Academic turned writer Ralph Alcock talks about the process of getting into print. Graham Young reports.
They say everybody has a novel in them, but Ralph Alcock is much happier with his second attempt.
Being able to hold his pacy new Death Row thriller is one achievement.
And now there’s another sign of success, too.
Some A5 photocopied sheets have started to appear at Waterstone’s on Birmingham’s High Street.
Strategically positioned at the till points and on the stairwell shelves, they’re designed to stir interest in his first autograph signing session this weekend...
At 65, Ralph has had quite a journey to this staircase to literary heaven.
Born in Yorkshire, he was a professor in the US until he returned to Britain in the mid ‘90s.
After spending 13 years as the principle of the county’s Rodbaston College, he retired 30 months ago to live in the middle of a 600-acre estate in Penkridge, Staffordshire.
Ralph had two children by his first marriage, the second of whom died ten years ago this January at the age of 27 following an industrial accident.
Now remarried, he has a third son, James, who is still only eight.
Filling up his back story, Ralph’s artist mother is still going strong at 85, while her father was a London playwright and theatre owner in the days of HG Wells, George Bernard Shaw and The Fabian Society.
Put that lot together and out comes The Loving Son (Paperbooks, £7.99).
“I had to self-publish my first novel, Hidden Identity, and it wasn’t brilliant by any means,” Ralph admits.
“But I got some interest from a literary agent who told me to write my second book as soon as I could.
“And that was great advice.
“The first novel took four years because, coming home after work, you haven’t got the energy.
“Now that I’m retired, The Loving Son took nine months.
“I’d wake up at 5am with ideas and start writing on the computer just using (Microsoft) Word and typing with two fingers and two thumbs to get the job done.
“I’d go back to it later and change the nuances.”
The idea for the story was a mixture of alchemy and crafty thinking, as you might expect from an academic who had written textbooks about agricultural machinery and good farming practices.
Realising that more than half of crime novel sales are down to women, he deliberately set out to appeal to the fairer sex.
Hence the title, The Loving Son.
But what should he write about?
Two things about people he knew interested him.
One friend had a mildly autistic child. Another a relationship that almost turned nasty.
Hey presto! Fusing these two strands together now sees 19-year-old William Martin finding himself on Death Row in the Ohio State Penitentiary for a double homicide.
“A crime that isn’t really a crime is committed,” says Ralph.
“It’s not really a killing, and I just developed the story from there.
“Some twists and turns suddenly come to you, but you don’t want to make it too obvious.
“By having strong women, I’ve tried to develop it so that the story has an appeal to women – they buy 70 per cent of crime novels and a book has to sell!”
The novel’s cover, which Ralph helped to design from images supplied by his publisher, is also aimed at the fairer sex with its faded images of a rose and a piano keyboard. Ralph spent several years at South Dakota State University, with cowboy territory out west and the rolling hills and pig farms to the east.
He specialised in biomechanics.
Researching everything from how tyres grip to turning crops into ethanol was useful background for reading up on how Death Row works.
And living in the US also taught him how attitudes to the death penalty vary so strongly from state to state.
More importantly for his story, perhaps, he learned how to live the American way of life, playing softball and basketball as required.
“Americans are very gregarious and they expect you to be the same.” he says.
“Our natural British reticence doesn’t quite fit in with that.
“I was also in New Jersey for about three years at Rutgers, a minor Ivy League university.
“But I went to Ireland in 1994 and have been back here since about 1996 researching sustainable energy systems.”
Then came the darkest period of Ralph’s life, one of those moments which probably helped to galvanise his decision to write no matter how long and hard the process.
Second son Anthony, 27, was in the week of his planned marriage.
The tree surgeon was called out on a power lines job which he agreed to do with unfamiliar personnel. Things went wrong and, after six months in hospital, he died.
“You never get over it,” says Ralph.
“And you get flashes of memory.
“As time passes, you find yourself remembering the good things as much as you possibly can.”
It has helped that Ralph’s third son James was born to second wife Trudie McGuinness after Anthony’s death.
But he admits how eldest son Rory, now 38, was hit hard by the loss, while their mother, Veronica McCarron, has continued her music career.
Meanwhile, a touch of sibling rivalry has also put some wind in the sails of Ralph’s attempts to become a leading author.
“My sister, Kate Taylor, who is younger than me by about 18 years and based in Brisbane, has already had some children’s stories published called The Lighthouse Ghost and Spoonful of Sucre,” he says.
“My first edition runs to 2,500 copies.
“If I can sell those, they’ll do a second edition.”
* Ralph Alcock will be signing copies of The Loving Son in Waterstone’s, 24-26 High Street, Birmingham B4 7SL from 11am on March 3. Details: 0843 290 8149.
