Melody Maker - by Stephen Jelbert (1998)

"Do you reckon I could be a Punk Rock Classical Music reviewer?" Martin Millar asks me, as we enjoy tea and digestive biscuits in his south London flat. It seems that Millar feels let down by the standard of analysis offered by the broadsheets. It's not as unlikely an idea as it seems. The Scot, known for his series of novels stet in the squatlands of Brixton, featuring characters more normally seen accompanied by a dog on a string, has just connected his two favourite themes in one speculative query. His sixth novel, 'Love and Peace with Melody Paradise', a very witty ramble featuring mythology, Greek comedy and a cast of Technicolor, if muddy travellers has been released, The narrator. called Martin ('It's me,' he admits) finds himself at an impromptu festival of the tribes reading classical literature to a depressed looking tree. It's a Mediterranean tree, so obviously the works of the ancients will appeal to it most. Judging by the row of well-thumbed Penguin Greek and Roman classics on his mantelpiece, Millar takes his research very seriously. "Aristophanes wrote about a family unit which consisted of father, mother and rebellious son which sounds pretty familiar There must have been plenty of people in Ancient Greece or Rome just looking for a bit of enjoyment, probably without paying too much attention to the political events which are remembered now," he says. In fact, that sounds like a perfect description of the characters in his earlier novels, only they tend to live in the grungier parts of London, rather than the Eternal City. "I'd like to set one of my characters, Lux (Poet from one of his earlier novels), in ancient Greece. Luxidides, I could call him. I've considered a theatrical setting, especially seeing as men played all the parts and I think he would have made a fine cross-dresser," he muses. This all seems a long way from the hyperreal South London where his works have previously been set, though the unwitting laureate of the area has noticed plenty of changes. It's an accident that I live here", he confesses. "A couple of my favourite places aren't there anymore. I used to like the Cooltan Centre on Coldharbour Lane." Once the employment exchange where one John Major used to sign on, and later turned into a squatted arts space, its disappearance is typical, Still, there are compensations. "It's a strange thing, all these young girls from Chelsea flooding into Brixton on Friday nights. I quite like that actually," he admits in his soft and deliberate Scottish accent. "There's still a lot going on . It's a very active social area"     Hopefully we won't have to wait as long for the next novel. It's taken three-and-a-half years for 'Melody Paradise' to emerge. Millar's former publishers were one of nine publishers to pass on it - you can view the rejection letters on his website. "I think your medium-ranking author is like your medium-ranking band," he ponders. "It's hardly a coup for a company to sign them." Despite this struggle, his equilibrium is such that he refuses to be baited into criticising the crassest of commercial writers. Not even Jeffrey Archer. Nonetheless, the writer's lot is not always an easy one, even if he does get to sleep in until 11 Every day, with the added incentive of an afternoon nap, in case he needs to write through the night. Millar reckons to have sold film options on his work eight or nine times without seeing anything yet produced. His last book, "Dreams Of Sex And Stage Diving", remains in pre-production as investors are sought, with even the BBC showing serious interest in a 90-minute version. Meanwhile an anthology of his previous work, "The Collected Martin Millar", has been issued in, a truly gory cover. "I think they must have been trying for an Irvine Welsh kind of thing, years too late," he says apologetically, though he's much more pleased with the cover of "Melody Paradise". "It's yellow, and yellow hides a multitude of sins." What? Is this some kind of colour therapy? "Yeah," he laughs, "people will like that and it will be good for them." Such gentle humour is typical of the man, currently enjoying the Lo-Fidelity Allstars, and plenty of dance stuff ("Something I like about it is that you don't know who the hell you're listening to) Millar, who happily states, "I'm sure you know I know nothing about modem fiction", will hopefully keep on his idiosyncratic path.