That was the first book
talk you've ever done?
KP: That was the first book talk I've ever
done, for the first book I've ever written, and by god it's exciting to
see it all published and sitting there on the shelf.
My first
question was gonna be where and when did you decide to write the book, but
I was quite surprised that you said it came about after someone approached
you to do it. Because from reading the book it seemed to me that it was
something that you'd had inside you that you'd wanted to do for a long
time, the way it's written. So d'y'wanna give people the background as to
how it came about?
KP: Well you're right on both counts. It is
something that was inside of me waiting to be written. In one sense I've
been writing that book since I was 8, because there's so many retarded
diary extracts that I've used from my shallow yet profound diaries of
growing up, and they're kind of in an Adrian Mole-esque vein. I don't
think I would have ever had the gumption to approach a publisher and say
"I think you need to publish my life story, that's what the world
needs!" But when a publisher came to me and suggested that I write
something for them, and they didn't really care what it was, they just
wanted me to produce something for them. That's when I made the decision
that writing about my so-called life would be a worthy subject, because
it's just one of those things that was born out of when you tell funny
stories about the worst times in your life to your friends and you kind of
describe awful relationship problems, or things that go wrong or conflicts
with your parents or the way your job goes wrong. That's kind of the basis
for the book. It's just those funny stories that you tell to your friends,
and my friends always end up laughing. They always end up laughing and
apologising for laughing at my tales of woe, but infact that's just the
basic coping mechanism is to laugh. Laugh when things go wrong.
Was "Shooting From The Lip" your title?
KP:
"Shooting From The Lip" was one of many titles that I submitted,
and I have to say that I can't claim credit for that one, my boyfriend
thought of that one. I wanted to call it "Like A Virginian", in
tribute to the state, my natural state of virginity - of being from
Virginia. But they didn't go for that. Another one I sugested was "In
Flight Entertainment" with a picture of me on the front aged 3,
dressed as a bee. But they didn't go for that either, so instead we have a
picture of me aged 3 touting a gun which my parents seemed to think at the
time was a suitable toy for a toddler. So there you go.
Mm.
We get Action Men in this country, so it's all war stuff isn't it?
KP: Yeah, war stuff's fun stuff. I was really jealous of my next
door neighbour who was a little boy, who could urinate against a wall. He
could do projectile urination. So I guess having a gun was the next best
thing.
It begins with the memorable line "When I was 3 I
wanted a penis. The kid next door had one, and it was a doozy." That
kind of sets the tone for the book, doesn't it? Because it's about the
many highs and lows of your life, and ultimately many disappointments
starting off with that particular one when you were aged 3. So is that
your earliest memory?
KP: "Yeah. That was a really clear
memory of mine. Of course the hardest thing to do when I was sitting down
to kind of sketch the book out and map it out was how much significance to
give to each part of my life, because I was thinking "Oh no! What if
I fill up a whole book just talking about the golden years?" You
know, aged 3 to 7. Or "What if I miss something out, if I just skip
over the early years and dwell on something more painful that happened
when I was 20 or 30 or something?" And so I had to kind of stick to
the high points, and one of the high points was seeing the little boy next
door pull his pants down. That must've made quite an impression on me that
I shared with the reader.
I know I find that the things that
you remember in your own life most, or the things that you keep coming
back to, are things that are often little things that wouldn't mean
anything to anyone else as well aren't they really?
KP: Yeah, I
mean the kind of surprise for me when I was writing the book was that it
developed into something different than I had originally intended. I just
thought that I was gonna write a collection of hilariously funny stories
about the crazy adventures that I had got into. And what happened was I
realised that the book wasn't gonna be worthwhile or valuable, or allow
anybody to relate to it unless I was completely honest about myself
emotionally. So there's a lot of grit in there. There's a lot of just pain
and bad stuff too, which of course I never really dwell on. I guess if I
dwelled on it I'd be mentally ill, so I look back on it and when I'd
finished writing the book I was like "Thank god. - A lot of crummy
stuff has happened but it's kind of funny the way it came out in the
mix."
So has it been very cathartic?
KP: It's
been very cathartic. I had to take crying breaks when I was writing it.
Yeah, plus because I was on such a terrible deadline. I just fooled for
about 4 months when I was supposed to be writing the book, because I was
so scared about the honesty. I signed the contract and then I realised
"Oh my god! I'm gonna have to write about the ex-boyfriend, and the
parents, and the things that in other words invade people's privacy. And
so I had a real moral wrestle, tussle with myself over that one, and was
scared to write it. And then of course what happened was I had to do
12-hour days of just writing, writing, writing. So that was like
fast-forwarding the tape of my life, and it was all just kind of whirling
it through my head a little bit more than I could cope with. So I used to
have to take breaks to kind of sob.
Is there any of it that
you were worried about weather you wanted to reveal your thoughts on
certain facts in public? That you thought "Maybe that bit's revealing
too much of myself, I should leave it out."?
KP: Yeah, I
think less than revealing too much about myself, I was worried about
revealing stuff about others. I didn't worry about revealing stuff about
myself. It was other people whose histories were intertwined with mine,
and I had a real dilemma as to how much I was allowed to reveal of their
life. And so in the end I just decided to really pair down my stories so
that I wasn't exploiting anybody else. That was a kind of a judgment call,
and someone, the other person involved may think that I did exploit them,
or I did talk too intimately about their details, but I feel like I've
kind of done it with integrity.
It's certainly not any of the
people that you talk about, you don't get the feeling that you've written
about it because you want to get back at them or anything.
KP: Oh
good.
It completely comes across that it's you being honest
with yourself about things, and facing up to it yourself. Is there
anything that you have left out that you'd written originally and decided
to cut out of the final version?
KP: No, I didn't do anything
like that. Infact all the way through I was putting more stuff in, and I
kept,..there were points where I was baulking. I write at one point about
the man I was with, we split up and he was having a really bad time. It
was a real classic 'a star is born' senario where I got my instant job on
television just completely out of the blue. It wasn't anything I'd ever
anticipated, getting this job on The Word. And he was kind of going down
the tubes, he'd had a brush with fame when he was a teenager, and we'd
split up and he ended up starting to get suicidal. And I was really
wrestling with myself as to how much do I reveal of his pain. And I wanted
to be responsible, I wanted to stay true to the story and I wanted to
write about it with compassion. I kept stopping about writing about him,
and then I realised, "No, I have to tell the whole story. I've
started so I can't.. there's no point in mincing words." I mean
there's certain things that, - I haven't told everything, because equally
I don't wanna have people get the idea that I'm just this person who's
this total emotional exhibitionist. You know, the stereotypical American
who just tells uncomfortably intimate details. I just wanted to write a
book that infact everyone can relate to because I'm talking honestly about
things that everyone's been through. - Horrible break-up's, or wanting to
be accepted, or wanting to know that their parents love them.
I personally was surprised with how much of that there is. Because when
I was told that Katie Puckrik's written a book, I'd expect it to be
light-hearted, about showbiz type-stuff, and it's really the complete
opposite. I think it's a brilliant book and I would wholeheartedly
recommend it. Um, the two bits about it that I would say were kind of
drawbacks for me were first of all, no photos!? Why not? Because when you
talk of "hitting the bottle", which in your case is Clairol, it
would've been nice to see some of the evidence for that sort of thing.
KP: I've got some hilarious photos, that's for sure. Of some real
tragic stylings, where I shaved my hairline, I decided my fringe wasn't
quite sharp enough so I ended up shaving my hairline at my temple at both
sides. So I just had this big white potato face after that was finished.
That would've made a funny picture. And yeah, my attempts at being
so-called "punk rock" when I was 16. Um, well we started off, my
editor and I talked about whether it should have pictures or not. The idea
was I wanted to write a memoir that read like a novel, so I decided not to
have it filled with photographs. I thought photographs might distract from
the flow of the book because I know that whenever there's photos in a book
I keep flipping and looking at them and I'm sort of reminded that this
person is real. And I kind of wanted the reader to forget about me, Katie
Puckrik, - 'Oh yeah, she's that girl from television'. I just wanted them
to get drawn into the story, and I wanted to paint the picture with words
in a way. I know it's corny, but I take your point, pictures would've been
funny. But I just made the decision to make it more like a novel.
But if someone picks up the book in 15 years time, or someone from
a country that doesn't know who you are, they wouldn't have a
pre-determined idea of what you look like, and I thought it might help in
that kind of way.
KP: Well equally though if someone from another
country picks it up they wouldn't really care what I looked like either.
It would be like "Aahh, look at these pictures of her when she wore a
45 record on her head and had a horse bit in her mouth." I mean I
describe all of those things in the book. But, I mean, who knows? Maybe
there'll be a 25th anniversary limited edition where I bind it in leather
and have photos.
And the other bit that sort of confused me
was the title 'cos I didn't think that went completely with the book
subject matter.
KP: Oh really?
Well you know.
"Shooting From The Lip", Katie Puckrik. You expect it's gonna be
"Blah, blah blah. Showbiz this, showbiz that." So to me it sort
of didn't fit in. The other thing with the book is you use songtitles to
illustrate each chapter. The one I thought would have gone best was
"Unsatisfied" by The Replacements?
KP: "Aah. Yeah.
Would you not agree that that would be a good one to fit in
somewhere? "Look me in the eye and tell me that I'm satisfied./ I'm
so unsatisfied." Do you know the one I mean? I know the one you mean.
Um, Hardly anyone in England's heard of The Replacements.
KP:
That's um, I mean that's early 80's?
About '85, '86 that one
I think. I suppose did you try and pick songs that were of the time?
KP: Yeah. Contemporary. So it was picking songs that were
contemporary to the action and also had either a historical link - it was
something, a song that I liked at the time, - or had a narrative link. So
it's kind of like a high density book, because the reader hopefully
remembers the song and draws their own nostalgic weight.
Yeah, in a way for me, 'cos a lot of the glammy romantic type-records,
which is a lot of the ones you use isn't it? I wouldn't have thought the
lyrics to most of those, sort of the British bands, doesn't really mean
anything to me. But there was a bit in the book, where just in
conversation you use the line "once I ran to you". Which is Soft
cell isn't it? And it sort of resonated the lyrics of that song to me,
which just listening to it the past I wouldn't have thought that the
lyrics mean much, but you've sort of brought it into the book, and..
KP: Well that's the thing about pop music anyway, is that you can
listen to the most symplistic lyrics, and just listen to them - or not
listen to them wafting through that time in your life either by the fact
that you hear it at the disco or you hear them on the radio, and then 2
years later / 5 years later / 10 years later, you hear the song and
whaaomm! You're just hit with all these memories and nostalgia from the
time, and you never think that something so simplistic as a little
3-minute pop ditty can pack such an emotional punch.
Well
music is soundtracking the times isn't it? 'Cos it just changes so many
people's lives or they relate it to it more than anything else really. In
terms of art and what-have-you. There's one chapter about the band you
were in in the mid-80's called Puck.
KP: Yeah. PUCK!
Are there any tapes of that knocking about?
KP: Well I've got
tapes.
D'you want to send us one to play while we broadcast
the interview?
KP: I really don't! There is actually one that's
probably still listenable. Most of them sound really painful, either
because they're bad, or just physically, aurally, to listen to them,
they're really tinny and squeaky. I don't know why the guy I was with was
such a terrible mixer, but everything sounds really tinny and trebley. Um,
yeah, I'd characterise the act as kind of poppy soul, but then of course I
threw in all this cabaret element and my theatrical nature. I just never
had any sense of restraint. More was more. Not less was more. More was
more, and I wore glow in the dark dresses and had blow up Fred Flintstones
and dogs and things. So I just kind of overdid it with strobelights and
everything. My dream was to get a bubble-machine! That was gonna be my big
stab at special effects.
Have you got any ambitions to go
back into the music field?
KP: Well it's not important to me to
be a pop star. I mean, it seemed ideal in the 80's, it seemed like that
was the right thing to do. That would be the ideal job for me. And that
kind of drive to be the centre of attention or get that kind of attention
has been slaked somewhat by doing television and writing, and doing radio
and those sorts of things. So I'm not so eager to have that kind of
attention, and anyway I've realised that doing the kind of work that I'm
known for doing in television and radio and now writing, that's actually
much more satisfying because you get to absolutely have your say and
continue a dialogue. Rather than just being a singer and having a song.
And then singing the song and then leaving, to applause. But having said
all that, I'd love to do something where I utilise my dancing ability, my
singing ability. So I don't know what that is, - aside from Night Fever.
Which I'm occasionally on. Which I find disturbingly satisfying. So it is
really fun doing that. I'd like to do something, I'm actually auditioning
for a West End musical, - Chicago. And I'd love to get that job. That'd be
great.
Mm. "Only when I'm dancing can I feel this
free" as Madonna once sang.
KP: Yes. The great Madonna, the
profound Madonna. There's a Madonna song actually in one of the chapters.
There's her song "Oh Father". I always cry when I hear that one.
That's all about how she used to fear her father's anger, and now it's not
so important. And that's certainly a strand in the book.
Right. Thanks a lot for talking to us, and good luck with the book. And
I hope it gets the exposure it deserves.
KP: Thankyou. Well
thanks for your bit.