Writer and Children’s Book Consultant, Sarah Webb meets Derek Landy

 

Think millionaire and a man like Derek Landy doesn’t instantly spring to mind. He’s cuddly for a start, with a slight stammer. He lives on the family farm in Lusk, North County Dublin, with his mum, dad, and little brother. He’s a self confessed loner, with five close friends. And he’s in love with a Polish checkout girl from Dunnes Stores.

But his solitary life is about to change dramatically. Derek, 32, is Ireland’s newest book millionaire thanks to a spectacular deal with Harpercollins worth between 1.5 and 1.8 million euros. The official Harpercollins line is ‘a substantial seven figure sum and the highest ever advance for an Irish children’s writer’. And that doesn’t include the film rights. His first book, Skulduggery Pleasant, a sharp, pacy action adventure novel for children and teens will be published in April and rights have already been sold to over twenty different countries, including Russia, Poland, and Korea. So how does it feel to be the next Cecelia Ahern? And does he think his book deal will improve his chances with the Polish girl? He invited me to his farm to find out.

Derek meets me at the door of his parents’ modest bungalow, smiling warmly. His Alsatian, Ali, is tucked behind his legs. Sitting in the front room, the walls lined with books, from Shakespeare to Neil Gaiman’s Fragile Things, he looks out the window, directly into a muddy field. ‘This is the farm. We grow cauliflower in the winter and the spring. During the summer it’s celery. When I was a kid it was tomatoes in the glasshouses.’ His dad, John is now talking about easing into retirement as the land is becoming increasingly more valuable than the farm business.

Derek has mixed feelings about the land. He worked on the family farm, after being thrown out of college in Ballyfermot. ‘I spent six long years really hating every second of it,’ he says. ‘It was hard work but it taught me to be a fast writer. I’d be working on the farm for eight hours a day and writing in my head while I was working. Then I’d sit down at my computer in the evening, and write my screen play.’

Dead Bodies (2003), Derek’s first screen play, was a low budget Irish film, directed by Richard Quinn. But it led to the higher profile Boy Eats Girl (2005), the teen zombie film starring Samantha Mumba and Deirdre O’Kane.

When the news of his deal broke, his parents were deluged by calls from friends and relations. ‘They’ve all been amazingly chuffed. I saw your lad in the Indo. But the new Cecelia Ahern?’ Derek gives a deep, fruity laugh. ‘It makes no sense at all. I’m me; manly.’ He laughs again. ‘I’m not anyone’s daughter. I think Cecelia was, for the media, an easy target. If you are given an advance of a certain level, immediately it’s talk of Cecelia Ahern, Eoin Colfer; you’re all lumped in together.’

Derek has no intention of letting the money go to his head. He plans to build a house on his parent’s land and will live there, with his dog, Ali of course. His dream house would be big, with a pool out the back. ‘I don’t swim,’ he says. ‘But if I had a pool I’d learn. As a kid I hated living here (in Lusk). You had to get a bus any time you wanted to meet up with friends. But now it’s nice and quiet. I’m anti social by nature so I don’t mind being away from people. Having the family is handy, because it’s actual human contact. If it was up to me I wouldn’t see anyone for weeks.’ He only sees his friends once a month. ‘It’s great. There’s no pressure to keep in touch. I’ve only got five friends. Some from school, some from karate.’ Derek taught karate for ten years to local teenagers and has a black belt. He says it really informs his fight scenes in the book. It also opened his eyes about teenagers. ‘They’re really smart. Much smarter than me!’

So far, the only purchase he’s admitting to is a plasma screen television. ‘I still haven’t got myself a car,’ he says, rather proudly. ‘I haven’t gone on holiday. Even though this deal has changed everything in my life, it’s changed it from an overall perspective. The small day to day things are still the same. I just keep reminding my friends I’m much wealthier and more important than they are.’ He grins cheekily. ‘I’ll get the girls presents, but the fellas can feck off. I’m not buying them anything.’

When he was three or four Derek woke up one morning with a stammer. To this day he has no idea what happened. ‘Mum thinks I may have had an awful dream and it frightened me into it. As I grew up, I didn’t like getting on the bus and asking for a return to Dublin. It’s the important words, the key words that I always had difficulty with. When I was fifteen I didn’t answer the phone for a whole year; I couldn’t say hello. And my own name, Derek. The ‘D’. That’s kind of a handicap, when you can’t even introduce yourself. There are still words that I hesitate on, but as long as I’m confident enough to let it slide, it’s fine.’

‘The thing that boosted my confidence as a kid was knowing that famous people had a stammer, like Humphrey Bogart; and one of the top ten sexiest men in the world. Hey, I could be there one day, on that list with my stammer.’ He grins again. ‘But it has impacted on social engagements. In a group of people, having a drink and a laugh, I’d think of the best jokes but I never said them. I was quieter than I might have been. They were deprived of the sheer scale of my wit. Terrible shame.’

Skulduggery Pleasant is peppered with witty, rapid fire dialogue, an impossibility for someone with a stammer. He’s well aware of his ability to ‘speak’ vicariously through his characters and takes comfort from the fact that he can finally ‘be as fast as I’ve always wanted to be’. His written dialogue is also heavily influenced by films of the forties, especially the work of Howard Hawks, from Bringing Up Baby to The Big Sleep and there’s a lot of the Cary Grant in his suave skeleton detective, Skulduggery.

The Skulduggery character first came to Derek in the summer of 2005 when he was in a hotel room in London, after a meeting with some film producers. By the end of December he’d finished the book. He wrote most of the novel in his bedroom, a small room, painted bright sky blue with a single bed and an enormous fifty inch plasma television. ‘Ah Derek, you didn’t show them your room.’ His mum, a delightful woman is horrified. ‘I did,’ he says sheepishly. ‘Well I hope it’s tidy,’ she quips. And it is. It’s also every teenage boy’s dream hang out. Dominated by the giant tv screen, with a rake of games consoles, and on a wooden shelf above his desk, the most amazing movie paraphernalia I’ve ever seen. The white 70’s style Daily Planet telephone Clark Kent used in the original Superman film, carefully encased in a Perspex box, which Derek bought on the internet from the studios that made the film. A replica RoboCop gun, matt charcoal black and cold to the touch. The solid steel handle to Luke Skywalker’s light sabre, which is incredibly heavy, and worth an eye watering thousand pounds sterling. I’m surprised he lets me hold it. Two Star Wars light sabres, one glowing red, one blue. The temptation is too much. ‘Can I have a go?’ I ask, coming over all Princess Leia. I challenge Derek’s London publicity agent, Mary, to a duel. Derek watches, laughing. In fact, he laughs a lot which is charmingly boyish. He admits he bought all the ‘toys’ a few months ago. Ah, so not just the telly, Derek! I suspect his mother doesn’t have a clue how much they’re worth. Sorry to break it to you, Mrs Landy.

Soon there may be Skulduggery movie paraphernalia to add to his collection. He’s concentrating on writing his second book at the moment, but it’s clear that Hollywood is very much on his mind. When asked about a movie deal he goes all coy. ‘I’m not allowed to say.’ He smiles enigmatically. ‘When I wrote films Hollywood was the big ambition, the Holy Grail. And now I’ve actually got to Hollywood in a completely different way, talking to literally the biggest people. It’s amazing.’

But his close knit family keep his burgeoning ego in check. Derek has two older sisters, Nadine, 34, Audrey, 32, and a younger brother, Ivan, 24. ‘Ivan lives at home, he’s still figuring out what he wants to do. The girls still turn up every few days and annoy me.’

So far romance has eluded Derek. ‘I’ve been trying to go out with a Polish girl in Dunnes in The Pavilions in Swords. But she keeps on saying no.’ He shrugs. ‘I’ve been trying to learn the language. But so far all I can do is ask her about the price of bread rolls. Maybe one of these days she’ll say yes.’ I suggest she might read about his millions in the paper and change her mind. He chuckles, clearly chuffed at the thought. ‘She might.’ So if you work in Dunnes, watch out for a strawberry blond man a brilliant sense of humour and an endearing smile. He might just sweep you off your feet. PS he’s a millionaire.

Skulduggery Pleasant will be published on 2^nd April by Harpercollins, e14.99