Barrie Darke’s story “The Golgotha Fight Song” is an odd one. Imagine the second half of the New Testament retold for modern times. But even that doesn’t do it justice. For this one, you’ll just have to read and find out yourself, so make sure to preorder it RIGHT NOW if you want a free poster, or wait a few days and just buy it when it’s actually released. And be sure to comment below if you want to be entered for a chance to win a free copy of the book itself.
So, who the hell are you, and why should we listen to you?
I’m BarrieDarke—real name, no pseudonym. I live in the north-east of England, the region that supplied the world with Ridley and Tony Scott, Eric Burden and The Animals, and the ill-regarded second wife of Paul McCartney, Heather Mills.
You should listen to me because I know how you feel about life, deep down, and my message is: it’s not just you.
Do you have any other jobs besides writing?
I teach Creative Writing. Not at University or College level, which would be punishing work, I think. It’s for people of all ages and backgrounds who just wonder if they can do it, who feel like taking the first steps. I’ve taught it for years now, and I haven’t been bored for a single second of it. You get to hear all manner of things, though mostly violent death, of course. Other than that, I scrape by in artistic poverty, so if anyone reading this is planning on dying soon, you could leave me something in your will. I’m a good cause.
Your story must have been awesome to have been chosen over the hundreds of other submissions I received. What made you choose the topic you wrote about?
Martin Amis has a line in ‘The Information’ about writers thinking they deserve the reverence due to ‘the Warrior Christ and hour before Armageddon’. Being a lapsed Catholic, something about that image shot right through me. There’s a lot of fiery imagery and turbulent emotional states to draw on as a lapsed Catholic—I’m not comparing myself to either of them, but you can see it really clearly in Martin Scorsese films and Bruce Springsteen lyrics.
As for the setting of the trenches, the characters, the demon—I can only shrug. They came to mind with a kind of unbudgeable finality, which is how I like it to happen. I think writing is like cutting your way through a wood at night, and eventually, if you’re lucky, coming to a clearing with a well-lit mansion in it. You didn’t build that mansion, you don’t even own it, but you were the one who had an inkling it was there, and you were the one who made the effort to find it.
Did you enjoy history class as a child? What would you have changed about the teaching process that would’ve interested you more back then?
I’m afraid I didn’t enjoy History as a child, no; it was a subject I dropped the instant I could, a mix of bad teaching and my own incuriosity. I suppose what was off-putting was the reliance on the tedious doings of royalty and monks—this is the UK, after all, and there are centuries and centuries of this stuff.
Nowadays I think that a literary slant on things would be a way in—Shakespeare’s History plays, Dickens for Victorian life, Hemingway and Scott Fitzgerald for the 20s, and so on—though I can’t pretend that even this would’ve particularly interested the teenage me.
Forget the teaching process. What would you change about history itself? Let’s say you were handed over a time machine with a Post-it note reading “HAVE AT IT, BUCKO”, and you were able to change one thing that would shape the world as you know it. What would that be, and why? Excluding the whole mandatory Hitler answer, o’course.
If Stephen King has taught us anything, he taught us in ‘11.22.63’ that any attempt to change history can and must end in a terrible time, nuclear-wise. But we’ll give it a go. There are kind of gloopy things, like saving John Lennon, Marilyn Monroe or Jim Morrison, but I think I’ll keep things literary. There are supposedly some plays by Shakespeare that were lost, and the world could only be improved by having those around.
Okay, let’s forget about that too. Let’s say you didn’t give a crap about changing history, and you just wanted to go back in time and challenge a certain historical figure to a fight. Who would it be? And why?
I think it would have to be Macbeth, continuing the Shakespeare theme. And not so much for the fight, but more to see Lady Macbeth. She would be quite something, I think, surpassing all your noir dreams—not what you wanted, but what you deserved.
What would be your weapon of choice?
I think it’s generally accepted that, against Macbeth, only a bazooka would do. Imagine the look on his face. If this answer has to be historically accurate, then I’ll say a mace. With a longer chain than his.
Before we go, do you have any upcoming projects you’d like to talk about?
Well, I’m always sending out the last novel and working on the current one. Any US agents or publishers reading this, a reverse-Hendrix might be a good thing for both of us.
Zombie Jesus and Other True Stories 