Today’s interview is for fans of super detailed, thoroughly researched historical fiction, where the past is brought to life on the page. That is, today’s post is with DJG Palmer, whose second book, In the Ranks of Death, is out next month (and preorderable). But don’t just take our word for it: let the author himself convince you!
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Have you always known you wanted to be a writer? How old were you when you wrote your first story?
Certainly, primary school. I liked inventing my own characters and setting them to stories of my own making, determining who they became, what their identities were, and what ultimately happened to them, good and bad. I knew that I preferred this to following other people’s creations in animated cartoons, comics and series. As I grew older, I wanted to see characters who embodied my identity, conflicting as they sometimes were, and so I wrote my own! Flamboyant, colourfully dressed historical figures… but handy with sword and capable to protecting themselves, like Alan Breck Stewart in Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped.
What pieces of media would you say were formative for you? Do you see any of their features in your own writing?
I borrowed mostly history books from the junior library, along with audio tapes (cassettes) and had ancient Ladybird books from charity shops. My father was one of the older, poorer ones, so my influences were knights, Robin of Sherwood on TV, pirates, sailors, soldiers and the themes and genres he grew up with in the 30s and 40s. He encouraged drawing, making things rather than buying them, and thinking things up rather than following other people’s plots and characters. Ruined castles were my theme parks, but I wanted to reimagine history rather than retell it. My father was very supportive of my creative expression but, disappointingly struggled with the realisation that I might be gay. My concession to the cultural homophobia with which he had been born and raised was an open aspiration to be Action Man and a secret one to date Ken… (or, in 1989, Jason Donovan!) Secondary school was hellish, and the weak, very unmilitary kid who puberty forgot retreated to the safety of Mole and Ratty’s riverbank, while his old mates got girlfriends, new haircuts and moved on. The prose, the beauty and the spiritual nuances of The Wind In The Willows may be appreciated as a YA in ways that could be beyond a child and overthought by an adult. The £1 Penguin Popular Classics hit the shelves around that time, and I was able to devour 200 years of timeless, formative literature on a budget. This haven would not keep me indefinitely safe from puberty, adolescence, the realisation that I liked boys rather than girls, and all that this implied… even in the 90s. Down the ages, gay men sought validation in a uniform or refuge in a cassock. My path was the former.
When you close your eyes and imagine an apple, what do you see? An actual apple, a sketch of one, a blackness? Do you think that impacts your writing process?
I was largely uneducated, though perhaps better read than someone of my background might have been. From an early age, I knew I wanted to paint pictures with words and use deeply descriptive and immersive language to make the reader believe they were seeing and sensing what I wanted them to. This has been remarked upon by reviewers, most complimentary, but some critical of the depth of detail. You might call it method acting on paper using imagery, sensation, comparative terminology… and that’s without the apple, which I can see, handle, smell and describe to you now, if you wish! 😉
If you wanted to learn about craft, which three authors would you suggest reading?
Kenneth Grahame, is an example of someone I definitely related to as a YA. A bank clerk who desperately wanted to be someone else, somewhere else. An old soul afraid of adulthood. Through descriptive phraseology he captures and evokes an English year in every season through the senses and sentiments of Mole and Ratty, relatable to my childhood in terms of the scents, tints and tones of the changing seasons. It’s a tragically fading image as global warming kicks in, seasons merge or vanish, and species are destroyed by through pollution, factory farming and development. An allegory for the Edwardian youth who would read Grahame’s work, later to die amid the apocalyptic hell of the First World War.
In an age before moving images took the edge off horror, Bram Stoker evokes a lamplit, ‘modern’, “up to date nineteenth century” yet still we sense the creeping, malevolent threat of the ancient, evil Count Dracula and his undead familiars as horrifically and realistically as though it were set today. Fiction framed as factual account was common, but Stoker really makes the reader believe that the narrative is documentary. You can imagine them seeking comfort by poking the fire, turning up the gas mantle, pulling down the blinds and drawing the drapes still tighter to keep out the vampires, bats and pervading mists!
For my third choice, I know its cliched, and I could have opted for Shakespeare (which was written to be performed rather than read) but I can’t scan my bookshelves without spotting a Charles Dickens novel. Dickens, like many a well-meaning Victorian, wanted justice and fairness for all… just so long as it didn’t compromise his own comfort. Dickens mastery is in persuading you that his zeal is sincere, or at any rather that he believed that he means it! His characters, now two centuries old, still come to life through their humour, realism and relatability. His social commentary still speaks from the page, and his evocation of sympathy and empathy for the truly poor resounds in the death of the crossing sweep in Bleak House (a timeless rant at the reader, politicians and clergy.) His condemnation of populism and rabble rousing, as the religious hate monger Lord Gordon turns old friends and neighbours into persecutors and opportunists in Barnaby Rudge is as sadly apt today. Perhaps more so.
Well crafted, painfully relatable and a warning against allowing the past to become the future.
When you’re building your world, what do you focus on? How do you try to make it come to life?
I am a fan of super realism in writing. I cannot expect a modern reader to relate to or access 19th century colonial Africa, or to imagine the environment, smells and conditions that would have been the norm to soldiers serving in barracks or in the field. A reviewer recently observed “I can’t believe that this guy wasn’t there!” I wasn’t there, so I was flattered by it! My plot is fiction based on fact, but I need to establish my credentials with my reader so that they know I understand the world and environment that my characters come from and are used to, as well as the ones they come to inhabit. I began A Rougher Task, now the first book in the Babanango trilogy, quite young. My subsequent lived experiences validated my writing, rather than the other way around. A blister is still a blister in any era, the sensation of being tired, wet, cold, hungry, overheated, dehydrated, scared, exhilarated, waiting for orders in the rain… these are universal and transcend time, place, race or sexuality. The same soldiers stood in the same trenches or on the same firing lines and experienced the same things, gay or straight, black or white, in the 1870s, the 90s/2000s … and still do today, unless anyone can tell me otherwise…?
What projects are you currently working on? Can you share any details yet?
The second book in my Babanango trilogy, In The Ranks of Death comes out on 26th November and is subject to the final stages of the editorial process. A Rougher Task introduced Albert, a young officer with preoccupations about class and birth which cease to matter when he graduates from his military academy, and Jack, a tough, kind, handsome lad from a maritime slum, who joins the army for a job and a future… never expecting to find love where, nor with whom he does. In The Ranks of Death will rejoin the key characters in Zululand and confront the topics of imperialism, ageism and martial ambition as well as resume the central gay romance. It is also the book in which the reader and I must say goodbye to certain key characters as the narrative progresses… The third and final Babanango novel is due for release next year (2025).
Three pictures that capture the aesthetic of your book?
From a Window at 45 Brook Street, London by Sir Cedric Morris rather evokes the dank, cluttered, boom and bust town which my characters inhabit (at various levels) at the beginning of A Rougher Task and typifies the environment that made (and makes) people want to run away and join the military, see the world, and find themselves amid far worse horrors elsewhere.
Various Watercolours of the South African Landscape by Thomas Baines, who accompanied Dr David Livingstone in 1858, though depicting the Zambezi rather than KwaZulu, conjure the hot, arid colours, the unfamiliar landscape and exotic plant life that unworldly soldiers from Kent would have found both highly alien yet weirdly familiar. Jenna Richards collaborative artwork for the cover of my trilogy captures this contrasting evocation brilliantly, as do the romantic, descriptive yet subjective silhouettes of the two lead characters on the front cover.
Women and Children First by Lance Calkin was painted in the 1890s and depicts the sinking of the troop ship Birkenhead in the 1850s. This maritime tragedy was traditionally depicted as courage, stoicism and Britishness by those who went down with the ship so that others might escape. One of the most powerful images, and perhaps an unintended consequence amid the jingoistic, red coated paragons is one of two private soldiers, apparently holding hands and gazing deeply – and even affectionately – into each other’s eyes while others pray, reflect, etc. Whether an ironic flourish or something deeper, it certainly seems to depict queerness in an otherwise conventional Victorian tableau and does sum up how two soldier lovers confront the impending loss of the other as well as of their own mortality. The concept of a brave, dutiful gay soldier, though unspeakable in the late 19th and even the early 21st century is now challenged by powerful modern images such as Major Michael Bringham MBE marrying his husband in the 2010s, as depicted in the Fighting With Pride anthology.
Three songs you would put in your book’s soundtrack?
Africa by Toto is the song that my mind played over and over when I was writing the book originally, and it is the song I always imagined when fantasizing about an epic movie adaptation (as we all do at some time!) Even today, I rather imagine the army bands at the beginning of A Rougher Task playing it on their fifes and drums (Bridgerton style) despite its being a contemporary pop song that would have been 103 years ahead of its time in 1879!
In The Air Tonight by Phil Collins was playing when I entered an almost transcendent state and wrote the first full and intimate love scene. I was 20, in love with one of the characters I had created and had no difficulty seeing him through the eyes of the other, who I suppose I wanted to be to some extent. My 90s calico curtains became tent canvass and diffused the setting sunlight, while the deep, smoky, rhythmic beats and vocals stirred the embers of the campfire, the dust, and the rising passions between the two soldiers. The previously wet, steamy, shirtless boyband vid moments in the earlier chapters needed to evolve into perfect, plausible sexual intimacy, and hopefully did so… thanks to Phil.
I can hear the community baying for my blood now, BUT… Hello by Lionel Richie catches the angst, pain and longing of a speculative love. Apply that to a soldier from any era – to the power of ten – and you have some idea what it felt like to be gay in the army! Even if you think you hate it… reset, listen, and feel that cramping in your gut as Lionel’s incredible vocals convey the anxious, painful, pitiful sense of torch carrying tinged with hope. Go on, try it…! 😉
What would be your dream project?
Again, it’s a cliché, but I’m working on it! When I began the handwritten notes for the epic manuscript that became the Babanango trilogy, it was still illegal to be in the UK armed forces if you were gay, and less than welcomed even after the ban was lifted. It didn’t stop me trying it for a while, then moving forward to a respectable career in the police. Today, I have the privilege of sharing A Rougher Task and soon In The Ranks of Death with readers at home and overseas, receiving reviews which are humbling, and seeing my work in bookshops and the libraries where I began my research. I also get to share this platform with the veterans who served before the ban was lifted and suffered horrifically for doing it. I f I can draw attention to their fight for restorative justice, my fictional soldier characters will have carried their day with honours.
There are more projects in the file, but for now I’m content to see this one through.
Which of your characters would you most want to fight a zombie apocalypse with?
My two lead characters are handy lads to have around. Lieutenant Albert Bond is perhaps not a born hero, despite arguably looking like one, but he does dig deep and discover strength, stamina and a perceived sense of honour in leading his men, especially and the one he has come to love. Sapper Jack Coleman, the younger of the two lovers, is the guy many of us had a crush on at school. Brave, good looking and kind, he’s the type who would fight off bullies and put his arm around you afterwards, regardless of who you were.
Together, as their relationship grows, these guys become capable of more than they could have imagined before they met, and far more than they ever could alone. Fighting for something or someone you love is a major motivator, and far more effective than a flag, a cause or a leader’s prescription of hatred. (My characters are also armed with socket bayonets on the end of long barrelled rifles… handy, if the dead are walking and you need to fend them off!)
You’re stuck on a desert island and you’re allowed only three (LGBT) books. What are you taking?
A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood, though tragic, sums up the aftermath of love and loss in a time where even being one half of a gay couple could be an isolating, anonymous existence. It helps to contextualise the idea of reconciling bereavement, coming to terms with the passing of time and people, and typifies the hypocritical recidivism of the post war era, before sexual and cultural liberation movements began. The idea of grieving internally because you cannot share is one many of us had to deal with in earlier life, even more so in the forces, and one we hope that the next generation never have to.
Fighting Proud by Stephen Bourne, an author and historian highly respected and regarded by both LGBTQ+ and BME communities gives factual accounts of gay men who served in and lived through both world wars. Often tragic but equally beautiful, Bourne’s book showcases relationships which managed to flourish and survive, many for life, and of the art and heroism now recognised as the legacy of the gay and trans communities in wartime. It also shows startling acceptance within working class communities during times of criminalisation and repression, an antidote to toxic politics disguised as traditionalism which reemerge today.
Any volume of Heartstopper by Alice Oseman. The illustrations always raise a proud smile and sometimes a tear when I see Charlie, wrapped around on Nick’s shoulders and waving a progressive Pride flag! My 15-year-old niece loves these books, TV adaptations and all they represent. You don’t even have to read past the illustrations to appreciate the sentiments of love, inclusivity worthy of the rainbow flag itself. When some YA authors have used their platforms for negativity and betrayed a generation of readers, who must now look for subtext between the lines of chapters they once enjoyed, Alice is a force for good, for progress and for kindness internationally… and is loved for it.
You can collaborate on anything with anyone in the LGBT community: who would it be and why?
The great Mr Russel T Davies broke through my glass wall when Queer As Folk burst onto the screens of a dark, post-watershed Channel 4 in the very late 90s, and gave hope to a teenager who grew up watching (as he did) Dr Who. As a boy, I wanted to serve in U.N.I.T and I revered the late Nicholas Courtney as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, the fabulous Angela Bruce as the 80s, reload, BME Brigadier Bambera. While Russell has yet to invent a gay Brigadier for the 2020s as per my childhood ambition, he has continued to defy prejudice and set the bar with Class, It’s A Sin and more recently with his return to scripting Dr Who with its trans positive and anti-racist themes. If, in some Whoovian dimension, my Babanango trilogy made it to screen, I couldn’t imagine anyone else bringing my heroic gay soldiers and the bloody, epic, and emotive Anglo-Zulu War to life. As for the actors who might play the parts, I stand in awe of the recent casting trans actors in historically written male roles, and would love to do the same in Babanango, were it ever to be dramatized. As to the cisgender casting… if played by handsome, plausibly heroic actors from the LGBTQ+ community… where do we even start…?!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
DJG Palmer was born in Kent to older parents and grew up playing in ruined castles and reading historical adventures, as had his pre-war father. At the age of eight he opened a chest in the attic to discover his grandfather’s baton, pips, and medals from the Second World War. In time he would come to understand the realities that lay behind the emblems and the sacrifices required to obtain them. Following a career which has included the military, policing and social work, as well as directorship of a homelessness charity, DJG Palmer now divides his time between writing and supporting LGBTQ+ veterans’ causes.
It was during the early years of adulthood that DJG Palmer embarked upon Babanango, resulting in elected fellowships of the Anglo-Zulu War Historical and Royal Geographical Societies. He then set aside military fiction, pursued a career in policing and found love with a wonderful man, the bedrock of his life. The death of a friend, father figure and former army officer provided the motivation to dust off the manuscript and revisit its contents, message, and the untold story of the many men who lived, loved and died together in secret, serving in the armed forces.
This story is for those men, whoever they were, and the friends and allies who had their backs.
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