Paul Carnahan was born in Glasgow, Scotland, and grew up in the new town of Cumbernauld. After studying journalism in Edinburgh, he began a decades-long career in local and national newspapers.
‘How Soon Is Now?’ is his first novel. The second, the Britpop-era romance ‘End of a Century’, will be released early in 2025, and a third is currently a work in progress.
Website & Social Media:
Website ➜ www.paulcarnahan.com
Twitter ➜ https://twitter.com/pacarnahan
Instagram ➜ https://www.instagram.com/paulcarnahan6/
Goodreads ➜ https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/211423352-how-soon-is-now
Welcome to The Writer’s Life, Paul! Can you give us your earliest recollections of when you started writing?
Paul: At school, numbers baffled me. Teachers would ask us to divide X by Y to come up with they hypotenuse of W, and I’d just be left wondering ‘Why? Who cares about any of this?’
But words? Words always made sense to me. I liked to play with them, jumble them around and combine them, the way other kids played with building blocks. By the time I’d started high school, I knew playing with words was what I wanted to do for a living. That turned out to be a career in journalism, including a sideline in reviewing records which, thanks to a series of very lax editors, gave me free reign to develop something approaching a style of my own. There were plenty of stop-start attempts at longer-form writing along the way, and one embarrassingly derivative YA novel, until the germ of ‘How Soon Is Now?’ (‘what would happen if you could travel back to any previous point in your own life?’) turned into a big, complicated, knotty novel.
I love the title of your newest book, How Soon is Now?. Can you tell us how you came up with that title?
Paul: ‘How Soon Is Now?’ is a song title pilfered from The Smiths, every dour 1980s UK student’s favourite band. I was a very dour 1980s student so, naturally, I adored The Smiths. In draft form, my debut novel was simply called 'The Nostalgia Club’, after the group of time-travelling misfits at its heart. But in a moment of inspiration in the shower – for some reason, most of my inspiration arrives while I’ve got shampoo in my eyes – I realised there was really only one title for a book about a troubled former indie music obsessive stuck in the past. I love the way the title hints at an endless yearning for something that never quite arrives. And I still just love that tune.
Can you tell us a little about your main characters?
Paul: The book is told from the perspective of Luke Seymour, an ex-journalist. Drinking too much and unable to move forward in his life, he’s emotionally muffled and unable to move beyond a terrible mistake from earlier in his life - until he discovers he has an untapped talent for time travel. He's recruited into the ranks of theNostaglia Club, an eccentric troupe of time travellers who meet in the back room of an Edinburgh pub. Their members include Mahdi,a Syrian refugee and charity worker who uses his time travel skills to roam the streets of his beloved Damascus, Ruth, who travels back to obsessively examine a tragedy from her own past, and Marcus, a prickly perfumer whose skill with scents is crucial in triggering the Club members’ trips into the past.
Meanwhile, as Luke becomes more involved with the Nostalgia Club, honing his time travel talents to probe the mystery of their missing leader, hekeeps his activities a secret from his girlfriend Alison, a newspaper features writer with a campaigning streak and a spiky sense of humour, and his down-to-earth, steadfast best friend, Malcolm.
If you were going to hang out with one of your characters, who would that be?
Paul: Mahdi is such a charmer - and would have so many incredible, heart-breaking stories - I’d love to sit down for a chat with him.
Where is this book set and why did you choose that setting?
Paul: The book is set in Glasgow and Edinburgh in the 1980s, 1990s and present day. I’ve lived in both cities and love them both in very different ways. Edinburgh is where Luke meets the Nostalgia Club, and where he went to college in the 1980s. It’s also where I went to college in the 1980s, so that made the research for those sections much, much easier! Likewise, I gave Luke a flat in Pollokshields, in the south side of Glasgow, because that’s where I lived in the 1990s, and I knew I could pack in lots of the flavour and atmosphere of that vivid, vibrant area. Edinburgh, I always feel, has more of a moody, gothic feel that suits the chilly, autumnal atmosphere of the book, while Glasgow is more gritty and earthy, matching the intensity at the emotional heart of ‘How Soon Is Now?'.
One of the interesting facets of your book is that it contains time travel! How did you become interested in writing about time travel?
Paul: It’s mostly Doctor Who’s fault. Like just about every UK child of the 1970s, I watched ‘Doctor Who’ every Saturday, thrilled by his time travelling adventures and occasionally wobbly alien adversaries. That turned into a lifelong love of the show, and then of all things fantastical, imaginative, eerie and improbable. A childhood Christmas gift of what we’d now call an audiobook version of HG Wells’ ’The Time Machine’ sealed the deal, and saw me huddled under the covers, ear pressed to the speaker of a little Radio Shack cassette player while English actor Robert Hardy fruitily intoned Wells’ dazzling tale. I was enraptured.
What’s next on your writing to do list?
Paul: Right now, I’m halfway through a final revision and polish of my next book, the Britpop-era romance ‘End Of A Century’. After the complex plotting and often dark storytelling of ‘How Soon Is Now?’, I was ready to work on something completely different, so ‘End Of A Century’ is a bright, sunny and optimistic story, with just a tiny hint of the fantastical (and one cameo appearance from a minor but pivotal character from ‘How Soon Is Now?’). While that’s moving along – ‘End Of A Century’ is set for release early next year – I’m also working on my third novel and juggling ideas for the fourth, which is going to be an absolute blast.
Book Title: How Soon is Now?
Author: Paul Carnahan
Publisher: Tobasmuss Ink
Publication Date: June 10, 2024
Pages: 462
A troubled ex-journalist launches a perilous mission into his own past after being recruited by a mysterious group of time travelers.
Luke Seymour uncovers the secrets of the eccentric Nostalgia Club as he battles to solve the riddle of their missing leader, honing his newly discovered – and dangerously addictive – talent for time travel and plunging ever deeper into his own time stream … where the terrible mistake that scarred his life is waiting.
Set in Glasgow and Edinburgh in the 1980s, 1990s and near-present, ‘How Soon Is Now?’ is a gripping new novel loaded with unforgettable characters, intricate storytelling, dark humour and a unique twist on the mechanics of time travel – all moving towards a powerful and emotional climax.
Available at:
Amazon U.S.: https://www.amazon.com/How-Soon-Now-powerful-travel-ebook/dp/B0D1RG2GL5
Amazon U.K.: https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Soon-Now-powerful-travel-ebook/dp/B0D1RG2GL5
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