Michael Arditti interview

He may be gay, and a novelist, but Michael Arditti's literary preoccupations tend to be more spiritual than sexual. His 2009 novel, 'The Enemy of the Good', explored the impact of religion on a comfortable middle-class family. This month he has two books out - his latest novel, 'Jubilate', and a new edition of 'Pagan and Her Parents'. First published in 1996, it tells the story of a gay man's struggle to adopt a child.

Your new novel 'Jubilate' is about an affair between a man and a woman. Can it be described as a gay book?
'No writer I know likes to be pigeonholed. I've written novels such as “The Celibate” and “Pagan and Her Parents” where gay life is the core of the book; novels such as “Unity” and “The Enemy of the Good”, where gay themes are one thread of a broader tapestry; a novel, “Easter”, which was wrongly perceived as being gay because of a couple of controversial chapters; and novels such as “A Sea Change”, where there is no overt gay content at all.Just as gayness is one element of my personality, so it is of my writing persona. To coin a phrase, I don't always employ a lavender quill.'

Spirituality features prominently in your fiction. How would you describe your own religious persuasion?
'The religious impulse has largely disappeared from contemporary fiction, which, to my mind, is a considerable loss. Examining - and challenging - religious orthodoxies through spiritually engaged characters allows me to investigate some of the mysteries of the human condition and, at times, even come to a tentative conclusion. That said, when an American academic called me a Christian novelist, I, resisting that label as emphatically as the gay one, asked, 'What about “Pagan and Her Parents”?' “That too,” he replied, “since it's about love versus the law.” So, if you make the definition sufficiently broad, you can include almost anything.'

'Jubilate' contains a quote from Cardinal Newman - 'to conscience first and to the Pope afterwards'. What do you think of the current Pope?
'I am fairly unsympathetic to the papacy itself. By dint of some historically dubious first-century popes, not to mention some morally dubious Renaissance ones, the Roman Catholic church traces its authority back to St Peter.I prefer to look for my authority to the conscience, creativity and love invested in each of us by God. As for Benedict XVI, he is obviously less media-friendly than John Paul II, who I think of as Pope PRI, but I'm not sure that he is any more bigoted.'

You've been compared to Dickens. Where do you draw the line between literary fiction and commercial fiction?
'I doubt that Dickens would have made the distinction but then, in his day, fiction was popular culture. Would that it were so today!There is clearly a distinction between novels that are deeply felt, richly imagined, elegantly expressed and intellectually challenging, and those that are simply ripping yarns. But I think it's up to readers, not writers, to make it.'

What do you think are the main challenges facing gay authors today?
'Many of the challenges are the same ones that face every writer in a dumbed-down celebrity-driven culture. But, beyond that, there's a fear that gay subjects are for a niche market and readers who happily identify with vampires, serial killers, goblins and Thomas Cromwell, will balk at identifying with same-sex love.'