Ian Rankin: intelligent, witty and sold out

The Arts Club on Granville Island was sold out, and I waited in the queue for Ian Rankin to sign my book. In a House of Lies features the retired John Rebus, now a non-smoker and dog owner. As Siobhan works on a cold case that's heating up, he gets his oar in once again.

Rankin was delightful, and Jerry Wasserman, his interviewer, was a lot of fun. He make a joke about calling him Big Ger, the name of Rebus's arch-enemy. The audience laughed, and he quipped, "Good, you've read the books."

Some of Ian Rankin's revelations surprised me. He once got funding to embark on a PhD about Muriel Spark, but after considering what Muriel would have wished him to do with the money, he decided she'd prefer he write books. He did that while undertaking his PhD studies, which he never did complete. Recently, though, he used his expertise about her to help with Spark's centennial celebrations. (She was born in 1918).

Before finding his feet as a novelist, he once purpled them as a grape tramper for a winery. The work, he explained, is done naked, since as the grape juice rises to mid-chest level before tramping is complete. His negligence of his duty to feed the lees to the resident pigs before they fermented ended in death and loss. One pig (50% of the herd of two) died drunk on grape pressings and Rankin lost his job as a swineherd.

Another fascinating detail: Rankin was dismayed, even outraged, when his initial Rebus novel was put in the crime section of the bookstore. A serious writer, he employs his craft to understand himself, society, and humanity. And he never knows how a Rebus novel will end until he is well into the work. "If I outlined," he said, "I wouldn't have to write the book, as I'd already know what happened." In fact, he has once such outline in his drawer of a book he never went on to write.