thought of and tried and found wanting,” he observes.
At the centre of this cultural clash is the relation of faith to reason – one of the main themes of the novel. “The contrast between people who pray five times a day and people who shop five times a day is marked,” he notes. While Alfred tries to maintain his rather smug scientific rationalism, he finds himself forced to acknowledge that life, the very act of living, involves more than stark rationalism: it involves hope, faith and passion too.
Faith is a big part of fishing, Torday observes. It is a passion he shares with his lead character. “Fishing is an act of faith – or it jolly well is in this country!” he says, laughing. “If you go to Russia or Alaska you can’t avoid catching salmon every 10 minutes, but in this country you can’t see the fish a lot of the time. It might be there or it might be 10 miles away, but you fish away anyway.”
In the novel fishing acts as a bridge between the two cultures, and a reminder of what really matters in life. It is a touching metaphor, and watching Alfred emerge as a warmer, happier man from the dried pupa of his previous life is a joy.
Does Alfred have a real-life counterpart? “When I started writing it, I had in mind terribly serious people I vaguely remembered meeting at university who joined all the right societies and wore Fair Isle pullovers and sat drinking cups of Nescafé while talking about God at three in the morning,” he says. For a vague memory, it sounds detailed – and amusing. “These were very good people but you found yourself yawning after about 10 minutes talking to them.”
Easier to spot real-life inspirations in the novel are the politicians who, Torday says, are a composite of the smug, self-satisfied, self-serving politicians in the front ranks of political life today. An interview between Andrew Marr and publicity-seeking PM Jay Vent is hilarious, and the over-friendly, informal language of Vent note-perfect. Andrew Marr enjoyed the parody too. “He was brilliant,” says Torday. Not only did the journalist give permission for his name to be used in the book, but he has read his part for the forthcoming audiobook. “I am looking forward to hearing that,” the author says, clearly excited and impressed.
Feedback received from the likes of Marr and Boris Johnson has pleased Torday, especially that they found it funny, as well as dealing with serious subjects. “I don’t see myself as a literary writer,” he says seriously. “If there is one thing I want to do in writing it is to entertain,” adds Torday, who admits to a black sense of humour.
His next book will confirm the colour of his humour. Called Bordeaux, it is a darkly comic tale of a man who drinks himself to death. Torday looks mischievous as he outlines the plot, his expression that of a naughty schoolboy. “It is written as a very black comedy,” he explains. “It is not meant to be any more serious than the book before, but it is not at all like the salmon book except that I try and get whatever humour there is in the situation.” If it is half as funny and sharp as the satire in Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, it will be very funny indeed.
Orion Audiobooks are thrilled to present the first two clips from Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, the first audio which we are producing in a multi-voice format, and as both abridged and unabridged audio. With a stellar cast – John Sessions, Samantha Bond, Fenella Woolgar, Andrew Sachs and Andrew Marr, to name a few.
Listen to an extract from near the beginning of Salmon Fishing in the Yemen: correspondence between Fred and his boss, David Sugden (approx. 3 minutes) Listen to an extract from chapter 10: Andrew Marr interviews the Prime Minister from the book (approx. 3.5 minutes)
Paul Torday’s profile, book listing and reviews
Salmon Fishing in the Yemen website
Salmon Fishing in the Yemen HB
Salmon Fishing in the Yemen CD
Listen to an extract from Salmon Fishing in the Yemen